In a recent recent blog post I touched on the idea of moving from Force to Flow, from 20th-Century to 21st-Century thinking.
This is incredibly important to me personally as it is totally aligned with my personal purpose:
“To help create a smooth transition from old paradigms to new ways of being in the world.”
Which translates to working towards social and organisational change through my writing, speaking and consultancy – helping organisations to make the change and become 21st Century Leaders by choosing empowerment over control.
Reinventing Work
Reinventing Work is about creating self-managing teams, and giving people the power and autonomy to work on their own initiative towards their organisation’s goals. As part of this there’s a local initiative I’m involved with called Reinventing Work: Bristol that sprung from a series of RSA sponsored events.
The concept is actually nothing new. It’s something I’ve practised throughout most of my career, either by making my own decisions on what needed to be done and acting autonomously, or by giving my teams the freedom work in the ways that best suited them.
And as a leader I was always more inclined to coach rather than manage. [In fact, I was recently asked to write a book on management but I declined, telling them, “I’ve never managed anything in my life, not even when I had the word ‘manager’ in my job title.”]
The Rabbit Hole
What’s fascinating is to observe it in action and see the tension between intention and actions. We find it so hard to let go of control and really give our teams the freedom to be able to act in a fully autonomous way. Leaders want to empower their teams but just can’t let go of control.
Self-management is giving people the freedom to do things HOW they choose; but to really feel empowered they need autonomy. Autonomy gives them the much bigger freedom of choosing WHAT they do. That’s a very different ballgame.
How do we as leaders empower our people to that extent? How far down the rabbit hole are we prepared to go?
Autonomy: An Essential 21st Century Skill
When I talk about 21st Century Leadership, it is all about building empowered teams.
Technology and markets are changing at an exponential rate and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for leaders to keep up.
If they insist on knowing everything that’s going on and making all the decisions they will slow the process, lose competitive advantage and – most importantly – suck all the energy and enthusiasm out of their teams. Leaders simply must entrust their people to make quick decisions, to innovate, and to co-create products and solutions as opportunites emerge.
The alternative is to try to hang on, riding the runaway train of command and control until it crashes off the rails.
It’s time to jump!
If you’re a visionary leader and want to build an organisation fit for the 21st Century, take the next step.
There are Reinventing Work chapters in cities around the globe. Follow the Reinventing Work LinkedIn page to find out more: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reinventingwork
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