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The deep changes necessary to accelerate progress against society's most intractable problems require a unique type of leader - the system leader, a person who catalyzes collective leadership.
At no time in history have we needed such system leaders more. We face a host of systemic challenges beyond the reach of existing institutions and their hierarchical authority structures. Problems like climate change, destruction of ecosystems, growing scarcity of water, youth unemployment, and embedded poverty and inequity require unprecedented collaboration among different organizations, sectors, and even countries. Sensing this need, countless collaborative initiatives have arisen in the past decade - locally, regionally, and even globally. Yet more often than not they have floundered - in part because they failed to foster collective leadership within and across the collaborating organizations.
Via Kenneth Mikkelsen
There's a lot to like in this article and much to contemplate. I particularly like the 3 core capabilities of see the large system, further reflection and more generative conversations, and shifting from reactive problem-solving to co-creating the future.
"System leaders like Baldwin and Winslow understand that collective wisdom cannot be manufactured or built into a plan created in advance. And it is not likely to come from leaders who seek to “drive” their predetermined change agenda. Instead, system leaders work to create the space where people living with the problem can come together to tell the truth, think more deeply about what is really happening, explore options beyond popular thinking, and search for higher leverage changes through progressive cycles of action and reflection and learning over time. Knowing that there are no easy answers to truly complex problems, system leaders cultivate the conditions wherein collective wisdom emerges over time through a ripening process that gradually brings about new ways of thinking, acting, and being.
For those new to system leadership, creating space can seem passive or even weak. For them, strong leadership is all about executing a plan. Plans are, of course, always needed, but without openness people can miss what is emerging, like a sailor so committed to his initial course that he won’t adjust to shifts in the wind. Even more to the point, the conscious acts of creating space, of engaging people in genuine questions, and of convening around a clear intention with no hidden agenda, creates a very different type of energy from that which arises from seeking to get people committed to your plan."
Becoming a systems leader: capacity building at its best.