enabling people & organizations to realise their potential
Reactive Leadership v's serving Purpose: The Enlightened Organization:
I wrote The Enlightened Organization to explain why organizations fail when they lose sight of purpose and develop restricted and reactive leadership behaviours. Wilful blindness is the legal term used to describe this concept. It was invoked to charge senior executives responsible for the failure at Enron.
The book describes, with numerous case studies, the individual, systemic and societal factors that need to be attended to if an organization is to be successful in this ever-evolving and rapidly changing world; and how to attend to them.
When The Enlightened Organization was first published, very few people in business had any real understanding of the relevance of the title. In fact, it describes a compassionate yet absolutely requiring style of leadership that realises potential for one’s organization, one’s people and one’s broader societal context.
The Enlightened Organization defined a style of leadership that is only now becoming familiar. Five years on in 2019, we see evidence of this paradigm shift as follows:
- New books and workshops titled ‘Enlightenment Now’ and ‘Enlightened Enterprise’
- Government regulators requiring organizations to demonstrate purpose and full cultural integration
- With the advent of AI and strong STEM capability, new entrants to the workforce being required to demonstrate complementary skill sets in collaboration and teamwork: titled ‘soft’ and more recently ‘power’ skills
- A societal focus on sustainability and organizations having to move way beyond the CRS tick box compliance, to align on purpose and demonstrate broader community responsibility
- Mental health and wellbeing moving up on the agenda with executive education courses titled ‘Wellbeing or Compassion in the Workplace’, and
- Other splits such as the perceived vacuum in leadership in Western politics and a feeling that democracy is broken and something new and ‘values based’ required
As futurists, organizational pychologists and thought leaders we foresaw and articulated what was to come and offered in ‘The Enlightened Organization’ a methodology to support. Our expertise can now help you to see more clearly the changing context of your business and to develop the strategies and leadership behaviours required to support success.
Reach out if you would like to talk about this concept and its relevance for your organization. We also offer tailored workshops and interventions for you and your leaders on the areas below:
- Thought Leadership to lead your Sector
- Creating and sustaining an Enlightened Organization
- Purposeful Leadership for an Enlightened Organization
- Aligning and embedding Purpose and Values
- Inclusive and Collaborative Leadership