LEADERSHIP CONTEXT
Leadership is a key issue in every organisation and every collaborative network. In a survey of over 7,000 HR and business leaders from over 130 countries, 89% of organisations said leadership was a critical factor in their organisation’s future. Leadership provides a foundation for organisational culture(s), as well as an organisation’s success or failure.
This means there is often pressure on people in positions of formal ascribed status positions to be everything to everyone and to have all the answers. If you are in a leadership position, you may have experienced some of these paradoxical demands:
- To maintain ‘a strong sense of self while simultaneously maintaining humility’
- To maintain ‘control while simultaneously letting go of control’
- To stress ‘continuity while simultaneously stressing change’
- To pursue inclusive and responsible business practices to enhance performance while simultaneously pursuing engagement and generative change
- To maintain hope and optimism in the midst of anxiety and complexity
- To encourage experimentation and innovation in safe and stable ways
The ‘idea’ of leadership is also strongly embedded in our cultural imagination and narrative, with the archetype of the ideal, heroic leader, setting vision and taking charge. We bring these ideas with us to work, perhaps believing that leadership is something that we can only participate in once we have a title, power and authority. This is strongly aligned to the post-industrial machine metaphor that still dominates the organisational landscape in the guise of the belief that structure and process and right first time can solve the complexities of modern organisations and expectations.
The idea of Systems Leadership is an antidote to this outdated charismatic leader with all the answers, instead inviting leaders to hold the space of uncertainty and complexity in ways that encourage and enable generative and transformational change.
This toolbox of online resources, reading and ideas has been curated to support a development programme structured around four specific areas:
- SYSTEMS THINKING
- SYSTEMS LEADERSHIP
- SYSTEMS CHANGE
- LISTENING EXPERIMENT
The programme will also be supported by textbooks, online and, in some cases, in-person workshops.