NEWS July 2018 / ARGO news Nr. 26
TIME FOR STRONG LEADERSHIP
What is special about great leaders in the 21th century? Are there strong alternatives to autocrats, demagogues or populists?
Open Minded Leadership – Strengths as out-of-the-box Leadership.
Author: Ron Thoma
In part 1 the superficially successful concepts of our present time and their consequences have been described. Part 2 shows different models of acting and thinking. The „Dunkle Triade“ ( “dark triade”), described in part 1, a bundle of subclinical personality traits of psychopathy, narcissism, and machiavellism, leads to a self-centered, callous manipulative relationship and leadership style.
Photo: Gajus /Adobe Stock
This in itself contained leadership, meaning leadership without openness concerning other points of views and new possibilities, is extremely dangerous in the designed VUCA world. Open Minded Leadership differs fundamentally from this understanding of leadership. Open Minded Leadership treats the I, the YOU and the WE equally. Therefore, communication happens in all directions. Such a three- directed leadership concept doesn`t understand
itself as hierarchal even though there are, as always, different areas of responsibility. Anyway, the attention is not rigidly directed at one direction, but can be explained with a 360 degree all-round view: The view goes to the inside and outside, to the left side and right, up and down. One could say, an Open Minded Leader sees himself and his direct environment as a ball and this in a turn is a larger ball. It acts equally in all directions. This forward-looking, flexible way of leadership can`t be achieved or be kept without multiple relationship skills. It works only thanks to reciprocal interactions which define, form and build the relations to each other and which nourish and develop each other mutually. Modern leaders create such resonant relationships by creating and maintaining a completed and balanced relationship to themselves, their customers, employees, owners, as well as to friends and family.