The
Leadership Challenge
Today's leaders are facing a fundamental shift in the nature of
leadership.
We
are in a transition from the Industrial Age—when leaders were
authoritarian, bureaucratic, and controlling—to the Knowledge
Worker Age. Peter Drucker sums it up this way: “Until very
recently, it was taken for granted that most people were subordinates
who did as they were told. The advent of the knowledge worker is
changing this, and fast…. And for this change, management
is totally unprepared.” Workers today see themselves as volunteers.
They are better educated and have far more choices about where to
invest their energies. The great leader is the one who can unleash
rather than repress those energies.
Four
Chronic Problems of Industrial Age Leadership. Can Industrial Age
leaders cope with challenges like these?
-
Trust
in leaders at historic lows.
-
Strategic
uncertainty.
-
An
ominous shortage of experienced leadership.
-
The
war for talent.
Count
the Cost of Industrial Age Leadership
In the Industrial Age, leaders could get by with authoritarian,
top-down approaches to getting things done. In today’s Knowledge
Worker Age, such approaches are painfully inadequate.
Knowledge
workers need more. They want:
- To
make a contribution that is valued.
- To
do work that is purposeful.
- To
work in synergy with others, creating new and better ways of
doing things.
- To
unleash their potential to achieve.
The
Need for New Leadership
As the succession crisis in leadership worsens, as the challenges
of growth stretch the capacity of business and governmental leaders
everywhere, we can no longer afford Industrial Age leadership.
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