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Leadership is rarely ever easy and it is
especially not easy when economic
circumstances are as turbulent and unpredictable as they are today. But it is
during such chaotic and tumultuous conditions that leadership is most needed. Research indicates
that people look for leaders and leadership to
provide direction, support, and `sense making'
when situations become overwhelming. It has been noted that conditions in
contemporary organizations are so dynamic that there are a
few instances of déjà vu (experiencing having
been somewhere or in some situation before).
Instead, leaders and their follows are more likely
to experience the opposite or vu jade: We have
never been here before, we don't know who can help
us, and we don't know how to understand or make sense of what is happening to us.
For these reasons, leaders now more than ever before need to be able to handle
extreme complexity in various forms. This does not
mean handling all things alone either. The most challenging issues faced by leaders today are
not easily or even effectively handled alone. They
are simply too complex for any one individual
leader to resolve. For this reason, it is
increasingly necessary for leaders to be able to work with
others in devising solutions to unforeseen and previously not experienced problems. In
this manner, it is imperative that contemporary
leaders in any domain, especially the business
domain, are able to be more collaborative, adaptive,
and resourceful. These are not attributes that are
easily trained or acquired in developing
leadership. Indeed, it may take years of practice
and experience to reach expert levels of
leadership performance.
A sound place to work on the development of these and other leadership capabilities is in
a postgraduate professional program such as an MBA program. Although it is impossible
to prepare leaders who can handle every possible challenge that will be faced, there are
two overarching issues, in particular, that
present chronic, if not acute, challenges to
contemporary business leaders - climate change and ethics.
We will discuss each of these challenges in a
general way and then discuss how the University of Western Australia Business School is
addressing these challenges as part of its MBA curriculum.
Regardless of what one thinks of the scientific evidence with regard to our climate change, it
is, and will continue to be, an important
leadership challenge. This is because, regardless of
whether the planet is heating or not, or the rate of
that change is a cause for worry or not, the
underlying issue regarding climate change is in figuring
ways to use energy more efficiently. This is not just
a cost-savings issue; rather, it is an issue of
long-term sustainability. Reducing carbon
emissions, not only may improve the environment, it will
also result in more efficient extraction, production,
and use of the particular energy source. This will increase the likelihood of passing on more
energy reserves to future generations. There is one
thing about energy - with the exception of wind
and solar power (and the socially charged issue of nuclear power) - and that is, there are
limited reserves for future consumption.
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