The difficulty for most contemporary leaders (and frankly most managers at all levels), is to encourage proactive and positive dissent without feeling threatened by it -- part of the ability to ask the right questions that tend to engender new and creative answers. A wise CEO thus says, "I don't shoot messengers -- that's why I have them."
Clearly, globalism has changed the world of business in all aspects. Gone are the days in which visionary leaders simply set the strategic plan in a well-orchestrated seminar. Instead, leadership becomes an even more all-encompassing and difficult paradigm shift. The modern world is adaptive, and requires individuals who can adapt proactively, positively, and without becoming mired in bureaucracy. The modern leader must certainly be innovative, relatively charismatic, and certainly informed. But that same leader must understand that leadership is not the responsibility of the few, but the many. Dissent should be encouraged in a professional and proactive manner -- not by simply masking the issue or getting rid...
This leader must take the long-term view of situations, work through adversity, and challenge those colleagues and managers within the organization to also take a new look at old ways of doing things, old ideas about products and services, and even old and outmoded ideas about management, and find something that just "might" work better. Above all, the new leader must be dedicated to lifelong learning and encourage others into that mode as well. The old maxim of "the only constant is change," was never truer than for 21st century leaders; and while it may seem a cliche, only those leaders who are adaptive and willing to change will survive.
REFERENCE
Heifetz, R. And Laurie. R. (January-February 1997). The Work of Leadership. Harvard Business
Review. Retrieved from:
http://www.welshconfed.org/companyData/1898/resources/Review%20Heifetz.pdf
