Leadership for the internet age.

We often talk about leadership in the same way we discuss pornography. We cannot provide an accurate definition, but when we see it, we know. I spend most of my career attempting to be a leader. I served under people with different leadership styles and abilities during that time. Each experience has informed my leadership and taught me lessons for my next role. I have been reflecting on my leadership for some time and want to discuss the subject this week.

I am part of the generational cohort known as Generation X. We are the middle child sandwiched between the Boomers, often our parents, and Millennials, our cousins and children. I am also aware that this description of my generation is a gross exaggeration, but it will suffice for this blog post. Generation X was the last generation to grow up before the internet in the 1980s. My first experience with this transformative technology was the Prodigy service, which required a 2600 Baud model for the best performance. Today, speeds like that would cause rebellions among online users. Prodigy had thousands of chat boards, live coverage of the international Chess Championship with Gary Kasparov, plenty of fan fiction, and a place for people into role-playing games to gather. It was a magical place with people worldwide coming together to say hello. It would preview the frenzy that would follow when America Online became popular.

At the time, we did not understand that this new media of the internet would slowly replace old print news, radio, and television media. As a college undergraduate, I received my training in old media. Luckily, those skills would translate into the Internet age, and I used my background to burnish my technology skills. Print media's typography and graphics helped me assemble visually pleasing web pages. Radio helped me become more comfortable speaking on microphones and telling stories with my voice and music. Finally, I learned to work in a newsroom as a reporter. It instilled a healthy dose of skepticism and taught me the importance of deadlines. Old media gave me plenty of lessons that would serve me well in the world of technology.

In many respects, today's internet environment is like the old media environment of my undergraduate days. It is just more competitive, fragmented, and desperate. Individual contributors from around the world are competing with corporate media organizations. People selling artisanal products like soap compete with Fortune 500 companies like Proctor and Gamble. Writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, and ordinary people are clamoring for attention, hoping to go viral and achieve fame or fortune. It is Lyotard's Postmodern condition writ large.

What does all this history have to do with leadership in a corporate environment? The feudal organization of corporate offices, optimized for economies of scale, struggles under the weight of media fragmentation and increased competition, thanks to the internet. It also means that many business leaders who have come up over the last thirty years lack the skills to lead teams in this new environment.

The global economy in the Internet age is about resilience and responding to change. It is in sharp contrast to the enforcing process and compliance mindset that rewarded many leaders with promotions. Thus, they falter when they have to shift their mindset to accommodate innovation and create resilient structures instead of efficiency. These people struggle with ambiguity and micromanaging and are terrified of creativity because they spend most of their careers maintaining a status quo. For someone trained in creative arts and working in a newsroom, it created biblical frustration.

It is why I joined the Agile Reformation. Instead of gossiping, developers and business people would interact with each other. Quantitative data would replace opinions about what to do next. A social compact would exist between the people doing the work and those paying the bills. Products would be more efficient and more resilient. It was slightly romantic, but everyone knew the old way of doing software and business solutions was not working.

It means that we need new types of leaders in the business world. People willing to take calculated risks. Individuals who will practice Radical Candor, Intention Based Leadership, and Servant Leadership. People who understand microtribes and that generating passion within a community is a better path to profits than bland approaches to business. It makes room for misfits and innovators and gives them tools to succeed and fail.

I have witnessed this evolution in the business environment throughout my career. Unfortunately, inertia has stood in the way of these changes, and we see this in much of the debate about returning to the office. It is frustrating and feels like rolling a boulder up a large hill. Numerous organizations, unwilling to adapt to change, lost millions in shareholder value, vindicating my warnings over time.

Leadership today must focus on resilience, changes, and innovation, and it is a very different mindset from keeping the lights on and extracting maximum shareholder value. Quantifying this kind of leadership is difficult, but you will know when you see it.

Until next time.