Traditional leadership models no longer suffice in today's VUCA world—characterised
by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. In these turbulent times, the
ability to adapt, innovate, and collaborate isn't just beneficial—it's essential to embrace
disruptive opportunities. Driven by the acceleration of connectivity and cognitive
technology, including AI and robotics, almost every job is being reinvented, causing
leaders to reconsider how they design roles, organise work (clarify the boundaries
between humans and machines) and grow their businesses for future sustainability.
When executive leaders share responsibility and empower their teams through collective
leadership, they unlock a reservoir of resilience and innovation that no single individual
can achieve alone. The strength of collective leadership lies in its ability to transform
complexity into opportunity. In the face of all types of turbulence, it's a shared vision
and collaborative spirit that will steer executive and senior leadership teams toward
sustainable success. We must move beyond a focus on developing leadership skills and competencies. Developing executives and managers to lead in turbulent times requires
social learning to provide them the opportunity to change their mindset or worldview.
In-person social learning allows for a more holistic understanding and approach to
challenges through open dialogue with peers, enabling mutual learning as participants
leverage their personal experiences and those of their peers within their specific cultural
and political context. Taking a collaborative, in-person approach to leader and
leadership development responds to the critique that leadership practitioners have
focused on behavioural outcomes over cognitive and affective/motivational outcomes,
skill acquisition and competencies over leadership maturation, and individual over
collective outcomes. Practical leader development models, techniques and practices
that are designed to develop collective leadership will be shared.