Why Open Leadership is the Future
The future: soon enough, and from then, forever. Open Leadership is about getting real, which is increasingly necessary to thrive as an individual, an organization, and a species.
Increasingly necessary
It’s 2023. The past few years have seen global turmoil as never before in my lifetime. We see crisis on top of crisis: a viral pandemic coming and going (hopefully), other pandemics coming and not going (burnout, anxiety, addictions, overweight…), climate change becoming tangible sooner than expected (by most), A.I. revolutions (note the plural), a new war in Europe (and a possible world war), etc.
All these changes are technology related, one way or another. (Un)fortunately, the rate of technological changes can only increase in the near future. Meanwhile, the rate of human change (mental growth) doesn’t follow.
The dichotomy between these two rates leads us to a series of crises as we witness them now. In this logic, we haven’t seen most of it yet. In short, these crises and those to come in the same vein are the cost of ego.
We need leadership to manage human growth as well as to manage the residual dichotomy.
Open future
Altogether, the future is about Openness ― including, probably most meaningfully, the future of A.I. This is necessary to thrive and – most broadly – even to survive as a species that we would recognize with today’s eyes. In other words, the only viable future is Open.
We still see (much too) little Open Leadership at present. Nevertheless, to stay relevant, leadership cannot but follow the Openness of many other sociocultural domains. Something else should not be tolerated. As weird as this may sometimes seem at this very moment, taking the long view (still soon enough) shows the inevitable.
In due time, Open Leadership will lead the (r)evolution toward Openness.
This is more than a nice thought to me, but no automatic truth. It is the conviction that, with proper decisions and developments, Open Leadership can and will have a huge impact on the rest of society. Therefore, the growth of Open Leaders should be a top priority ― not tomorrow but today.
Open Leadership is Compassionate, basically. By itself, then again, Compassionate leadership goes on to building a culture of Compassion.
Bottleneck
The most challenging bottleneck runs parallel to the future of A.I. In A.I., a double bottleneck can be envisioned because it’s about two modes of intelligence: the human and the artificial.
Both bottlenecks in A.I. and the most relevant one in leadership are profoundly human-related. This is the same story of ego that now comes at such a big cost. Toward Open Leadership, at least quite some transcendence of mere-ego of the leader is asked for. Otherwise, the endeavor is self-defeating.
In my view, it starts with seeing that the challenge is huge and never-ending ― including within oneself, where it is most difficult to notice.
That includes you and me.
Are we ready for this journey?
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