1. The New Leadership: Directions
for the 21st century
Dr. Steve F. Foster, MsM professor of
Organizational Behavior (retired)
2. Old ideas but (7) New directions
• Ethical /sustainability leadership
• Diverse leadership/different can be better
• Trust and trustworthiness
• Team leadership/synergy
• Leading change effectively
• Servant leadership and empowerment
• Cross-cultural leadership
3. Ethical Leadership for sustainability
Post- ENRON expectations for accountability
Post-Katrina; BP Oil spill sustainability expectations
Arab Spring democratic expectations
Transparency is expected at all levels
Annual Moh. Ibrihim awards
Social entrepreneurships are multiplying
There is a ‘revolution of rising expectations‘ for ethical
leadership in Government , business, and indeed in all
domestic and trans-national organizations.
4. Leadership Diversity
Examples:
• Africa’s new female political leadership
• Eighteen major ‘Fortune’ firms lead by female
CEOs, e.g: IBM: Ginnie Rometty; Xerox: Ursula
Burns; PepsiCo: Indra Nooij; DuPont: Ellen
Kullman; HP: Meg Whitman; J. Crew: Jenna
Lyons; etc.
• Leadership needs to reflect stakeholder diversity
• Global organizations require global leadership
5. Trust - trustworthiness
• S. R. Covey: ‘Principle-
Centered Leadership’
• Earn others’ trust by:
trusting others, and by
being trustworthy
oneself
• S.R.M. Covey: ‘The Speed
of Trust’
• ‘Trust may require years
to build up, but only
minutes to destroy’
6. Teamwork – Team leadership
• Stephen R. Covey’s ‘effective habits’ Numbers:
4. Think Win-Win and 5. Synergise
• 2 + 2 = 5+ (it’s synergy)
• T-E-A-M – together everyone accomplishes more
• A-L-A (African Leadership Academy, Jo-burg)
7. Leading change effectively
• All changes require proper management, but
important changes require true leadership.
• Effective change leaders ‘walk the talk.’
• Leaders are idea champions/communicators
• People don’t hate change, they hate to BE changed
• Communicating reasons isn’t enough, people need
to know the implications, for them/their families
• Innovative thinking (eg solar-powered internet for
African schools) turned into action
8. Servant Leadership/empowerment
• … creating healthy working
environments (potential) CLIENTS
• … making workers happy -
who go on to make customers
happy … leads to:
• … an inverted organizational
pyramid: top management
serves middle managers, who
serve workers, who deliver
superb client service
• Most people have unrealized
leadership potentials
9. Cross-cultural Leadership
• Major challenges facing organizations, public,
private, governments and NGOs and societies today
are greater than any one firm, or sovereign state,
can address effectively: global markets, epidemics,
economic crises, famines, terrorism, etc.
• Being among the best in sector (eg achieving High
Performance)
• Cross-cultural leadership in business, NGOs, and
governments is essential in the 21st century
10. Guidelines for the ‘new leadership’
• Communicate with/involve everyone
• Everyone can be a source of good ideas
• Explain implications not just reasons
• Expect resistance-manage it with candor
• Demonstrate accountability and openness
• Learn from mistakes, own & others
• Adopt and promote high performance attitudes
• Ask, listen, watch , think and only then decide
• Think and act win-win, give and seek trust
11. Change-Complexity-Uncertainty
Uncertainty
Fast
Moderate Leader
Change
Slow Manager
Administrator Effectiveness
Efficiency
Simple Moderate High Complexity
Complexity
12. Key References
• Covey, S. R. (1991) Principle-Centered Leadership.
• Covey S.M.R. (2008) The Speed of Trust. Free Press
• Galford, R. & Drapeau, A.S. (2003) The Trusted
Leader. Free Press
• House, R.J. et al. (2002) Understanding Cultures &
… Leadership Theories Around the Globe. Journal
of World Business (Spring, 3-10)
• Pink, D.H. (2011) Drive. Canongate Books
• Robbins, S.R. (2008) The Truth about Managing
People. Prentice-Hall
