Redesigning Leadership

I came across this post by John Maeda talking about Creative Leadership vs. Authorative Leadership that I thought was a good quick summary of changing leadership styles.

This chart represents a summary of the kind of creative leadership that is rising -- and needed -- in the face of our increasing interconnectedness due to global economies, mobile devices, and social media. In an age where anyone can "friend" the CEO, and where complexity and volatility are the only constants, what should leadership look like? I often say we are now operating within a "heterarchy" though I've also cleverly seen it called the "wirearchy." In any case, it's a world where I believe the natural perspective of artists and designers -- who thrive in ambiguity, fail productively, and rebound naturally -- will be become more and more useful in leadership contexts.

The chart was originally created for a workshop at the Davos World Economic Forum in 2009 and became the basis of my book Redesigning Leadership, written with Becky Bermont. In my own observation, there are authoritative leaders and creative leaders everywhere -- it's not something wholly determined by industry, generation, or position. And every leader will need, on any given day, a little bit of both types of leadership.

I share it here because it's been frequently requested -- I hope it’s useful. -JM

Engaging Employees to Increase Performance

Dale Carnegie recently teamed with MSW Research to study the functional and emotional elements that affect employee engagement.  In their study, a national representative sample of 1,500 employees was surveyed, which revealed three key drivers:

 • Relationship with immediate supervisor

 • Belief in senior leadership

 • Pride in working for the company

This study and past research has shown, time and again, that employees who are engaged significantly outperform work groups that are not engaged. The study reinforces the idea that in order to create a competitive organization with superior performance, organizations should focus on their employees. It is the people who are in the company that can greatly impact the sustainability, profitability and the long term strength of the organization.

The Need to Admit that We have Become Ineffective

The fact is that when most people are stuck they have lost the power of choice. They are unable, at certain times, to bring into their consciousness with sufficient force the memory of what being stuck does to them. They are without defense against it in the moment.

We need to admit to ourselves that something is wrong. We have created this mess in our life. We admit this and quit trying to fool ourselves into believing something else.

Convergence of Circumstances

Most of us have heard many topics and discussions on priorities. We have heard concepts of prioritizing such as: big rocks first, four quadrants of urgent and important, making a list (checking it twice), and your calendar is an indication as to what your priorities are…the list goes on.

I use many of these concepts myself. When it comes to prioritizing our lives, we should all have a system, or a combination of systems that we follow.

What we value in our normal life is where we spend most of our time. But when circumstances converge we alter our priorities. We adapt given our current circumstance. I heard someone talk about how his priorities changed as he and his wife were getting ready for a vacation. The husband valued being on time and he scheduled his calendar accordingly. His goal was to pack the car and pull out of the driveway by 8am. His priority was to stay on schedule and to start their vacation. The car was packed and he was ready to leave. As he was trying to encourage his wife to hurry up, he crossed the line. He asked her to hurry one too many times and she was frustrated. His priority changed from getting out the door on time to not making his wife frustrated.

The Mud Puddle

As a boy I loved mud puddles. I went out of my way to walk through them. Stomping, swishing through them was fun and freeing. After all, I was a kid. As an adult, I use to find myself avoiding mud puddles. They were messy and cold. After all, it is work to "deal" with them.

What happened to that once fun and freeing activity that it became messy and cold?

When people have stress, problems, or difficulties sometimes they avoid it like a mud puddle. Some people have the idea that if they avoid the mud puddle all of the stress, problems and difficulties that are associated with it will go away as well. That is rarely the case. After repeated attempts to avoid, mask or ignore the mud puddle, we more often than not find ourselves right in front of that puddle once again. We tend to repeat behaviors or patterns until we understand them.