Agile Leadership for Turbulent Times

Integrating Your Ego, Eco and Intuitive Intelligence

Sharon Olivier, Frederick Hölscher, Colin Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367620967
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000295443
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This thought-provoking and engaging book is for you, whatever your seniority, in the private or public sector – if you are curious about the role and purpose of leadership in a turbulent world.

It will help you become a more agile leader through understanding and integrating your ego, eco and intuitive intelligence. You will gain a deeper understanding of your unique leadership blend through a short diagnostic inventory, bringing insight about your strengths and what may be tripping you up. The book offers tips, ideas and practical suggestions on how to develop your ability to use the three intelligences in order to expand your leadership repertoire. It will help you enable the teams you lead to be more flexible, responsive and autonomous.

The authors have drawn on their vast experience from the boardroom to the shop floor, the classroom and research around the world, to write an easy-to-digest yet ground-breaking book that deals with the root causes of today's twenty-first-century leadership challenges. Its contents are straightforward and widely applicable.

Chapter 1

The quest for agility in a turbulent world

Disruption is the teacher, not the enemy, of agile leaders

A disrupted world

When Frederick was a child, his father told him a story about a river frothing and foaming in full flood during a storm. He described how a huge tree cracked, then snapped under the weight of the water. But the reeds near the riverbank bent and bowed in the torrent, their roots holding them anchored in place. The next day the reeds recovered and stretched themselves up towards the sky, while the remains of the tree were carried away downstream. Perhaps you know this story from Aesop’s fables?

Some leaders try to stand firm against the flood. They believe in ‘tightening the nuts and bolts,’ reinforcing their control until the storm passes. Other leaders are prepared to bend, to flex and to be agile in turbulent times. They seek new connections and contacts and have their antennae out, exploring weak signals of changes in their environment that may provide new opportunities.

The world today is every bit as turbulent as the storm described by Aesop. Leaders and their organisations, must have the ability to respond creatively to unpredictable challenges and opportunities. The need for agility has never been greater.

Looking at the macro picture today, we see three spheres of disruption which are all interdependent: technological, social and natural. All three present both threats and opportunities, and highlight the need for agility in individual and organisational responses.

Technological disruption

Social media, the internet of things (IoT), big data, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and many more technological disruptors are present in our daily lives. Shoshana Zuboff (2019)¹ talks about the emergence of ‘surveillance capitalism’: how personal data has become commoditised by mass surveillance of the internet to the extent that it, together with other elements, like AI, almost replaces human labour as the key asset of businesses. For many organisations and societies, data has become of primary importance. To paraphrase Vladimir Putin² (2017), “The nation that controls artificial intelligence will control the world.” Business ‘as usual’ is gone forever.

The availability of data and advances in AI have accelerated decision-making: sometimes taking it out of the hands of leaders.

These various technological disruptions have a continuing impact on our social and cultural lives. Values are shifting as we learn to reconnect with each other in new ways. Klaus Schwab (2017)³ of the World Economic Forum said, “the Fourth Industrial Revolution brought us to a place where we have to reconsider what it means to be human.” We add to this imperative the need to rethink the place and role of leadership, and leader’s ability to deal with paradoxes in a more agile way.

On the one hand, technology challenges how we work and live together, but on the other hand it is helping: how would we have coped during the coronavirus pandemic without the internet, social media and the IoT?

Social disruption

As well as being affected by technological disruption, social disruption has its own dynamics. A fundamental human paradox that impacts the way we work and our leadership is our human need for belonging and our need for freedom. As human beings we are social animals. We like to feel involved and be part of things and yet we have a strong need for self-expression and self-determination.

While the twentieth century will go down in history as the culmination of the age of liberation and individual expression, the twenty-first century is witnessing the return of a need for belonging and connectedness.

Hence the success of social media and the rise of what has been called Generation C – the connected generation. Information travels far and fast, boosting the development of our collective consciousness.

Another paradox is the tension between human desire for stability and continuity on the one hand, and our need for change and innovation on the other. We have a need to conserve our world, clinging to our traditions and values of the past, and on the other hand we are curious about a new future.

