Leadership is a contested term that offers a variety of aspects. In each case, leadership is a crucial factor in politics, economy, and society, especially in times of major transitions and challenges. In this newsletter, you can read some thoughts on this issue:
Leadership as the Basis for a Free, Just, and Sustainable World
What is (good) Leadership?
It is very difficult to define leadership. But it is certainly not a good thing in and of itself. It’s rather like the sea or nuclear fission, it is morally neutral. It can be used for bad things as well as for good.
Direction, protection and order makes things a little bit more predictable for people. That’s why a strong leader who can offer this takes away the fears and the anxieties and also takes away personal responsibility. We want somebody to take responsibility for us. We all, of course, love freedom, but when things become tough, we want somebody to take charge. And if they fail, we need somebody to blame. I’m not saying this is the right thing, but this is human.
How Must Leadership Evolve in the 21st Century?
One keyword stands above everything else: transformation. Technological and digital change in a globalized world must be stuctured. And to do this, leadership in society also has to develop and adapt to this transformation and change. We frequently talk about the state, companies, or organizations and, in my opinion, we often forget about the people behind them. Today the people factor has taken on a new significance.
Andrew Roberts: Social media but also all the various technological advances that are going to be taking place with regards to robotics, cyber, AI, sensors, satellites, and space war are going to make conflict a lot more technologically advanced. Leaders are going to have to keep up with all the changes, which seem to be getting faster and faster. Nonetheless, in the end, it still comes down to how one person can lead a hundred, a thousand or a million, or in China’s case, a thousand million.
Konstantin Korotov: I think the leader of the future should be able to navigate this world of louder, more diverse, and more divergent voices, and probably still find something that can bring us together in a society or in an organization and allow us to focus on the common understanding of what is good. We may disagree on many things, but we still need to agree on something, and that’s exactly the role of the leaders in the future.
Leadership in Democracy
Leadership has always factored into democracy […] One person, one vote is at least one formulation of who runs the show in a democracy. And yes, there is representative democracy which generates leader figures who represent groups within the democracy. But the idea that each of us has some say means that the leadership model for a democracy involves the individual. And however many individuals the society comprises, those individuals have a role to play in leadership.
How Can We Learn Leadership?
Leigh Hafrey: You can teach ethical leadership. It’s not that you need to change an adult’s mindset. It’s not that you need to change the moral compass. You need to make that person aware that we share certain things and at the same time share significant differences. Getting along with one another is about negotiating between individual autonomy and collective security and turning that into productive relations. I don’t think you’re changing the compass. You are simply indicating how much flexibility it gives the compass holder.
Konstantin Korotov: We probably need to believe that the systems allow people to learn leadership. And that probably involves people like me, for example, business school professors.
Anna-Maria Karl: In my view, an engagement with humanistic topics provides exactly the right foundation for developing empowerment. Nowadays, we need skills that enable us to deal with the unknown. This kind of thinking beyond the obvious is easier to achieve if we are also familiar with philosophy and the ancient world, if we not only have a goal-oriented knowledge of our sometimes atomized specialist field, but can also develop skills relevant to society and its culture.