Reasons Why I Want To Be A Leader In The Technological World

In Today’s tech world we are still Celebrating the life of Steve Jobs, I’ve seen many articles over the past few days that talk about the things he had accomplished, the impact that he had and where we go from here. I have heard conversations through Twitter, Google+, over the phone and otherwise wherein everyone from entrepreneurs to analysts and Venture Capital firms have articulated their concern for the technology ecosystem as a whole. But it occurs to me, as it should to you, that while the passing of Steve is a tragedy of our generation, technology and entrepreneurialism will continue to move forward. By the very nature of their definitions, these two terms that describe our world are forced to move on. We’ll never forget Steve or his impact, and in fact should be driven forward by those factors.

In the world of work today, change is constant. This change is largely driven by technology and Industry Trends, the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and people are trying to keep up. While I coat a austere picture indicative of the Terminator and Matrix films, the reality is that human capital is vital. Companies know this specified their continuous growing investment in leadership development over the past two decades. Yet over this same period, confidence in leaders has gradually weakened.

Peak in Technological Advances:

The rapid advancement of technology and the proliferation of mobile and other network-attached devices have been the advocates and tipping points for all types of changes in how we devour media, organize data, and communicate with each other. The medium and the messages are ever-changing.

On the other hand, our views of leadership and organizational life have been slow to change. These vital shifts in technology and media feeding have hazy the boundaries of communication within organizations, which has in turn blurred the discrepancy between leaders and followers and also the media and messages they use to communicate. Traditional leadership models and dominant models based on these roles are no longer suited for the world we live in today. A digital revolution is driving complexity and pace. It presents enormous challenge and opportunity. There are new computational tools and voluminous data of all types.

Social Media and Separate Power

As one of the most thoughtful shifts has been an destruction of individual power and authority, with an excavating of collective power enabled through social media. Over all, power and authority have been granted to or taken by a few and strengthened through organizational hierarchy and structure. Today, informal social networks like Twitter and Facebook are appropriating the power of some formal, graded networks. We need to challenge ourselves and ask the question, 'What is the rationale for maintaining the outmoded and burdensome organizational layers and vertical hierarchies?' Why haven’t we incorporated Fritz Capra’s notion that all learning systems are coordinated by network? We have been discussing the notion of the organization as a social system for quite some time.

While the focus on informal networks is mostly argued in terms of social networks and social relationships not related to power and authority within networks each of these shifts encounters the notion of command-and-control leadership and the clearly delineated roles of leader and follower. In the case of the Arab Spring, informal networks allowed individuals to organize more efficiently. The power of subordinates and followers was significantly elevated, and traditional, hierarchical leadership was overthrown in a very concrete way.

Basic Changes Within Organizations

Technology has also disrupted structural boundaries within establishments. Like an earthquake fault line that statements energy associated with rapid movement and structural shifting, there is a leadership fault line that has splintered and resulted in discontinuity and a permanent fracture in our traditional leadership formations. The organization is flattened, matrixes, and dispersed as it incorporates tools and emerging technologies into many areas of operation (e.g., enterprise systems and social media for customers, and potential employees, other). The structural boundaries within organizations have been eternally changed as a result of technological outbursts and blasts and to accommodate some of the shifts, leaders and followers move into these new forms of organizational structure.

Too often, officialdoms see technological advances as mostly the duty of the Information Technology department. External forces, customer demands, or security concerns often motivation how an organization counters to shifts in landscape, be they technological or otherwise. Organizations rarely integrate internal organizational changes in development of a specific cause-and-effect event. This lack of preparation places an organization in an everlasting cycle of illiberal change and, frequently, behind the curve. Rather than temper or hedge the effect of technology on an organization’s infrastructure, the desired action should be to embrace new developments and leverage them to their fullest potential.

The shift to power of the masses within organizations is unleashing the grip of command-and-control leadership. More specifically, command-and-control leadership is losing its grip on the organizational clutch. Where hierarchy and traditional organizational structures either intentionally or unintentionally acted as a barrier to equality, new technological advances erase those barriers. Even when leaders within traditional models make attempts to treat everyone as an equal and genuinely see the value of doing so, the traditional organizational structures and lexicon stand as impermeable, and often invisible, barriers. Leading in the twenty-first century requires a new structure and design that is more suited to the realities of today. This is a journey that many organizations have begun, and they are taking steps forward.

Individuality and Equality

In recent years, there has been a shift in the balance between organizational leadership and individuality evidenced by the disparity between pay for senior leaders and pay for the average worker. The justification for the increase in CEO compensation and the huge severance packages for senior executives who leave underperforming organizations are reflections of the focus on the value of the individual.

Since the founding of the United States, the balance between individuality and equality has, over time, shifted toward one pole or the other. Where power was once concentrated in the hands of few at the top of traditional hierarchies, the revolutions in technology have abruptly swung the pendulum back toward equality of the masses. The influence of power and authority has diminished.

Today, new books have surfaced that discuss the rise of the power of followers, the need for more empowerment, or how to make leaders act like followers and followers act like leaders. There have been calls to de-emphasize command-and-control leadership in favor of a more matrixed or hybrid organization structure. In spite of all the adjustments—command-and-control tweaks and redesign, ultimately—the language and message is still rooted in a model dominated by traditional hierarchy.

Summary

When Canadian geese migrate, they fly in a V-formation to move quickly and fly longer than they could as individuals. Geese use synergy—the law of nature that recognizes that working together creates a greater result than could be achieved alone. The pendulum has swung such that leadership now requires synergy and an adjustment that better suits the realities of the time. The rationale for the importance of both leading and following is that data moves too quickly. No one has the capacity to know everything they need to know or to convert all the data to information needed to be successful in the twenty-first century.

What we have is not working. The disparity between principle and established practice is transparent to the masses. Elaborate leadership development programs, coaching initiatives, a proliferation of leadership books and “best practice” guidance, and reinforcement from other organizations that only expand on current practice are no longer viable solutions or sufficient for building effective leadership. Leadership in today’s world requires insight from more than one individual. We must rely constantly on others’ insight even when we are in a position of authority.