Life is unpredictable and change is an iron law of life. Leadership is one of the processes human groups generate in response to change and one of the processes that creates change. But how can leadership be effective if people naturally tend to resist change and if things are changing so rapidly and so profoundly that it’s hard enough just trying to figure out what’s going on?
The frantic pace of change in our technologized, computerized world is one of the most difficult problems facing leaders in all sorts of groups and organizations. How can leaders help their groups solve problems if those problems keep changing from day to day?
Nine or ten generations ago, tradition was as strong a force as change, and people mostly grew up to be whatever their parents had been. Nowadays no generation faces the same problems or circumstances as their parents, and a generation gap seems built in to contemporary history even when the generations get along fairly well.
At the same time, all our social organizations were built to solve yesterday’s problems, not necessarily today’s or tomorrow’s. In our educational institutions, which are supposed to prepare leaders for the future, all we can really hope to teach most of the time are the lessons of the past. Nevertheless, education is still the key to leadership for the future.
Not necessarily just the kind of formal education that takes place in schools during youth, but the kind of education that continues throughout the life cycle. That kind of education is based on curiosity and recognition of problems needing innovative solutions. It’s also based on flexibility of character and a willingness to break old habits and look for new answers to new dilemmas.
When it comes to effective leadership, old dogs have got to keep learning new tricks, or their followers won’t keep following.
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