Leadership without leaders

A couple of years ago I was in a meeting with worthies from the corporate world discussing the setting up of a leadership institute. I nearly fell off the chair when one of them suggested that a leadership institute must have strewn around one-man stages from which future leaders can declaim to followers! Must not blame the worthies though. We have all been fed a notion of leadership that derives from the culture of the army. A culture that of necessity practices top down leadership. But in this 24x7, deeply networked world isn't the notion of leaders and followers so yesterday? We need leadership not leaders. We need leadership from everyone not just the few who like standing on podiums to declaim. Because leadership is about having the ability to nurture a vision and communicate it. Leadership is about keeping it simple in complex situations. Leadership is about seeking to enable others. Leadership is many things and all of them are not to be sought in a few but in all. As a closing thought wouldn't a leadership institute flourish if it positioned leadership as a quality to be promoted in everybody rather than the bailiwick of the few? Why am I not surprised when I find that the worthies mentioned in paragraph one are today in deepening trouble as business people and managers?

Being a CEEEEO: The Yoga of Leadership

Early management thinking was premised on the paradigm of a military campaign.

Resulting in the hierarchical, command and control system that even today is followed by many an archaic business.

The cutting edge in management thinking however has since then moved on.

Thinkers like Peter Drucker started the process of liberating management processes from the confines of military-like strategy.

Over the last two decades, the world of business has increased immeasurably in complexity. There has been a tectonic shift brought about by unprecedented technological change and more importantly the rising primacy of business in human affairs.

Whenever things become too complex, Vedic thought seems to have the capacity to strip them to pristine simplicity. Ask the physicists.

So can we apply some yoga to management science?

There are two poles around which much management thinking today is coalescing: Leadership and Innovation.To my mind these are just two sides of the same coin.

In an increasingly interactive and instantaneous world, leadership needs to be rooted in the moment.

The yoga of leadership is to reflect the triumvirate of Creation, Conservation and Destruction with all three dimensions active and alive in every moment.

The yoga of leadership recognizes the principle of centrality. It is a mathematical fact that in an infinite universe every point is at the centre.

So also with every human being it is only the self that leads and only the self that follows.

The true leader therefore engages and enables everyone around her to envision and execute.

And as every person engages to enable everyone else to envision and execute, the resultant network effect will push not just the world of business but humanity itself to a new level of being.

The age of the CEO is past.

The coming age is of the Chief Engage and Enable to Envision and Execute Officer, the age of the CEEEEO.

And in the very DNA of being a CEEEEO is that you recognize that everyone around you is a CEEEEO. It is just that some know it and some are yet to catch on.

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