Photo by Elke Karin Lugert on Unsplash
On survival and leadership. Western leaders are transfixed with growth – yet at what cost when profit trumps people and planet – yes?
Leaders say ‘not so’. We achieve high performance by focussing on our people.
Then we insource people development to Human Resources, shaping people into functions and levels where managers feel not so empowered to empower individuals.
As individuals battle the trickle-down system we’ve created, burn out or death is nature’s way of telling leaders to change.
COVID-19 is ripe with opportunity to take a more systemic approach. Three axioms are relevant:
Survival precedes growth:
– knowing what’s essential for survival and what’s not, precedes any risk assessment and feeds resilience and long-term sustainability.
Agility precedes sustainability:
– leaders make intentions and individual power explicit for people to respond quickly to changing needs.
Viability precedes agility
– leading a living enterprise without knowing what gives it life and keeps it alive is like doing brain surgery without knowing medicine.
Is COVID-19 the test our organisations have to have?
It’s a time to focus on viability and survival – the essence of growth.
#ThisCentury #lean #agile #leadership #strategy #execution #governance #systemsthinking #change #culture