Leading organisations in the 21st century undoubtedly poses challenges, but are they (and the solutions to them) all that novel?
It seems to be an immutable law that every generation sees its challenges as uniquely difficult, and its successors as lacking in the moral fibre needed to keep the country or, in our case, business, on the right path. Of course, it’s true that each generation faces a distinct set of challenges but, in all honesty, they are often not so very different from the ones previous generations faced.
The same point could be made about the leadership challenges faced by politicians and business people today. On closer examination, many (but not all) of the issues cited as exemplars of the unique difficulties faced by today’s leaders turn out to be similar those faced by leaders in the past.
The world has always been uncertain, there is always a new crisis just over the horizon, and there is always a new competitor waiting in the wings. In that sense, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
That said, there are important ways in which today’s leaders face new challenges related to the digitalisation of society generally and business in particular.
First is the vast quantity of information generated by the digital world. Leaders thus have a much greater overview of what their organisation faces, and what competitors are doing. Well and good, you might say, but in fact processing all that information is a challenge in itself, and can actually make decision-making harder.
A second, related challenge is that digitalisation has in fact created a radically different business and geopolitical environment, one characterised by accelerated change, argues Abdullah Verachia, the head of faculty for strategy, sustainability and digital at GIBS. Developing a strategy and sticking to it is no longer a viable route to success - today’s leaders have to be agile, constantly recalibrating their strategies in the light of changing circumstances and new information.
Alexander the Great or Henry Ford faced greater uncertainty because they knew less about the world and their competition. But this may actually have made it easier to come up with bold, winning strategies.
A third consequence of an increasingly digital world is that those being led also have access to large amounts of information. For leaders, this has ramifications: in the past, leaders invariably had more information than those being led, making the task of persuading and inspiring them much easier. That asymmetry has drastically reduced in the Information Age, but has not disappeared. Even so, although leaders will always have more pertinent information than their followers, persuading a better-informed group requires more finesse and argumentation than an inspiring speech at Tilbury or Agincourt, or a statement from the chief executive.
Making sense of it
How then should today’s and tomorrow’s business leaders frame their leadership style, taking into account the eternal constants of leadership while integrating what is genuinely new?
A good place to start is the traditional model of the leader as hero. It seems the desire for a benevolent despot who will lead a country or organisation is very close to the surface in most of us and yet even a cursory examination of the history of such leaders tells its own story. When Alexander died, his empire fractured, and where is GE after Jack Welch?
One could argue that a mark of leadership is the extent to which the successful leader creates a succession pipeline - not of clones, but individuals with the skills to rise to the current challenges. That’s why, after all, dynastic leaders throughout history risked so much to ensure they had legitimate heirs. It is strange that today’s business leaders (and their boards) do not show more interest in raising a crop of potential new leaders.
Such a commitment is surely the mark of a great leader, whatever the century.
Having established this basic principle for great leadership, in this century in particular, are there any other overarching themes that would address some of the specifics of the 21st century?
Hero leaders set to be replaced
Even a cursory survey of the literature indicates that the traditional model of the hero leader is outdated, particularly in the business world. Today’s global business environment is increasingly characterised by its fragmented nature, and the rapidity with which business models change. In addition, a global business environment is inevitably closely tied to geopolitics, and it seems clear that we are entering a period of extreme volatility as the USA’s position as the global hegemon comes into question. Leaders will need to be nuanced and intentional about how they lead, and they will have to become themselves more flexible in order to make their strategies more responsive.
There is a consensus that the new type of leader is one who can persuade others to follow his or her lead, rather than simply stating a particular strategy.
Such a leadership style underpins some of the more prevalent leadership models of today. These leadership models have different emphases, but, says GIBS Dean Professor Morris Mthombeni, “A common thread is the notion of service.” Twenty-first century leaders have to be comfortable being vulnerable, and in drawing in more people to the leadership process in order to get things done by bringing everybody along.
In sum, much of the discussion about modern styles of leadership indicates that a more empathetic, compassionate approach is needed, and there is talk of humane or human-centric leadership.
In the same mould is servant leadership, a concept that has been around for several years. The latter predicates that the leader primarily exists to serve the needs of his or her team based on the belief that the happier and more motivated staff members are, the better they will serve the customers, and thus the stronger the bottom line.
Herb Kelleher, the legendary CEO of Southwest Airlines, is often cited as an example of this kind of leader. Kelleher created a service culture par excellence at the airline. He summed up his philosophy thus: “My mother taught me that your employees come first. If you treat them well, then they treat the customers well, and that means your customers come back and your shareholders are happy.”
Kelleher’s approach worked also because he saw the company’s reason for existing as something more than just making money. He wanted to “democratise the skies”, making easier and more affordable for Joe Public to travel. The fact that we now take this for granted shows how powerful an idea it was. There’s good evidence for the growing appreciation among the younger generation of workers for a mission-led business.
