The Future of Leadership
As I am transitioning into a new leadership position, I am confronted with the higher truths of leadership and how they unfold within an entrepreneurial orientation and, further, a humane entrepreneurial orientation (as found in the theory and practice of Humane Entrepreneurship, or HumEnt).
The Role of Leadership in Organizational Culture
Leadership grasps the critical importance of creating workplace climate and culture, thus determining the state of the Humane Entrepreneurship at any given enterprise. Since performance is often considered the result of environmental characteristics and an organization’s internal structure and systems, we must look to the climate and culture creating mechanisms at play within organizations. Leadership is one of significant, if not total, importance.
Within the examination of leadership, effective leadership most often refers to the “ability of a firm’s top managers to select and apply the ‘correct’ strategic approach or effectively implement an appropriate strategy” (Kim et al. 2018). In motivating employees, or “followers,” to carry out activities determined by leaders, such leadership must provide “desirable rewards for effective performance or undesirable consequences for poor performance” (Hollander 1992). Termed “transactional leadership,” this is typically categorized into “social exchange” (Graen and Uhl-Bien 1995).
Conversely, “transformational leadership” works based on inspiring individuals to “perform at exceptional levels” (Bass 1985). In this case, a leader inspires their followers by creating an ecosystem of similar values, beliefs, and goals, so that followers feel a sense of ownership and commitment to their work.
Connecting to the Human Spirit
Leadership within organizations that are humanely and entrepreneurially orientated serves “more complex and difficult roles than traditional leaders” (El Tarabishy and Sashkin 2006). Within an entrepreneurial spirit, which itself belongs to the principles of innovation, leadership involves discovering new ways to connect with one’s employees. It is this relation that, if successfully fused, can seamlessly generate a culture of efficacy, empathy, progression, innovation, creativity, and determination.
Servant Leadership as the Future
If leaders can be a driving force for organizational performance, we might consider servant leadership as a final solution to our incomplete leadership equation. As Greenleaf (2016) notes:
“The servant-leader is the servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.”
In my understanding of building a workplace climate and culture that is both cyclical and just, servant leadership seems to be the missing, next step in our high-performance puzzle. By engaging with the human spirit and, further, embodying this engagement, leaders become servants to the very people that they seek to guide. Servant leadership can, then, be thought to be the way of the future.