We’re in need of leaders and when I say “we” I am referring to many different societies right around the world. One of the biggest crises that we are facing as a global society today is that of a lack of leadership. We are in serious need of leaders and a next generation of leaders in that.  I am not a political scientist, but the political stage in many countries appears to be lacking direction, diversity and intentionality.  I sense too a growing frustration in younger generations as an increasing percentage absolve themselves from the debates, it’s one of the reasons as to why younger generations are so enamoured . It offers a net new design primitive for societies to be constructed through.

So what does the future hold and how might we solve the situation in which we find ourselves?

In April of this year, 2022, while sitting in an agricultural area near a small town in the south of France drinking wine with a friend’s dad and chatting about philosophy we bridged the topic of leadership and the transfer of knowledge between generations.  James, my friend’s dad, had purchased the bottle that we were drinking ten years earlier on the advance of elderly locals when he moved into his home.  One might argue that it is common knowledge wines get better as they age, but that is not the point that I would like to emphasise. The exchange to zoom in on is how the elderly locals ensured that they passed this lesson on to James when arrived in the area so that he would one day have the knowledge to pass on to the next generation.

I feel that part of the leadership crisis that we are facing in the world today is because we have forgotten the importance of passing information down through different generations. In certain societies this is far more visible that others and there are indeed variations on the extremes ever within local community groups.  Our appreciation and patience for sharing stories, which is a critical part of knowledge gathering and transfer has been deprioritised because we ‘have to focus on the space right in front of us as it requires immediate action’. 

If you’ll allow me to zoom in on Africa for a moment as we are both from countries that occupy the continent. Africa has a missing managers challenge, a generational gap within the organisational chart of many organisations. The through flow and nurturing of the next generation of leader for companies is a gapping hole. Recognising the need to solve this is a massive step in the right direction, but it doesn’t answer the questions of how we got to this point. Part of the reason, there are many complexities, is that knowledge was not transferred through different generations as the business grew. This created context horizon gaps which lead to ability challenges.

Being a solutions thinker and a problem solver with an analytical mind, one of my first instincts is to ask the question of ‘what can we do differently to change and improve the path that we are one?’

As a starting point I think that we need to increase the knowledge that is transferred between generations. We can all learn from one another, which will speed up some of the changes that we need to make. One of the biggest challenges with leadership is that the learnings from the experience of others needs to be implemented with the context the you are now positioned. In my mind this requires leadership partners.

How might we bring the attention of global leaders to the interconnected whole?  We are solving problems in 'our' immediate view. Not addressing the cause as policy changes are continually made ‘in response to’ or ‘in reaction to’. This reactive nature of policy making and decisions is a compounding force that will damage the abilities of future generations to be the best that we can be.  

Everything is connected and bad leadership has ripple effects for years to come… “The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.” Stanley Kunitz

At the end of yesterday’s post, the art of listening to ask better questions, I shared these words from Ursula K Le Guin.

“Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”

As a young thinker I have been listening to the world over the last couple of years. It’s begging for us to learn from the views of different generations and to actively work together on solving this leadership crisis. Energy without knowledge is wasted and knowledge without energy has no value to drive change.