Leadership 2.0

September 9, 2009 by janet · 1 Comment 

Are you ready to lead in a self-organising world?  If you are responsible for leading – leading anything –  things are about to change. That change will likely require you to share some of your control… just like the leaders in the stories below…change

  • The coach of a soccer team whose 30,000 members now decide the team line-up for games
  • The bank whose only role in lending money is to match subscribing investors to borrowers 
  • The organiser of a conference where the attendees create the conference agenda – on the fly
  • The elected official who lets the citizens vote on how stimulus funds will be shared in the community
  • The US president who is attempting to change the health care system by asking the citizens

In all of these examples, it’s not the leader who has control, it’s the individuals.

So what’s causing this change?  Researchers believe that it’s society moving from industrialisation to information.  Command and control models of leadership were better suited to predictable, orderly structures, like machines and factories.  But it’s not the machines doing the work anymore, it’s people.  And, it’s not a product we are producing, it’s knowledge.  And once your society relies on people to produce innovation, things get considerably more complex.  Leadership 2.0 is about conversation, not control.  In a world where social trust trumps power and transparency trumps regulation, Leadership 2.0 has the upper hand.  And, if you are going to succeed in this new world, you may need to make some changes… 

Leadership 1.0 was about planning, power, and delegation.  Leadership 2.0 is about unpredictability, trust, and participation.  If you and your fellow managers are not discussing how to build skills for leading like this, you may find that your customers, employees and voters are no longer following.  Here is what you need to do to keep them:*

  • Be clear on the vision
  • Accept that you don’t control the outcome, you only control the boundaries
  • Stop the blame game – spend your energy on empowerment
  • Allow communication to include tension…quality of communication drives quality of result

Can you do this?  Can your team?  What would the marketing department say?  How about the IT department?   Depending on the culture of your organisation and the styles of your leaders, this can be a difficult shift to make.  The leaders who are able to make the shift are those who learn to let go, who don’t feel threatened, and who are willing to accept the consequences.  If you are ready to start exploring this type of change, here are some great resources to get you started:

Thanks to the Hon Penny Sharpe MLC and the coordinators of NSWsphere  (4 September, NSW Parliament House)…a 1-day conference intended to start a conversation on what these changes mean for government and how government can meet new citizen expectations.  They set a great example of leadership 2.0.

*List adapted from Crawford, D., & Brungardt, D. (2000).  Building the corporate revolution:  real empowerment through risk leadership.  College Park, MD: Academy of Leadership Press

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