The Leadership Ecosystem

Most leaders see their organizations as a Hierarchy.

Leaders sit at the top, and everyone else follows commands.

However, is this the best way to build a business?

It doesn't seem to be working if we are being honest.

Burnout is higher than ever - over 80% of employees are experiencing it.

Leaders are demanding employees return to the office... unsuccessfully.

It gets worse though.

Even at societal levels, people are simply giving up.

What are we missing?

We have a broken model.

The Hierarchical model doesn't work.

It failed in the Dark Ages, and it continues to fail today.

When people become Wise to how bad their reality is, they will fight back.

So, what are we to do?

Use a new model!

Instead of looking at a business as a top-down organization, let's look at it as an Ecosystem.

In life, Ecosystems change, adapt, and become what they need to in order to survive and thrive.

Hierarchies crumble because they can't adapt.

The ones at the top require people below them to keep them afloat, and without those people, everything crumbles.

When you think of an Ecosystem, each part of it interacts with all of the other parts.

If one part struggles, then so do the other parts.

As one part grows, so too do the other parts.

If something doesn't work, resources are redirected to what does work.

Leaders rise up based on the demands of the environment.

Whoever is best suited to lead given the circumstances rises to the occasion.

In Hierarchies, people are often chosen not based on who is best suited, but based on who best convinces others "higher up" on their qualifications.

It could work in theory if the people higher up had the capacity to actually understand what was happening in lower rungs.

However, humans are limited.

In reality, Leaders higher up the Hierarchy don't have the time or capacity to actually know what is going on at the lower levels.

Due to the demands of a Hierarchy, the people at the top make decisions they can't comprehend the consequences of.

At the end of the day, the wrong Leaders are chosen for the wrong reasons to make decisions on things they aren't qualified to handle.

No wonder the Hierarchy crumbles.

One of the other things that so many Leaders struggle with in today's world is Innovation, or more recently they call it "Serendipity Of Ideas".

Why is it that so many businesses struggle with this?

Well, one of the reasons is that in a Hierarchy, changes need to make their way up each rung of the Hierarchy until they reach the top.

However, most of the time ideas get squashed, changed, or become forgotten.

The Innovations that organizations seek never reach their way to the top.

Sometimes it comes from fear.

Sometimes it comes from jealousy.

Sometimes it comes from dilution.

As each person adds to the idea, aspects become disconnected from where the idea originated.

At the end of the day, the Hierarchy stagnates and becomes victim to the changes of the world.

However, in an Ecosystem, each part has the power to adapt, change, and grow as needed to continue to Innovate.

As one part of the Ecosystem changes, other parts learn to change in their own ways as well.

As long as each part of the Ecosystem continues to work for the survival of the entirety, the Innovations allow the Ecosystem to grow.

This is how Leaders need to approach the Future, not as a Hierarchy, but as an Evolving Ecosystem.

If we destroy an Ecosystem for the sake of a Hierarchy, we will only create more problems that lead to our destruction.

Look at the state of the world, it's worse than it's ever been for this very reason.

The key to success is to understand Ecosystems, understand Evolution, and understand that Leadership is an aspect of this reality.