It's Time to Leverage the Culture Shift: Necessary Leadership Styles for the 21st Century

Research on Effective Leadership Styles Important research these days is revealing some significant trends in how people are thinking about leadership, the style they want to see in their leaders, and what style is proving to be the most effective in solving today's complex global problems.

Gone are the days where the macho approach is looked up to as the savior of our problems.  That current track record speaks for itself.

Qualities to Move Away From.  "Everywhere, people are frustrated by a world long dominated by codes of male thinking and behavior: Codes of control, aggression and black- and-white thinking that have contributed to many of the problems we face today, from wars and income inequality to reckless risk-taking and scandal."*

Qualities to Embody More of.  Instead, says a growing body of academic and industry research, "senior executives around the world and across industries put qualities such as collaboration, creativity, flexibility, empathy, patience, humility and balance right at the top of the list of crucial leadership characteristics for the future."**

Soft Vs. Hard.  There are those in our culture who still choose to see these qualities as "soft" versus "hard" - they can't embrace them as truly significant to the bottom line of productivity and financial sustainability and growth - they see these qualities as luxuries at best, and perhaps curriculum to be relegated to Human Resources department if at all.

This leads to a tragic sidelining of what is increasingly showing to be more effective in the long run in addressing the fundamental needs of our organizations and markets with their complex, global, and interconnected challenges.  This short-sighted and biased view continues to do damage on multiple layers of our human systems and organizations.  Productivity and engagement are at all-time lows in our country.

In contrast, natural biologists are providing us with powerful examples of how the more relational and collaborative qualities are in fact hard-wired in the natural world to powerful effect.  My last blog post described birch trees and rhododendrons in a symbiotic relationship.

Here's another:  take the barheaded geese, for example.

Learning From Barheaded Geese

It’s estimated that at least 50,000 of them winter in India.  And when summer nears, they undertake the two month 5000 mile migration back to their home in Central Asia.  What makes this trip remarkable is that the route they choose to take every year is the world’s steepest migratory flight—they fly over the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

Amazingly, this route is where the air is thinnest and oxygen level lowest.  What’s more, the thinner air means that less lift is generated when the birds flap their wings, thereby increasing the energy costs of flying by around 30 per cent.  And yet they still fly the same route over the highest place on earth.  Imagine it!

Scientists now find that these geese do not make use of tailwinds or updrafts that could give them a boost up the mountain.  One of the remarkable resources they choose instead to rely upon is teamwork---collaboration.

Drafting.  Geese are famous for utilizing in flight the V-formation which helps reduce individual energy consumption by up to 30%.  Professional cyclists use the same principle that empowers them to sustain high energy and power for endurance races like the Tour de France (over 2000 miles in 21 days).  Drafting.

The whole flock of geese gets over 70% better mileage than if each bird flew solo.  When the lead bird gets weary, it drops back and a new one takes the lead.  As the birds vigorously flap their wings, it creates lift for the bird behind.  These geese actually choose to fly over Mt. Everest at one time rather than breaking up the trip, typically a grueling eight hour marathon.

And in addition, if one of the geese gets too tired or gets injured or sick, two of the other geese shepherd the weaker one back down to the ground and stay with it until it either gets stronger or dies.  Then they rejoin the group or find another group to fly with to complete their migration.

Clearly, there is no physical way these birds could soar over Mt. Everest without this kind of drafting, teamwork, and collaboration.  Forget it!

And yet so many of us individuals, including many organizations that insist on a few at the top within hierarchical structures possessing all the power, continue to assault our Everests ineffectively.

The Qualities That Make A Difference

What social science and organizational effectiveness research is telling us these days is that similarly there is no way we can scale the Mt. Everest-sized global challenges we face without prioritizing and valuing these same qualities:  teamwork, collaboration, empathy, nurturing, loyalty.

The days of the solo leader (or small group of men who conduct the business war games and deals in the backroom), projecting an omnicompetent ability, standing at the top of the hierarchy of power, position, and status, omniscient in wisdom, who has only to speak and command the vision, strategy, and way forward, are gone (or should be gone).

"In the new economy ‘winning’ is becoming a group construct: Masculine traits like aggression and independent trail the feminine values of collaboration and sharing credit. And being loyal (which is feminine) is more valued than being proud (which is masculine), which points to being devoted to the cause rather than one’s self. And that we want our leaders to be more intuitive—(also feminine)—speaks to the lack of many leaders to have the capacity to relate to ordinary people and their points of view."*

We have to intentionalize systems and structures that help us rely on each other, where everyone is empowered to contribute their best strengths, where organizational and team health is seen to be as important as ROI and the financial bottomline, where we mentor others and stand beside them to support their growing development, where we manifest patience and empathy instead of "get it or leave here" attitude, where we employ technicolor instead of black-or-white thinking to our problems.

If we want to soar over our Mt. Everests, we will choose to be more like the barheaded geese.

