Dynamic Leadership - New Leadership Development for Collaborative Organizations

A recent report by the Conference Board of Canada, A Snapshot of Leadership Practices in Canada, confirms that leadership development is among the top priorities of Canadian companies; however, leadership investment wanes during economic downturns. The same report also suggests that the main strategies companies use to develop leaders often focuses on internal leadership programs and 360 degree feedback assessments, which are less effective than stretch assignments, job rotations and real-time coaching. Perhaps, what this suggests is that companies are not as committed to developing leaders as they may profess to be, either deprioritizing investment at times when it is most critical, or investing in leadership development solutions that are easier to manage instead of those that are more effective.

What struck me most, however, as I reviewed the Conference Board of Canada's report was the focus on individual leader development. While the discussion solely remains on how to develop individuals, we are missing the proverbial forest-from-the-trees. In today's global, virtually-connected, hyper-communicative, technology-based environment, our discussion needs to consider not only the individual within the system but the system itself. To put it simply, we need to ask "how can we enable the system to demonstrate market leadership". With this question, we are forced to shift our thinking away from an autocratic, scientific-management, leadership model to one of coordinated decision making across a community.

The fact that companies today have yet to explore shared leadership models and complex adaptive leadership strategies suggests that most organizations are not expanding their leadership perspective to account for new capabilities. We can easily point to financial markets, democratic governments, open-source movement, open-government, predictive markets and crowd-sourcing as inspiration. I am not suggesting we abandon our current leadership development practices in favour for more pioneering approaches, rather I think the time has come for strategic experimentation to ensure that companies exploit collaboration and maximize everyone's leadership contribution.