It is no longer good enough for existing leaders to be the brains trust of the organisation – controlling the important business knowledge and acquiring the critical business experience. Peter Senge talks about the ‘hero leaders’ and our propensity in the Western World to rely on these hero leaders – encouraging their egos and allowing them to protect their positions through the acquisition of knowledge.
Far too many organisations continue to rely on knowledge as power. Performance systems and “silo” cultures still actively encourage people to protect their knowledge and hence their positions. This manifests itself in restriction of team learning and untapped people potential. We find the words and sentiment of Anita Roddick in her book Body and Soul inspiring:
“I think the leadership of a company should encourage the next generation not just to follow, but to overtake.”
At Courageous Leaders we believe in the need for far more trusted mentoring relationships between existing leaders and emerging leaders. We need existing leaders who are prepared to have their thinking challenged, their logic explored and their habits dissected. They need to feel positive about facing the barrage of challenging questions that need to be asked in order to create this learning process for the emerging leaders. It is no different to when our young children grow up and learn to ask “why” and then “why not”……..and we foster this as parents because we know it promotes deep and meaningful learning. Yet as business leaders we close this kind of learning down and rather choose to “label” the younger generation.
We need existing leaders to be like the tribal elders of yesteryear:
“The challenge for business leaders in the twenty-first century is to assume the mantle of the spiritual elder for their culture, so that life doesn’t become trivial and grey for all the people who spend most of their life at work.” Jim Channon
In fact we go one step further and say we need existing leaders to be more than the spiritual elder; we need them to share the experience and teach the intuitive skills and wisdom they have developed as the existing leaders of the business.
