16.04.2024
A new vision for 21st century leadership?
A more holistic and compassionate approach to navigate through the reality of an increasingly BANI world, that we’re facing!
In predictable business context a causal management and leadership approach is the way forward. Action is driven by analyzing, planning and responding. Longterm strategies with related objectives are clearly defined and formulated. Action plans, business models and follow-up KPIs derive from there.
In unpredictable and complex business context, like emerging or new markets, during crisis and now in BANI times, an agile management and more holistic and compassionate leadership approach offers a way forward. Action is characterized by probing, sensing and responding. Strategic frames are collectively defined to give direction, objectives -if vaguely defined- serve as landmark only. Balancing technology, professional and personal skills and intuition is crucial.
But what is ‚a more holistic and compassionate approach to leadership‘ and how to pave a path?
Zoom-in:
From VUCA to BANI: What is BANI?
Thinking – Being – Sensing: (Re-)balanced: A path to a more holistic and passionate leadership?
From VUCA to BANI: What is BANI?
FROM VUCA TO BANI
From thriving in turbulent times , the VUCA context
Volatile - Uncertain - Complex - Ambigious
To thriving in disruptive and transformative times, the BANI context
Brittle - Anxious - Non-linear - Incomprehensible
A NEW PARADIGM
In April 2020, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Jamais Cascio, a distinguished Fellow of the Institute for Future, described in an essay titled “Facing the Age of Chaos” a new paradigm:
BANI
Brittle – Anxious – Non-linear – Incomprehensible
An escalation of VUCA (Vulnerable – Uncertain – Complex – Ambigious) fits to match the reality of an increasingly chaotic world.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESPONSE
‘It doesn’t have to be that way. The BANI framework offers a lens through which to see and structure what’s happening in the world. At least at a surface level, the components of the acronym might even hint at opportunities for response: brittleness could be met by resilience and slack; anxiety can be eased by empathy and mindfulness; nonlinearity would need context and flexibility; incomprehensibility asks for transparency and intuition.
These may well be more reactions than solutions, but they suggest the possibility that responses can be found.’
Jamais Casio, “Facing the Age of Chaos”
‘By transitioning to a leader-as-healer approach focusing on being and connecting, we can learn to tolerate the discomfort generated by uncertainty and ambiguity’
Nicholas Janni
Author of Leader as Healer: A new paradigm for 21st-century leadership TheBusinessBookAwards: Book of the year 2023
An insightful book to learn more about leadership skills -in particular- and aspects of our life -in general-
Thinking - Being- Sensing?
A more holistic and compassionate approach to leadership
To rethink a conventional leadership model, moving away from a constant drive towards profit maximization and endless economic growth is paramount to a healthy and sustainable value creation and well-being.
To face the BANI world, decision makers and creative people of today must possess logic, reasoning, discernment and strategic forecasting. However, this traditional analytical and left brain thinking needs to be (re-) balanced with the human capacity of ‘being’ and ‘sensing’ such as being grounded, skilled in mindfulness and deep listening, present, empathetic, able to inspire authentic engagement and collaboration, receptive to insights and innovation and having a clear sense of purpose, mission and service.
Thinking and doing (traditional left brain thinking) are dominant functions in our culture, resulting in a leader-as-executor approach.
According to Nicholas Janni, “our thinking, our feeling and our sensing are now separate, they don’t operate as a coherent unit”. Restoration of a deeper natural state, in which feeling, sensing and thinking operate as a coherent whole, results in a more holistic and compassionate approach to leadership. It embodies ‘mind, body, and wisdom’.
Leader as Healer: A new paradigm for 21st-century leadership