On the front page of today’s Washington Post, journalists report that the Obama administration will attempt to lift the highly controversial Cuba trade embargo after its forty-seven year existence. Many would say that this is not only a “break-through” but it is a “break-from” an outdated political methodology that over-emphasized tactics of intimidation and covert diplomatic methods. This change is but one indicator that the current political structures at play across the globe are changing. Thomas Friedman, in his book, “The World is Flat,” repeatedly points to this and to other related social, political, and economic changes partially resulting from the globalizing affects due to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. Whether or not we ethically agree with the political and economic changes Friedman is pointing to, we most assuredly cannot dispute that many of them are indeed taking place.
It is my thesis that these changes have not just affected the global political landscape; they have transformed the way we operate in the workplace specifically with regard to power. As a best-practice for most contemporary organizations, the pyramid of power, which locates both decision making and control at the top of the organizational structure, is now being inverted. In this new inverted pyramid, employees are empowered with more autonomy than they previously had and are consequently freed to engage their work in a more effective manner. One only needs to turn their attention to a sample of the most successful organizations within the United States today, such as Google, Southwest Airlines, and Pixar Animation Studios, to witness these best-practices in action. As these practices further cohere within the workplace, a new leader equipped with more appropriate tools and methods is being called upon to lead.
Moving forward I will be blogging about what this new leadership mindset looks like, specifying some of the practices, models and concepts essential to successful leadership today. These practical concepts I will be blogging of, such as; Appreciative Inquiry, Emotional Intelligence, leadership ethics, and performance coaching, are important to practicing leadership effectively today. So stay tuned and please participate as I will be looking forward to hearing your thoughts and reactions on these topics moving forward.
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