Like the world around us, Leadership has morphed and adjusted to the surrounding story of humanity. The story that is and the story that is projected to be are the drivers of what it means to be a leader. In the past, leadership was more exploratory. The leader went out of the castle and into the unknown. Today, leadership is about building up the castle and waiting for the storms to come and go and come again.
Pandemic leadership you might call it. We are so accustomed to this type of leadership, hunker down, protect ourselves, stay out of trouble type of leadership, that we are often very afraid to leave our bedrooms without layers of protection against man and nature.
This type of leadership is in vogue and even necessary today. Are the disasters coming faster and furious? Perhaps. The more subtle observation is that the disasters are affecting more people today and they are more costly, both in terms of human lives and property.
How did we get here and where are we going? There are plenty of modern prophets making predictions and just as many modern historians with descriptions of our errant past.
All of that is life today. The big challenge I think is finding out what kind of leadership you wish to employ and model. Protect the castle leadership, defensive leadership you might say, or offensive leadership, taking the fight to the fields and the forests.
There is more offensive leadership going on than you might think, but it does not get the coverage that you would wish for. I humbly suggest it is the leadership that is most needed today, because tomorrow our castles may not protect us, but wise leadership will know what to do.
Leaders that have been through the tough times know what to do in all times. I have no insights into how tough 2023 will be or the year after that. I do know one thing for certain, that as long as this planet is still spinning, we will need leaders that are not afraid to leave the castle and take their people with them. You can choose your story even when the story line sounds like the sky is falling all the time and you can choose your leadership style even when it is not in style. We need great leaders today, on both sides of the ball. Can you be both, I don’t know. It will take the greatest kind of leadership to show us if that’s possible. Maybe that is you.