Traditional leadership programmes have a strong ‘management development content’ bias in the hope that by exposing leaders to knowledge and skills, there would be a concomitant change in how these leaders behave on completion of the learning experience – that there would be an impact back at work.
The following ideas about “Next Generation Leadership” were developed in response to a growing need to challenge and redefine what it takes to lead in a globally connected, ever changing and increasingly complex social and business environment. The genesis of these ideas were developed in conversation and collaboration with Tom Cummings[1] and Charles Handy[2] over a 3 year period back in 2005-2007) when we were designing a programme for ‘emerging leaders’, or ‘new leaders’ who were going to participate in an annual global forum which focuses on some of the big questions of our time[3].
Next Generation Leadership – The Guiding Three Hypotheses
In developing our thinking about next generation leadership practices, we have been guided by the following three hypotheses about what we believe next generation leaders need to consider in terms of their own learning and development:
