Leadership in crisis – Part 1: The context

We live in turbulent times, the world is unpredictable, divided and increasingly volatile. This backdrop creates a real challenge for leaders across the board in terms of how to respond, aggravated by, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer (2024) institutions and leaders experiencing historically low levels of trust.

Commercial organisations have a pivotal societal role, providing employment, community and purpose for billions globally and stoking the engine for innovation and economic growth. Over decades I have experienced and observed a myriad of organisational cultures as companies grapple with setting direction and persuading others to follow with enthusiasm, whilst delivering profits and shareholder return.

The engagement equation of Happy Staff = Happy customers = Commercial Success, as brilliantly laid out by Gurnek Bains in Meaning Inc, sustains, though I would suggest has become more complex in terms of understanding what constitutes a happy workforce. You only have to float a view about flexible working on social media to unleash passionate and conflicting perspectives.

Perhaps we can agree that how organisations are led really matters, leaders set the cultural tone and arguably their job has never been harder.

The rest is history

I thought it was worth reflecting on some of the significant developments in leadership theory over the last 100 years or so, with the caveat that this is not an exhaustive list.

At the beginning of the 20th century, scientific management, dubbed Taylorism was very much in fashion and described humans as cogs in the machine. This was further systemised by Henry Ford in the mass production of the model T Ford.

Both were rooted in the principles of process management rather than leadership per se, which arguably began with Trait Theory originating in Carlyle’s Great Man Theory and expanded on by Stogdill. This theory advocated that certain individuals possess traits that make them natural leaders i.e. leaders are born not made.

Behavioural Leadership Theory then began to suggest that the way you behave, not simply your personality, determined your impact as a leader – alternative styles started to be codified e.g. Autocratic, Democratic, and Laissez-faire as identified by Lewin.

Hersey and Blanchard developed the principle that there was not one best way to lead but that leaders needed to flex according to the situation and team capability coining the phrase Situational leadership.

Somewhat turning things on their head Servant Leadership when Greenleaf theorised that the leader is in service of helping others to reach their full potential.

James Downtown first coined the phrase Transformational Leadership which encouraged leaders to inspire teams into exceptional performance and innovation.

Recently leaders have been encouraged to adopt Authentic Leadership in response to a desire for transparency and engendering trust. This has at times been intertwined with a call for more Inclusive Leadership where the stated aspiration is for all to feel valued. There have been many twists and turns on the journey to now though what stands out to me are the parallels between the evolution of leadership theory and societal shifts, each responding to each other.

So now what?

We are living with relentless uncertainty and a pace of change which requires a multi-faceted response. We need leaders who can navigate the complexity of the context and adapt their behaviour and actions accordingly.

This has been explored over time by some notable experts:

Charles Hampden Turner in Charting the Corporate Mind highlights the principle of strategic dilemmas which hold organisations back and advocates working on a collaborative continuum to resolve them.

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly’s seminal Flow  speaks of achieving a balance between skill and challenge for optimal motivation and performance.

Smith, Lewis and Tushman in HBR argue that leaders need to move from Either/Or to Both And leadership and nurture competing constituencies.

In Ten Years to Midnight, Blair Sheppard describes Paradoxes of Leadership suggesting that leaders need to “dance on both sides of a sword”.

These principles of dilemmas, balance and paradox resonate with our current context in part 2 I will propose a position on the attributes leaders need to successfully navigate such a complex landscape.