What next for Leadership?

What a 12 months it has been!

Financial institutions that once swaggered now stagger. Governments are saving banks that still dish out massive bonuses to their executives. Politicians call for us all to tighten our belts while using taxpayers’ money to maintain their expense driven life styles. Once mighty employers shed staff every hour of every day.

And the concept of leadership in the last 12 months? What leadership?!

The 2009 model of leadership is not winning too many awards right now and the brand of being a business leader is tainted in a way that the role of clergy has in the recent past – not to be quite trusted.

So will a new perspective of leadership emerge from the rubble? Will “followers” place different demands based on what has and is happening around the world? What flavour of leadership might we be heading into? Below is a sample of leadership styles that I am hearing more and more about in recent months

The idea of “servant-leadership” is more and more visible in blogs and HR magazines. It sees great leaders as being those motivated by the desire to serve others. Its success is measured by the growth of those being served by the leader, in terms of their development, their autonomy and their wisdom. It seeks to combine two opposite notions of leadership a and service. Simply put, if you lead people, are the growing under you or not?

“Authentic leadership” seems to be referenced in every second email I get from leadership consultant these days. It can mean a lot of different things to different people. The Authentic Leadership in Action council state that when we are authentic and true to “our internal compass” we get the most out of others. So are you truly yourself when you are with your team?

One of my favourite leadership books, “The Extraordinary Leader” by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman now has a follow up called “The Inspirational Leader”. While initially claming that no one of the sixteen leadership competencies identified in “The Extraordinary Leader” was more powerful that an others, the authors have now identified “Inspiring and Motivating Others” as the one competency that separates good from extraordinary. Do you inspire and motivate your people? Have you asked them this recently?

One of my mentors, Pete Bluckert, has identified the combination of strategy and intimacy as the next focus for leaders with the intimacy element being about the heightened connectedness of a leader to themselves as well as others. Are you capable of real intimacy with your team?

Much more will be heard about these and other visions of leadership but at the core of each of them is the growing importance of connecting with people at an individual and group level through the leader’s use of self.

I am in no doubt that our concept of what it is to be a leader in the 21st century has been changed by the revelations of the last 12 months. Leaders can never again expect their word to be taken blindly without proof of character and deed.

Welcome your comments and thoughts!

Colm Murphy