The 2015 Survey on the
Global Agenda revealed that 86 percent of the respondents strongly agree the
world is facing a ‘leadership crisis’. In the top worrying global trends survey
respondents cite ‘deepening income inequality’, ‘persistent jobless growth’,
‘lack of leadership’ and ‘the weakening of representative democracy’.
It is eminently clear that
we are living in an epoch of unprecedented global peril. Violent extremism is
on the rise. Poverty, inequality and haplessness are ubiquitous. Infectious diseases
are re-emerging and non-infectious diseases are surging. The catastrophe
associated our addiction to carbon looms large. The universal march of freedom
and civil liberties is halting.
Unequivocally, we are
seeing a catastrophic failure of leadership from the family to the global stage.
The calamitous dearth of leadership is reflected in the pitiful state of the
human condition everywhere. The youth are staggered by the gusts of jobless
growth. The old live in despair overwhelmed by the pace of change in world that
is changing at a dizzying pace.
In Africa, we occupy the
front row seat of dysfunctional political leadership exemplified by runaway
official graft and state incapability. Citizens are either delusional or
indifferent. Power hungry politicians lie, cheat and use violence to cling to
power. Citizens have decomposed into subjects and leaders have metamorphosed
into monarchs.
I challenge anyone to name
an individual or society who can rise to grapple with the common tribulations
that confront our civilization today. We are long on egotistic bluster and
geo-political power games but woefully short on global consensus and
leadership.
That notion that the
principles of leadership are immutable and based on timeless truths is fundamentally
questionable and specious. Talk to the leaders of the cold war era or the ship
builders of Glasgow and they will tell that this epoch is a bewildering in its
volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Leadership in this moment is
in every sense unlike models of leadership in the eras past.
The perils and
opportunities that define this age – volatile, globalized hyper connected epoch
– demand that we question the foundational notions of existing models of
leadership. Look at our pitiful galaxy of so-called leaders today, these men
and women deserve nothing but derision and infamy. They souls are darkened by
greed and self-idolatry. The unprecedented global peril underlines the
catastrophic crisis of leadership at multiple scales – from the self to the
global stage.
Leadership today must be about
collaboration and consensus building. Leadership is about collective creation,
rather dominant inspired individual visions. Leadership in our time is about
generative listening, tuning into the future seeking to emerge.
The leader in this age is
not the omniscient alpha male with a baritone standing at the head of following
humans. The leader in this age is the
person who in collaboration and through consensus guides from the side and
inspires all of us to dream, learn and become our best selves.
We can only hope that such
leaders will emerge to answer the call of history.
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