As strategy expert Professor Louise Whittaker points out, one of the leading examples of this approach is homegrown: the Care and Growth model originally developed at the Chamber of Mines by Etsko Schuitema, a social anthropologist. The model originated as a way to predict which mines would experience conflict between miners and management. Schuitema’s research concluded that the key issue was trust in management: if employees trusted their managers, then the chances of conflict were remote, and employees were more likely to be committed to the company’s goals.
Whittaker says that in this model, leaders adopt certain behaviours. Listening, showing sympathy and sincerity, demonstrating a sense of humour and concern about the employee as a whole person demonstrate care; honesty, consistent feedback, fairness, fair rewarding and recognition of an individual’s contribution demonstrate a commitment to growing people.
Who is being led?
Flowing out of this service- and cause-oriented approach is a realisation that leadership must recognise who is being led. Of course, this is not a new concept: good leaders have always known how to reach those they lead - call it the common touch, if you will. The point here, though, is that employees (or troops or citizens) are much less homogenous than they once were. During the 1960s sometime, it became clear that the younger generation was substantially different from its parents. This generation gap has widened over the years, hence the emergence of names for each generation: Boomers, Generations X, Y (Millennials) and Z, and now Alpha.
Twenty-first century leaders face a definite challenge: to understand what each cohort values and adjust their leadership styles accordingly. Arguably, the imperative to do so becomes more acute with each new generation largely because, it seems, of the online world’s tendency to create self-referential echo chambers that harden attitudes.
For example, Generation Z and Millennials, who increasingly make up the largest groups of employees globally, have distinct requirements of the companies and leaders they work for. They value empathy, work that contributes to sustainability generally, and that supports self-actualisation.
Buyani Zwane, a GIBS faculty member and expert on HR and leadership, argues that inspirational leadership plays a key role today: “Today’s workforce is looking for a work experience that allows them to bring their whole selves to work,” he says. It’s an approach increasingly relevant as Generation Z, digital natives, gain greater representativity in the workplace.
Zwane is surely correct that employees should be seen as the number-one constituency for today’s leaders, and through them the second important group, customers. But the net spreads even further to include stakeholders more broadly. Indeed, what one might call stakeholder capitalism seems to be the way of the future - it’s certainly a view espoused by the influential King Report on Corporate Governance.
In this model, shareholders will increasingly become just one of the stakeholder groups, not the pre-eminent one they currently are for the great majority of the business community.
Africa to run strongly in the leadership stakes
It seems, then, that if leadership in the 21st century is going to be more focused on stakeholders, starting with employees, then corporate leadership starts to look somewhat different, and mavericks such as Herb Kelleher will start to become mainstream. In this context, it seems very likely that African leadership styles loosely based on the concept of ubuntu are going to become more compelling to global leaders. Ubuntu is strongly centred on finding common ground as opposed to winning, and implies a more collectivist approach that honours and benefits all parties, though in varying degrees.
There are indications that ubuntu-based philosophy is being merged with Western ideas in sub-Saharan Africa, and we may yet see this African hybrid leadership style gaining traction globally. But before we run away with ourselves, it needs to be recognised that African leadership still lacks the robust research underpinnings of more established concepts.
Digital leadership and what it implies
As noted, the emergence of a digital world or Information Age raises new challenges for modern leaders. Verachia argues that a key leadership skill will be the ability to make sense of this rapidly changing world. Leaders will need to become much more skilled at developing ways of foreseeing change and stress-testing their organisations. “Leaders will need to understand technology and what it can do at a more profound level,” he says. “How to use data and, increasingly artificial intelligence.”
Conversely, Verachia adds, those skills that cannot be digitalised, such as curiosity, empathy, and grit, will become more important. Being a digital leader means not only understanding technology and its implications, but also cultivating an emotionally intelligent mindset able to manage a workspace that is inevitably more diverse and inclusive.
Twenty-first century leaders, Whittaker concludes, must pay more attention to developing their own skills; personal development is a key way of enabling them to lead more complex organisations. “As the pace of change accelerates, being able to discern what matters becomes an important leadership skill,” she says.
The very model of a new-style African leader
Eskom’s chairperson, Mteto Nyati, has earned plaudits for the leadership role he has played in bringing this vital utility back from the brink. In conversation with Ann Bernstein, executive director of the Centre for Development and Enterprise, for the ongoing CDE Conversations series, he offered valuable insights into the kind of leader the current century demands, and that this country needs.
Nyati has had a stellar career, with top jobs at Microsoft, MTN, and Altron before taking on what is arguably South Africa’s most important - and most dysfunctional - company. Some key leadership pointers:
- Learn to work with diversity, something he learned from the get-go as one of nine siblings. His experience is that diverse teams outperform homogenous ones.
- There’s value in working with others, and all employees are potential leaders.
- Nobody is a prisoner of circumstance. Nyati's mother’s trading store bolstered the family finances, and determination meant he qualified for the international Science Olympiad from an Umtata school.
- The right leadership is vital — the lack of it is visible for all to see in South Africa, particularly in the socio-political arena. Good leaders attract good people.
- Culture cannot stand in your way. For example, most Africans are overly respectful of those in authority and older than them. Values are key, they are the software that controls everything, and if our values are not delivering, we need to have the courage to change them.