REHUMANIZING LEADERSHIP
Learn to thrive in an age of accelerating complexity
Rehumanizing Leadership
Putting Purpose Back into Business
Your Guide to Leadership for the 21st Century
The rehumanization of leadership has become one of the most pressing issues of our times. While digital technology is transforming our world into an interconnected whole, our thinking and behaviors continue to be driven by an Industrial Age narrative. Rehumanizing Leadership offers an antidote to the linear and fragmented leadership models that emerged out of that age. Sudhanshu Palsule and Michael Chavez make a compelling case for purpose, empathy and caring to become the strategic driving forces for organizations in our disruptive and complex world. They provide you with the simple tools and the mindset that you need to lead your organization into the 21st century.
21st CENTURY LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES
EXTREME AMBIGUITY
IRRELEVANCE OF THE PAST
ATTENTION DEFICIT
The 21st Century Imperative
How do we stay relevant and significant in an age of accelerating complexity? So much of our thinking continues to carry residues of the Industrial Age. We were trained for linearity, not complexity; control, not adaptability; predictability, not emergence; conformity, not agility. Our 20th century leadership theories were suited for hierarchies, top-down power and communication structures, and not for a transparent, networked world.
The 21st century is radically challenging our faith in linearity. The Covid-19 pandemic is an extreme example of how exponentials behave. A hyper-networked and globalised world is rendering our 20th century thinking increasingly irrelevant. We are faced with a crisis of meaning.
We must rehumanize our leadership to address the complex problems of the 21st century.
Navigating Complexity
COMPLEXITY: THE NEW NORMAL
To thrive in complex systems, not knowing what is around the corner, requires an ability to sense and respond to the weak signals that emerge at the periphery. In an accelerating environment, the past is seldom a reliable guide to the future.
So many of the leadership assumptions we continue to make in the 21st century arise from a context that no longer exists. As long as the way we perceive, think and respond remains trapped in the biases and beliefs of the Industrial Age, complexity becomes a threat that needs fixing. Leadership in the 21st century is about overcoming the worn and redundant neural pathways through which we perceive, think and respond. Complexity is an opportunity.
The Three Traps:
Control Trap: We learned leadership behaviors for control, conformity and compliance, not for agility, adaptability and innovation
Cognitive Trap: Our brains are not wired for complexity; nature has prepared us for reacting to immediate danger but not for deciphering the weak signals of complex problems
Power Trap: We built our 20th century organizations to replicate social status and top-down power through the control of information and resources.
The Future is Human:
Rehumanizing leadership is about consciously positioning leadership at the intersection of purpose, empathy and meaning.
Purpose provides the reason why we exist: more importantly it provides the possibility to pivot and adapt our strategy in an accelerating world.
Empathy is the medium through which we design and build our place in the eco-system through trust and transparency
Meaning provides our organization and our people with the answer to the fundamental question; how do we stay relevant?
Books by
Sudhanshu Palsule
Sudhanshu Palsule is a leading thinker in the fields of Leading in Complexity and Transformative Leadership. He is an award winning educator and author, and works globally as a leadership advisor to top management teams and CEOs.