The Future of Leadership: reframing the unknown

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The Future of Leadership

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A version appeared in: Futures 26, 10, Dec 1994, pp. 1086-1092. bibl.

Abstract Accepting the arguments of Donald Michael's paper (Leadership's shadow: the dilemma of denial. In: Futures 26, 10, Dec 1994), this essay focuses on the need to understand patterns of denial and affirmation as they affect efforts at consensus formation. Leadership is presented as an interface role, orchestrating the exposure to light and shadow, between that which can be communicated (to followers) and that which cannot. The challenge for leadership is portrayed as one of navigating through shifting patterns of affirmation and denial. This challenge is represented in terms of four zones ranging from simple consensus, through situations undermined by unwritten rules, to a zone in which neither assertion nor denial is relevant. The latter is seen as more typical of Eastern approaches to governance. It is argued that complementary patterns of affirmation and denial are essential to the processes of sustainable communities.

The impact of the unacknowledged, the unknown and the unknowable on governance at this time is necessarily not an easy matter to discuss. The contribution of Donald Michael (Leadership's shadow: the dilemma of denial) is of great value in this respect. It succeeds in naming problems which recent years have demonstrated to be of greater importance than the issues on which the international community has vainly attempted to focus. It helps to explain why so many international initiatives have proved so disappointing in comparison with the expectations widely projected onto them. It suggests that the intuitive or irrational rejection of many rational projects may not be without justification. The paper is above all to be praised for venturing into domains that few care to explore and establishing their relevance to the challenges of the times.

In opening up this discussion, Michael necessarily leaves many threads to be explored. The challenge of the paper lies therefore in responding to the 'what then?'. What might prove fruitful in the light of the constraints he indicates? For if dissatisfaction is to be expressed with the paper, it must surely focus on its failure to suggest any way forward - especially since he acknowledges the dilemmas of producing new answers and truths. As 'species' or 'products' these feed into what might be thought of as the 'answer ecology', or even the 'answer economy'. Global society is faced with as many difficulties in attempting to manage these as it faces in the case of the planetary environment and the world economy. As the acclaimed key to such management of conflicting answers, efforts at a global ethic seem to be simplistic caricatures in comparison with the complexity people are forced to acknowledge in the Rio process towards sustainable development or in the GATT Uruguay Round.

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