Natural disruption

The consumerist culture that drives the major economies of the world has had an almost irreversible impact on nature. For years we have been observing the consequences of global warming and the over-exploitation of our natural resources. According to IPCC (2014)⁴ scientists and climate change experts say that this will lead to:

• Extremely high temperatures
• Sea levels rising 1–4 feet by 2100
• Ocean acidification affecting marine organisms
• Heavier rainfall, hurricanes, storm and floods
• Melting of snow and ice caps which could release catastrophic levels of methane gases creating run away climate change

Within these crises, another paradox has become a massive focus area in the world today – how to achieve economic prosperity, whilst protecting the planet? The United Nations has rightfully urged countries and businesses of the world to follow the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognise that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection and job opportunities, whilst tackling climate change and environmental protection.

However, it is not only the macro challenges that call for action, but micro phenomena like the invisible Covid-19 virus are also having a significant impact on our macro-economics. As we write, we are in lockdown isolation which makes us deeply aware of the natural disruptions that face us in the twenty-first century.

Perhaps Mother Earth is reacting to the thoughtlessness and lack of consideration of human beings?

COVID-19 has put into vivid focus the vulnerability and the capacity for innovation in our socio-cultural ecosystems. Fear of contamination has put people worldwide into isolation, and surprisingly innovative ways of connecting and working together have emerged. For example, companies that resisted staff working from home for years have changed their policies over a weekend. Now they are discovering that people are more productive working without the constant interruptions of office life. On top of that they are saving travel and accommodation costs and giving Mother Nature a chance to get her breath back! Many organisations are now sensing a need to relook at their leadership approach and competency frameworks as their assumptions about home working, empowerment, trust and collaboration are being fundamentally challenged.

The Managing Director of a technology company we work with explained that he had always insisted on his people working on site in order to monitor their productivity. He was astonished to report that since his team has worked from home, they have had their highest billing month in the history of the company!

Letting go of traditional recipes

In the face of the current uncertainties, most leaders will feel a level of fear – not to do so would be irresponsible. Yet in periods of uncertainty, leaders need curiosity and the confidence to seek new opportunities, explore different solutions and look for positive steps rather than resorting to allocating blame or being frozen into inaction. We describe this curiosity as ‘seeking for diamonds in the dust’ of disruption. This book is written for leaders who are curious: curiosity enables one to find these diamonds and to learn – and learning is essential to leadership.

To paraphrase Einstein,⁵ “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Ego, eco and intuitive leadership intelligence

We believe people are looking for leaders who can shape the future but not get stuck in their own definitions and visions (ego intelligence). They also want leaders who can see and tune into opportunities beyond the ordinary and delight them with extraordinary ideas (intuitive intelligence). And they look for leaders who can listen to and integrate other peoples’ thoughts and ideas, valuing everyone’s contribution (eco intelligence).

Why intelligence? For us (the authors) intelligence refers to our sense-making ability or ability to create meaning and solve problems. We as humans do this differently to other mammals, machines and AI. Our intelligence is impacted by our ego needs and emotions, by our identification with the bigger ecosystems we belong to and the quantum world of which we are part. As humans, we are able to identify and connect with three fundamental ways of making sense of the world which we translate into and link to the three forms of intelligence.

First, our ego intelligence.

The ego shapes our sense of unique identity, boundaries, ethics and separation in the world or workplace (who I am as separate from you).

Our ego includes our self-esteem or self-importance. Many see the ego as selfish; however, our research found that a mature ego (when we are self-aware and able to manage it appropriately) is a good thing.

The ego brings a sense of certainty and right versus wrong, and it enables leaders to set clear boundaries of what to do and how to do it.

This allows them to shape the future and nudge their organisation into action with focus and speed. When used appropriately and constructively in complex organisations, the ego has a valuable role to play in bringing a single-mindedness for shaping the future, overcoming obstacles and ‘making things happen.’ We refer to leaders strong in ego intelligence as Shapers.

Second, our intuitive intelligence. This allows leaders to reach beyond their experience and default programmes into the unseen, non-rational, non-...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Quest for Agility in a Turbulent World
• Chapter 2: Rethinking Leadership: Some Theoretical Underpinning
• Chapter 3: Ego Intelligence: The Shaper
• Chapter 4: Intuitive Intelligence: The Sensor
• Chapter 5: Eco Intelligence: The Integrator
• Chapter 6: The Personal Development Journey
• Chapter 7: Leadership and Cultural Agility
• Chapter 8: Being an Agile Leader – What is Your Blend?
• Appendix: Robert Dilts’ Logical Levels Model for Ego, Eco and Intuitive Leadership
• Index