Leadership Disrupted

By Habibe ACIK

Businesses of all sizes are looking up to startups as they lead the innovation and disruption. Founders make the headlines as the new icons. In today’s turbulent environment; complexity and fast paced, dramatic change is the norm. As the traditional strategies of reducing costs, improving products and generating new sales are getting less sufficient for survival, old school leadership is also becoming inadequate.

New type of leadership is sought in this digital age. MIT’s Professor of Organization Studies Deborah Ancona, defines it as “Command and Control” to “Cultivate and Coordinate” model transformation. In Cultivate and Coordinate model, leaders are expected not only cope with the information overload but filter through information floating within and outside of the organization to make sense of it to recognize opportunities and capitalize on them.
 
Technologic advances today create seas of opportunities as well as its share of threats and risks. Synthesis of what is happening and what is upcoming, to understand and to relate, as well as the wisdom to choose the course of action is of utmost importance. Only a strong and relevant vision coupled with an authentic story that resonates with the team and customers prove to be inspirational and worthy to follow by the People.
 
HBR’s Top 10 Leadership Competencies based on 195 global leaders’ survey results where leaders were asked to rate 74 qualities demonstrate five themes: Strong ethics and safety, self-organizing, learning, nurturing growth and connection.

​Leadership in this scale and at this speed is not a solo act, but teamwork. Leaders who move beyond ego-centric, in control mood to Collective Leadership model, as in the flock of geese’ rotational leadership, taps into organization’s collective capabilities, embraces diversity and builds an empowered team developing talents further. Growth mindset for the leaders and organization suggest we all are in progress and nurtures growth and innovation. A true leader by definition inspires, builds trust, listens and understands people. Thus, high emotional intelligence promises an open culture with a strong sense of belonging and healthy communications.
 
Four types of leadership behaviors in organizations found to explain the difference between a strong and weak organization by McKinsey: Supportive, Result oriented, Welcoming different perspectives and Efficient problem solving, for the Leaders of Disruption Era, based on a survey of 81 global organizations.

Leadership is Disrupted more than ever before.  Leaders of tomorrow will need to be:

• Resilient and courageous as well as visionary.  Success will require them to try, fail, learn and grow like a toddler learning to walk;
• Self-aware of themselves and their biases in decision making.  Awareness triggers growth mindset, mentoring their successors and tapping into collective wisdom of their organizations richness;
• Planned opportunists and change agents. Ability to catch the next upcoming wave requires disciplined experimentation and active pursuit of different perspectives.

Disrupted, hence evolved, leaders will prioritize to setup the capabilities to make the change happen, as so many before them failed to execute on what they saw in history of business world. ​​