The Future of Leadership for the 21st century

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The future of leadership in a knowledge driven world

Our primary image of the leader comes from the military.
Great leaders have always been heroes, especially military heroes.
Hero worship is OK if it inspires us to greater heights.
But bad if it disempowers us, making us dependent on heroes.
Military heroes know where to go and how to get there so can lead from the front.
Organizations today need everyone thinking about new directions to pursue.
No one person can now lead from the front without a crystal ball!!
Future leadership depends on complex knowledge and innovation from all.
21st century leadership is not dependent on position. Leadership now means promoting a better way. This is an ACT not a role. Front line employees can show leadership without even being seen as informal leaders in the sense of taking charge informally of the group.
The role of innovation
Innovators lead by showing us where our industry is likely to go next.
The implication is that your leaders do NOT need to be inside your organization!
We already speak of "market leaders" -- so leadership can come from anywhere.
Leadership is too often confused with the question of how people in positions of
AUTHORITY influence employees to pull in the same direction.
Why is it then that entrepreneurs do not need (internal) leaders? They look to industry leaders for inspiration and role models to beat.
Such leadership is about innovation - not using influence skills to motivate employees.
Why develop leaders to be nice instead of fostering real leadership through innovation?
Some leaders have good people skills, others are too self-absorbed, too focused on their own ideas or on beating competitors.
Who would follow such leaders? Opportunists who know a good thing when they see it, who are ready to jump on a bandwagon with little or no persuasion. People who are likely to be leaders themselves in other words.
As knowledge workers become empowered enough to think like entrepreneurs they will look outside for leadership if you can't provide it. But does it matter?