Foundational Question of 21st Century Leadership – Part 1

We are honored to share with you the first of a two-part post from James Strock. Jim is an author and practitioner who has a keen ability to leverage history and current events to make sense of the changes influencing management and leadership. We love his two-part post. We think you will too. 

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. –Steve Jobs.

Several years ago, a CEO was dropping me off at the airport following my speaking to his company. Like many fine CEOs, he’s what one might call a “bottom line” person. He invariably seeks to wrap up discussions on almost any topic, great or small, with the question: So… What’s the bottom line?

As his car wended its way through the airport intake, he posed the question: After all is said and done, what’s the bottom line on leadership? What’s the one thing it’s all about?

My mind was in part stimulated, in part exhausted after a long and very positive day. Somewhat uncharacteristically, I struggled a bit in search of an apt response.

In the nick of time, as we approached my gate, it hit me. Service. Really, that’s all that those hundreds of pages and hundreds of hours of information and training are about. It’s all about service.

21st Century Leadership

That exchange helped crystallize my thinking, based on my own journey as a practitioner and student of leadership. Soon enough, events would underscore this direction.

Along with many others, in the first decade of the new century I sensed the movement of tectonic plates. Leadership, including management and communication, is adjusting to the new world of the digital age.

Among the changes:

1. Instantaneous communication via the Internet, is much less expensive and near universally available;
2. Information is becoming ubiquitous, and is, in many cases, free to anyone with an Internet connection;
3. Unprecedented, radical transparency is removing the shrouds that have historically covered transactions and relationships;
4. The value proposition underlying familiar, centralized institutions is being altered;
5. Relationships are supplanting transactions as the fundamental interaction—with individuals increasingly able to start or stop relationships vis-a-vis large institutions that historically were beyond their reach;
6. Widely dispersed information and empowerment is giving rise to new demands from the range of stakeholders. The curtain is coming down on the monomaniacal, short-term shareholder value orientation of the late 20th century;
7. Individuals, connected in various ways, sometimes acting in concert and in networks, are gaining power and influence vis-à-vis government, private and non-governmental organizations. In the doing, traditional boundaries separating sectors are being breached.

The result: 20th century, industrial age institutions and relationships are being supplanted by an emerging 21st century leadership model.

Service Above All

Some of these trends are not entirely new. At the turn of the 20th century, far-sighted management thinkers warned that the era of caveat emptor was drawing to a close. Unethical conduct in business would be increasingly likely to be called out. Mass communication and activist government agencies were rising, giving voice to theretofore isolated individuals and groups.

In the 21st century, that’s gone a significant step further. Those individuals and groups are increasingly able to act on their own. They are demanding that institutions serve them effectively.

The capacity of individuals to effect change—as consumers, citizens, stakeholders–means that sustainably successful institutions serve rather than rule. They must operate from a cultural orientation that is outside-in, rather than the inside-out.

What is ethical is becoming what is practical.
The implications—and opportunities—are vast.

Return tomorrow for the final, concluding part to Jim’s guest post.

Copyright (c) 2012, James M. Strock

Connect with Jim

Read more of Jim’s work at his site Serve to Lead. If you’re into history and leadership, be sure to check out Jim’s book’s here.

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Graphic by Shawn Murphy

James Strock