Lynn Olsen, Founder and CEO of Edge Leadership and SME Guest Speaker

Leadership matters; 0ur recognition of its importance is natural and universal.  The study of leadership goes back nearly 5,000 years ago to early Egypt.  Leadership thinkers in societies worldwide have studied and written about leadership’s influence and importance in many domains, including: mythology, politics, warfare, religion, sports, history, literature, the arts, social science, and business.

The late, preeminent, leadership scholar, Bernard Bass, noted that we learn early in life to perceive our leaders as those who safeguard and provide for us in meaningful ways.  As we grow and become socialized, others such as teachers, bosses, and politicians replace our parents as leaders in our lives.  Another esteemed leadership scholar, James MacGregor Burns, wrote that leaders and followers establish mutually agreeable relationships based on common goals.  Leaders provide opportunities and followers provide support.

Change matters, too.  Human institutions are living systems that must balance a degree of structure and order with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances to survive and thrive.  Over time, change in institutions would happen naturally without intervention, but absent beneficial leadership, which Burns described as meaning that leaders have moral intent and work to improve outcomes in service of their followers, such change would often result in entropy and decline. Thus, leadership and change are inextricably linked and both are important to the vitality of human institutions.

So, we know that leadership and change are important matters to social institutions of all types, but why are they particularly important to business? It’s because business is a critical contributor to society; when businesses thrive communities and families also thrive.  When businesses fail communities crumble and families suffer the consequences.  And it’s no secret that today’s business environment is perhaps more challenging than any time in recent history.

That’s why I believe that a particular type of leadership—a concept I developed called Edge Leadership^SM—is necessary to meet the needs of today’s complex and challenging business environment.  Edge Leadership^SM involves the ability of a leader to work with others to mindfully turn around a troubled business or instill significant organizational innovation to sustain and grow a firm. Business leaders must learn, develop, and exercise the means of influential control to achieve the positive changes they desire.

Peter Drucker wrote in 2001, “To know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose.  Its purpose must lie outside of the business itself.  In fact, it must lie in society since business enterprise is an organ of society”.  Those who lead successful firms not only create customers, they provide employment—a critical source of opportunity, economic value, personal security, and a sense of worth for people.

The overriding responsibility of a business leader is to sustain and grow a firm for the benefit of its shareholders, employees, communities, and societies at large.  Unfortunately, there are many instances when leadership has gone lacking, with the resulting business failures causing substantial pain for stakeholders.  Stories of such failures abound in the newspapers, business periodicals, and the popular press.  The stated reasons vary, including: competitive pressures, technology shifts, changing marketplace needs, even personal malfeasance.  In each of these situations, leadership failed its overriding purpose.  Yet, others lead renewals—turnarounds from a state of entropy and decline.  I am particularly focused on understanding what these leaders do.

Gaining and sustaining success continues to become more difficult; the business environment continues to become more complex and harder to manage.  Businesses today face substantial challenges inherent to a social environment that has been rapidly and unremittingly changing in very fundamental ways.  Over four decades ago, Argyris (1967) noted how the converging dynamics of the technology revolution, increasing competition with a resulting profit squeeze, higher costs of marketing, and the unpredictability of consumer demand were creating difficult conditions.  Over the ensuing four decades, increasing globalization based on low-cost air travel; exponential advances in computer and communications technologies; rapidly growing world trade; emergent digital financial systems; new, and flatter organization designs have created even greater challenges for today’s business leaders.  Companies today need leaders who can safely navigate what the leadership author Peter Vaill has termed “permanent white water”.  Companies today need leaders who can lead change according to the needs of the future.  They need leaders with an edge.

In this inaugural SME blog, I have discussed why leadership and change matter so much in today’s business environment.  Now having done that while introducing the concept of Edge Leadership^SM, in future blogs I’ll share more about what I’ve learned through experience and study about what it takes to lead troubled organizations back to health.  Why?  Because the questions about what distinguishes an Edge Leader^SM from others, about how they act, and about how they develop their skills are important to surviving and thriving in our increasingly complex world.

I welcome your comments and shared experiences. Please send your thoughts to:

EdgeLeaders@gmail.com

Dr. Lynn Olsen, Ph.D.

CEO, The Innovation Group | 612.275.1444

Contact us if you’re interested in participating.

When:  Friday, September 18th.  9:00 a.m.  (Immediately following our scheduled monthly event with John Baker of Ready Thinking) 

Where: Doubletree Hotel, St. Louis Park. 394 & Xenia.

What we’ll cover:

•  Get Involved and Grow Your Network – Opportunities to participate in the growth of a great group and meet the type of people you want to meet quickly.
• Learn more about the NEW SME MN Roundtables forming and how you can participate
   

If you can’t make it (we’ll miss you), yet are interested in learning more about these topics, please contact our Membership Chair, Kurt Theriault at 952-217-0403 or email at ktheriault@businessefficacy.com.   I’ll be happy to talk to you one-on-one!