Leadership Roles in Contemporary Leadership
New or contemporary leadership
The leadership pyramid is conceived based on what we understand to constitute new or contemporary leadership. We would call it 21st century leadership, but we still have a long way to go in this century, and who knows what advances await us!
By ‘contemporary leaders’ we mean leaders that can shape the transformation of organizations, as shown in the picture below:
New Leadership Roles
Shaping (drive, agility and anchoring)
With your drive and vision, you inspire people to work in the direction of the desired result. You follow through on progress on the headlines (and on crucial details) and inject more drive where needed. You give people the autonomy they need to find solutions and approaches that respond to challenges in an agile way.
You give structure and stability to the work and the collaboration between people by defining a value-based playing field. Your authenticity and core values shape the structure and boundaries of the field so people understand what is acceptable and expected within the team, department or company and towards customers, suppliers, stakeholders and society.
Inspiring (drive, open-mindedness, sensitivity)
You have a strong drive to realize a vision by translating it into results. This vision includes a clear ‘why’ and a bigger purpose that people find valuable and thus aspire to achieve. However, of equal importance is your desire to build something together with your team; you give people the space to express their ideas and interests.
Your vision is the ‘promised land’ but the way you get there is built on the ideas and vision of your people. You are sensitive to and manage what is important for your team and what is going on below the surface.
Enabling (anchoring, sensitivity, facilitation)
You make things possible! You define and provide a clear playing field wherein people can develop autonomy and mastery. You are sensitive to what is necessary to make people, teams, processes and structures work. This means that you see what is happening below the surface and you know what to do to guide it.
By using the appropriate level of structure and the right methods, you shape productive and meaningful interaction between people, teams and departments.
Co-Creating (agility, open-mindedness, facilitation)
You are confident enough to let go, to try, to move away from analysis paralysis and to trust the process. You bring people together and you give them a clear ambition and playing field and the right amount of structure to co-create the best way to move forward. You accept the solutions others find.
Your worth as a leader is not measured by the amount of problems you solve yourself but by your ability to connect people and guide them to find solutions. You create a culture of ‘let’s try, let’s not be afraid to make a mistake, if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean it was a bad idea.’
