Leadership and Change

    It is not obvious to those living through a revolution that it is happening. The language and deep understanding of it does not emerge until the revolution has passed and it is studied in retrospect. Still, it is occurring and the only way to persevere through the innovations and change is to do as Kouzes and Posner recommend and “seize the initiative” and “exercise outsight.” 
Duarte and Snyder give a desperately needed, but overly gross simplification of leading in a virtual world. However, for most of us, the changes happening are overwhelming and difficult to keep abreast of, so this brief introduction is a good way to give the bird’s eye view of how leadership theory must evolve to embrace the new culture of technology. Indeed, amidst this revolution, the best one can probably do is to plant seeds of ideas and promote a flexibility and openness to deal with all the unknowns forthcoming.
The potential of technology has truly become mind-boggling. “The top ten jobs that will be in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004. We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes (1.5 X 1018) of unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years. The amount of new technical information is doubling every two years. For students starting a four-year technical or college degree, this means that half of what they learn in the first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. It is predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.” (Fisch, 2007). Things are changing exponentially and our power to influence change has also increased exponentially. It is the beginning of an age we can’t comprehend that has spawned a global movement for humanity with no leader, no ideology, no strategy; unprecedented in human existence (read Blessed Unrest or see http://www.blessedunrest.com/video.html for details about this amazing transpiration).
So, while Duarte and Snyder are timely and correct in their assessment of the technological logistical needs for today’s leader (fund training and IT staff, update computer systems, etc), they overlook how to fulfill the essential character of leadership in an age of technology. A couple of questions left unanswered for me are:

• How do leaders maintain authenticity in a virtual world? And; • When body language accounts for roughly 90% of communication, how do we fill the gap when we work with people via email and phone conferencing?

References: Fisch, Karl. 2007. Did you know: Shift happens – Globalization; information age. Retrieved February 28, 2007 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI- 363A2Q. Hawken, Paul. 2007. Blessed unrest: How the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming. Viking, New York, NY.