A new model of leadership for the Fourth Industrial Revolution
The 4IR has a disruptive effect on leadership; the old model, the carrot and stick, and organisations based on command and control do not work. We need not merely a change, but a true shift towards human leadership, where trust and compassion permeate organisations.
While there are many factors that drive the norms that shape today’s workplace, the hard reality is that the structure of most organisations simply is not set up to optimise human potential and safeguard well-being. As Tim Leberecht, a humanist in Silicon Valley, points out, “There appears to be a fundamental chasm between individual human behaviour – which is expansive and multidimensional, ranging from the rational to the wildly irrational, sentimental and unpredictable – and the design of organisations, rational, practical, results oriented and engineered to perform consistently.”
Our current reality calls for a reimagined form of leadership that is based on a deeper understanding of the constantly evolving complexities of interpersonal, group and intergroup relationships which require shifting our focus towards the process of group dynamics and collaboration. Human leadership at all levels will be the key to achieving the creativity, adaptiveness, and agility that organisations will need to survive and grow.
From transactional relationships to human connections at work
One of the simplest facts in business is something that we often neglect, and that is that we’re all human. Each of us, no matter what our role is in business, has some hierarchy of needs in the workplace.
We do not become fundamentally different human beings when we come to work. Our relational diary shapes how we communicate, how we collaborate, what expectations we have, how we ask for help, how we compete. As human beings, we are all driven by basic needs for meaning, happiness, human connectedness, and a desire to contribute positively to others. Leaders that truly understands these needs, and lead in a way that enables these intrinsic motivations, have the keys to enable strong loyalty, engagement and performance. As leaders, we must be humans before managers.
Research by Cameron et al. at the University of Michigan on the “Effects of Positive Practices on Organizational Effectiveness”, shows that when leaders adopt a human-centered view of business that emphasises cultures of respect, trust, compassion and wisdom, the performance of the organisation rises along with individual well-being.
The quality of our relationship determines the quality of our lives – Esther Perel, Psychotherapist
There is fundamental need to revisit and redefine relationships at work. According to psychotherapist Esther Perel, who also consults for Fortune 500 companies around the world, relationships exist within a context, and it is the context that changes, not the thinking about relationships. All relationships have expectations and boundaries. All relationships, if they are strong, have a foundational truth around trust. All relationships demand responsibility and accountability, creativity and communication. This means that in the workplace we have the same fundamental relational needs as we do outside of work. However, relationships in the workplace are often transactional, defined by roles and functions.
Human leadership must be the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s real innovation
Research (HBR, January 2018) shows that a global movement is taking place in the C-suites of thousands of progressive organisations like Accenture, Marriott, Starbucks, Microsoft, and LinkedIn. The leaders of these organisations ask themselves “How can we create more human leadership and people-centered cultures where employees and leaders are more fulfilled and more fully engaged?”
Alexandra Levit, futurist and author of “Humanity Works,” wrote: “In a business climate dominated by human/machine collaboration,” the skills that make us human are more important than ever.” She calls to act on improving these uniquely human skills like creativity, judgment, intuition and interpersonal sensitivity.
In their research report “Leadership 4.0: A Review of the Thinking”, Oxford leadership explores questions such as ” How do inner leadership practices such as embodiment, aikido, mindfulness and coherence, contribute to resourcing our ‘inner state of being’ as leaders in a 4IR world? and “How can leaders, wherever they are in organisations, instil a sense of purpose and foster true collaboration in teams, networks and other collective endeavours?”.
A mature, human leadership is required for our workforce to handle the complexities of 21st-century lives.
The time is now
It’s often during the most trying times of humanity that we see the best of humanity emerge. There are many examples of companies that have stepped up during the Covid-19 crisis to support their employees. As businesses are now emerging from the crisis, there is an opportunity to take stock of the hard-won lessons we can take with us going forward, and accelerate best practices around collaboration, flexibility, inclusion, and well-being.
The challenge at hand is how we design and organise for more humanity in the workplace and adopt a more expansive, empathetic view of organisational purpose. We can start with embracing our vulnerability. In the words of the poet David Whyte, “vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding undercurrent of our natural state.”
It is in our vulnerability that we connect as human beings. If businesses can start inhabiting their vulnerability, we can start becoming more courageous, compassionate and resilient.
