Future Leadership

Rick Smyre, president of Communities of the Future, descirbes a new kind of leadership that is emerging. Rick is a former CEO and he has often shared with me how difficult it was for him to change his thinking and move away from traditional, top-down leadership approaches.

Take a look at this quote from the Communities of the Future website (leadership page) and visit the links below to get an idea of how Rick sees leadership transforming.

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"In a world of constant change, this new type of leader will complement the traditional action, outcomes based project leader so important to Industrial Society. Known as a "master capacity builder," this transformative leader will need to be able to seed "capacities for transformation" among diverse people and organizations in a newly emerging Conceptual Age, will need broad knowledge in many areas, process design skills, emotional maturity, a willingness to take risks for the common good and a compassion for others.

Six areas of transformative leadership need to be developed:

1) Ecoplanning and Emergence (adaptive planning) are fundamental principles for adapting to a constantly changing society. 2) Transformational Process Skills able to create a culture of transformation
3) Transformational Attitudes that are consistent with a constantly changing society
4) Transformational Capabilities that are consistent with a constantly changing society
5) Spotting Trends and Weak Signals that are consistent with a constantly changing society
6) Connecting Ideas, People, and Institutions are at the core of the ecology principle for transformative leadership.

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