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Tom Peters derides the idea of “21st century” leadership, and refuses to think of leadership characteristics or values as anything “new”. In his view, leadership today should be the same as it always was. I have been thinking about this, and as much as I like Tom, I respectfully disagree.
The key difference is that for most of our history, leadership was asserted, and once attained, it was enforced by coercion. Thus, as democratic as we may be these days, we have inherited a heavily rule based institutional culture. And there are still plenty of flesh eaters at the top of this leadership food chain.
Why have we accepted this? Because in the past, leadership and coercion intertwined, and they shared overlapping sets of values. This is what we need to change. We need to reduce the level of coercion that is accepted as a matter of effective leadership, and enhance the engagement between leaders and followers, so that coercion becomes more of a historical anachronism.
It is a new thing, and all due respect to Tom, he is just wrong on this point. But I still like him!
Tags: Leadership