New Era Leadership: from Heroes to Hosts
Our global society is imprinted with symbolism of heroes. We find them in fairytales, myths, stories, books, movies. Within the story of organizations, we can call them the leaders. When we look on the heroes from the perspective of being above others and see heroes also within ourselves, we can be sure that our story will not be one with happy ending. In order to find the new solutions and cope with the systemic change and profound transformation our world is in, we need to find the new ways of dealing with challenges and complex situation. This is calling for a new view on leadership, much more authentic, with skills as empathic listening, accepting differences and trust. We are stepping into the new paradigm, where everybody is a leader. The triangular pyramid structure where the leader is on the top and the rest are following from below is now turned upside down, where leader is actually serving all the others and everybody is invited to join according to their skills, potentials and strengths. The leader in that case steps from the role of hero into the role of host, creating conditions where each skill and talent can thrive and holding space of trust, support and collaboration. These are also very feminine qualities, so much needed for stepping from story of survival to the story of thriving new society.