In the middle of COP26, Keith Grint asks: “How do we mobilize the population to take responsibility for the planet when their personal contribution might appear to them to be materially irrelevant?” And, what does this have to do with notions about leadership, followership, and systemic change?
Keith Grint explores the collision of uncertainty, perceptions of leadership effectiveness, and decision-making in his latest ILA blog.
In today’s VUCA world, leaders can’t simply “figure things out.” They must depend on colleagues and followers to provide needed information and expertise. To be successful, Ed and Peter Schein argue, leaders must be humble and engage in humble inquiry.
Keith Grint ranges from Shakespeare’s Henry V to tweets from Donald Trump to expose the invisible privilege associated with being tall and the assumption that has long prevailed in human society that greater height correlates with attributions of leadership, particularly among men.
Keith Grint explores the way color — in almost all its formats and embodiments — is deeply implicated in leadership whether in terms of how it’s signified and practiced, how it’s used to create and enforce status and hierarchy, and even how it’s used in certain leadership development models to code capacities.
Democracy expert Matt Qvortrup provides insightful analysis into recent events: “What we saw in Washington, D.C. on the 6th of January was a Putsch egged on by a Demagogue. That is not opinion. It is not hyperbole. It is a strict fact.”
Keith Grint places the events of 6 January in the USA within the historical framework of les enfants perdus. With democracy at stake, can U.S. Republicans become the “heroes of retreat”?
The leadership industry — leadership centers and institutes, leadership programs and courses, leadership teachers and trainers — sells moderation. In fact, sometimes leadership, including leadership that is exceptionally effective, is quite the opposite. Sometimes leaders are excessive.
The striking image of a maskless Donald Trump standing defiantly on the White House balcony on his return from hospital exemplifies the so-called “strong leadership” associated with men and masculinity. Why is the notion of the male strong leader still so influential and persistent?
Given a changed context, academic efforts must increasingly rely on evidence-based, scientific knowledge. To ensure its relevancy, we must also ask: What does it mean anyway? This question becomes even more important as wicked problems increase exponentially in nature, scope, and impact.
“The only thing we know about the future is that we do not know the future.” What implications does that have for leadership and the structures of our organizations, particularly amid rapidly moving crisis? How does this change the relationship between leaders, followers, and the public at large?
Is it not time we stopped asking what leaders and science can do to fight COVID-19 and ask instead what followers should be doing? Accepting that we are facing a complex and unpredictable situation, how do we stop calling for simple solutions, learn to live with uncertainty, and take responsibility for our own actions?