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* The Athena Doctrine:  How Women (and the Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule the Future, Michael D'Antonio & John Gerzema.

** Gayle Peterson, associate fellow of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and co-director of its Women Transforming Leadership program, "We Don't Need A Hero, We Just Need More Women At the Top" (The Guardian, Nov. 13, 2013)

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If you or someone you know in your organization is looking for keynote speakers or workshop teachers for events in your company, congregation, or association gatherings, I would be happy to come speak on this theme or others like it.  Feel free to email me at greg@gregorypnelson.com.

The Significance of God's Tattoo

When you see the word "tenderness" what do you think of?  Tattoos, right?  Those two words usually go together, don't they? Well, I can't say I typically think of them in the same sentence.  Which probably shows my inadequate understanding about body art as being portrayed by the stereotypical picture of the Hells Angel Harley-storming brute whose tattoos make him look like a modern day pirate with some dark form of the skull and crossbones etched into his bulging biceps.  Not my best mental depiction of tenderness.

And yet ... I have seen some beautiful skin art.  I love asking a tattoo-wearing person if there's a story behind their picture.  There almost always is--a commemoration of someone or something meaningful and significant to them, or a symbol of their sense of purpose in life, or simply a depiction of something they like.  I've heard some evocative and very moving stories from these wearers about how the pictures move them deeply and inspire them regularly.

Which at times tends to end up reminding me of how "tattoos" and "tenderness" are related, even in the divine realm.  Notice this picture:

¹⁴ But you have said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And my Lord has forgotten me.” ¹⁵ But I the LORD say, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, Yet I will not forget you. ¹⁶ See, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; You are continually before Me."  (Isaiah 49)

God is pictured feeling tender love and compassion for her children.  In fact, the word compassion is from the word tenderness.  It literally means "cherishing the fetus in her womb."

Think of how much care a mother gives to the baby she carries inside her.  Once she learns she's pregnant, she immediately makes some lifestyle changes to make sure the child grows in healthy ways--she stops drinking alcohol, eats more fruits and vegetables, stops smoking, tries to reduce unnecessary stress, and the list goes on.  She does all this because she knows that even before the baby is born that child is nursing from her and receiving nourishment on every level.  So she even sings to her baby and speaks words of love and affirmation.

And then once the child is born, tenderness continues.  The same word "compassion" in this text also literally means "to fondle."  I well remember wonderful moments of tenderness when my kids were babies.  One of my favorites was me leaning back on the couch, holding my baby on my chest, and feeling completely relaxed and at peace with that precious bundle of life wrapped in my arms.  It was such a tender moment for me and a place of absolute safety and love for my child.  That fondling expressed a powerful covenant and commitment of value I placed on my baby.

When the mother nurses her baby, her own body is changed and impacted from these acts of love and care--oxytocin is released which tends to increase the mother's sense of wellbeing and happiness.  Studies have shown that even feeding the baby with a bottle (like for fathers or a care-giver who can't breastfeed), if the baby is held with a spirit of tenderness and loving care, releases oxytocin into the system.

So think of all this tenderness, cherishing, compassion, fondling in loving care that the parent feels for her child.  Think of all of this in fact moving and transforming the parent at the same time it's providing increasing confidence and security for the baby.  This mutual, symbiotic relationship is a metaphor for the divine relationship with us.

And then the bible text reveals a stunning reality--to memorialize this tender relationship, God has tattooed our name onto Her hand.  "I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; you are continually before me."

What art display has God drawn on Her hand to depict you me?  Is it a symbol of some kind?  A scene?  A word or few that describe my essence?  Maybe even a cross carved into Her hand with my name on it?  Kind of intriguing to imagine, isn't it.

Whatever the tattoo is, She looks at it often ("continually," says the text).  And every time She looks at the tattoo She's reminded of Her eternal love and tenderness for me.  That's why She has the tattoo.  She can never forget me.  Her divine essence moves and stirs with compassion every time She sees the tattoo and thinks of me.  She never forgets.  Like loving and nurturing parents, She loves me without conditions.  There's nothing I could ever do or not do to eradicate my identity as Her beloved child.  Once a child, always a child, period, forever!

Divine body art.  God's tattoo.  Infinite tenderness.

The french word for tenderness is poignant.  Used in conjunction with les bras ("the arms"), the related verb entendre means "to stretch out one's arms" in a gesture of welcoming love.

Picture it:  God stands with outstretched arms eager to embrace you, hold you, enfold you in Her arms; to cuddle You in safety, longing, and intense compassion.

So next time I hit a moment of discouragement, self doubt, insecurity, uncertainty, loneliness, or weakness, I'm going to try to remember:  my name, my picture, is tattooed on God's hand; at this very moment God is looking at it, thinking of me with absolute tenderness.  And She is holding out Her arms, inviting me into Her holy embrace, that ultimate, eternal place of safety and security where I remember who I am and who God is and how loved and valued I am to Her forever.

And She's got a tattoo to prove it!  I wonder what Her body art about you is like?