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Embrace Change or Risk Being Left Behind
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An interview with Harvard Professor Dean Williams
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The world is moving so fast and becoming more complex and conflicted each day. With the fast pace of globalization and technological advancement, exercising leadership is harder than ever especially in the vibrant Asian region.
Asia entered the 21st century as an economic superpower and leaders in this part of the world need to be able to perform quicker but effectively to keep up with the rapid change. But how do we do it? What does it take to lead in today’s ever changing world?
Dean Williams who teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School is an authority on adaptive leadership and change, shares his thoughts on these questions. Based at the Center for Public Leadership, Dean is the faculty director of the Global Change Agent executive education program. His leadership courses at Harvard are amongst the most popular and he has received on many occasions, the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and the prestigious “The most influential course” award, as voted by Alumni.
Dean headlines the program, Community Leadership: Leading Change for Organizational Renewal which will be held at Sunway University on October 24-26, 2016. Here, he shares his viewpoints on the nature of leadership then and now, becoming a global change agent, leadership issues facing Asia and how the adaptive leadership framework taught at Harvard can help leaders to survive and progress.
In your book, ‘Leadership for a Fractured World’, you posit that “leadership models are still essentially tribal” but needs to shift to a model in which leaders “transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power.” What was the old way of leadership and why should we shift to this new leadership approach? How are certain notions of power and authority changing?
People are fundamentally tribal. We need to be tribal in order to survive. The difference between us and our ancestors is that we belong to multiple tribes—identity groups that provide community and reinforce a particular view of the world. The old ways of leading, that emerge from tribal dynamics, focus on fighting tribal battles, getting people to follow you, or getting people to do what you want done. That model doesn’t make sense anymore. The world is too complex and problems are interdependent. Leaders today must be change agents that can cross boundaries, deal with fractures, and mobilize people to face shared dangers and threats and take advantage of unique and emerging opportunities. That is not an easy thing to do, and therefore we must rethink our notions of leadership and how we develop leaders. Power today is widely distributed, so no single person is “all powerful.” Everyone has some power and can influence complex systems. The leader therefore must think in terms of “acts of leadership”—activities and processes that harness diverse power networks that serve to stimulate problem solving and creative work.
You teach and conduct research on adaptive leadership and change. How did the adaptive leadership framework evolve? Tell us what makes the adaptive leadership so unique (and perhaps more useful and relevant) from so many other leadership approaches and frameworks?
I have been engaged in the development and teaching of the adaptive leadership framework for more than thirty years, ever since I showed up at Harvard as a graduate student. Before graduate school, as a young man, I worked for the Singapore government’s National Productivity Board, responsible for the promotion of leadership development. So I was already in that space of thinking about “What is leadership?” and “How do you develop leaders?” It was clear to me that the prevailing models of leadership had serious flaws as, for the most part, they focused excessively on the traits and characteristics of great men and did not look at context or process. They assumed that with the right talents and style a leader could lead in any context. That is not so. Of course, some traits and characteristics are better than others, but each situation calls for something different. Leaders must be multi-dimensional in style and approach. There are times to be visionary and there are times to focus on the here and now. There are times to express anger and there are times to show compassion. There are times to be tough, and there are times to be soft. The interventions provided by the leader must be appropriate for the adaptive challenge facing the group or community. They must also be culturally appropriate.
I distinguish real leadership from counterfeit leadership. Real leadership focuses on the orchestration of adaptive work—the modification in a group, organization, or community, of people’s values, habits, practices, and priorities. Groups must make “adaptations” in order to survive and progress. The task of real leadership is to simulate learning so that people understand why change is needed and can make informed choices about what they must modify or discard and what they must embrace or invent. The leader cannot dictate what people must learn or do, but they must stimulate and manage the learning process.
What do you believe is the most important leadership issue that those in positions of high authority in Asia are being faced with?
Asia is in a state of dynamic change, and it is not all positive. There are forces beyond anyone’s control that are also shaping the development of Asia—the good, the bad, and the ugly. For that reason, real leadership is more important than ever before. Today, the battle is not with the colonialists nor are they ideological battles. The leadership challenge today is to build “responsive capacity” into the organization or society. People must anticipate change and be able to respond with velocity—with speed and effectiveness. In the past, in Asia, there was a lot of “big man leadership”—an excessive focus on the authority figure or one man to guide people into the future. Leadership today must be widely distributed so that people can sense the changes in the wind and start mobilizing people to tackle messy and complex challenges. You cannot be waiting for the great leader to figure out what the problem is and what needs to be done. That mindset perpetuates unhealthy dependency on authority and weakens the adaptive process.
What “leader” do you personally admire? Why?
That’s a tricky question. I don’t admire any leader. I admire “acts of leadership.” There are moments when people provide outstanding leadership in getting people to face reality and make progress, but a year later or on a different challenge that same person might be providing “counterfeit leadership” and becoming an impediment to progress. It is so difficult for one person to get it right all the time. Of course, in the context of nation building Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew did an amazing job. One of his most important acts of leadership was when he was 70 years old and resigned as Prime Minister. He essentially said that he wasn’t going to be the frontman anymore, but would provide what supportive leadership he could from the background or sidelines. That was a way of reducing dependency on him and building the leadership capacity of others. But let me say this–in business and the social sector, Asia has a lot of talented people. I meet them every day and am very impressed.
Dean is the author of Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges and Leadership for a Fractured World: How to Cross Boundaries, Build Bridges, and Lead Change. He also serves as the faculty chair of the executive education program: Global Change Agents: Leading with Commitment, Creativity and Courage, and runs the World Leaders Project at the Center for Public Leadership. As the Chief Adviser to the President of Madagascar, he helped the President orchestrate a dynamic process of national development. He was also the adviser to the government of East Timor in its early stage of independence. He has consulted and advised numerous companies, governments, and senior executives all over the world on leadership development and organizational change.
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