Increasing problems posed by climate change, ecological disruptions, diminishing resources (like water and oil), population growth and poverty are rapidly reaching a point where dramatic worldwide changes in priorities are required to forestall global chaos.
The prevailing societal trends of unlimited economic growth and material consumption are not sustainable. Nations and cultures must come to honor one another as part of a global family, regardless of differences in race, religion or nationality. Cooperation among nations will begin to supersede conflict.
Such values and inclinations are now prevalent among those we call leaders (10 to 20 percent of the population)--although they may not achieve a broad base until the challenges reach a critical mass because most people work hard to maintain the status quo.
This coming worldwide shift in values and assumptions/beliefs is part of a broader change that includes far-reaching cultural, economic and political restructuring of society. Such a shift happened in Europe during the Renaissance and also much earlier in ancient Greece. Decay and rebirth are characteristics of all forms of evolution, whether biological or cultural. This time it is happening globally and may occur rapidly---over several decades rather than one or two centuries.
Transformational Leadership
Leading a community, country or business transition through a cultural change is a tough assignment. Getting the people side right can make all the difference. Cultural transitions are times of heightened emotion where perceptions, feelings and hunches trump logic.
Everyone's decision making is emotional, not rational...subconsciously under the control of their emotional brain (limbic system), not their analytical (neocortical) brain. When people make decisions, their decisions are not just about rational data weighing of the pros and cons----perceiving how the world works is all decided emotionally. Emotion is always operating below the surface and people don't recognize how important their feelings are at the time of the decision. That is why it is important for leaders of organizations to be emotionally stable, free from the fear of failure, when making important decisions.
Albert Einstein once said, "We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve."
Transformational leaders know and science has discovered emotionality's deeper purpose: the timeworn mechanisms of emotion allow two human beings to receive the contents of each other's minds. With the Internet available today to more than a billion users, these concerned citizen leaders are now better able both to communicate with one another and to act as a unified force in developed countries.
Situational Intuition
Many leaders mistakenly assume that leadership style is always a function of personality rather than strategic choice. Their leadership style is based upon their innate signature talents and this represents their default leadership behavior. However, leaders can choose a different leadership style that best addresses the demands of a particular situation. Being unaware that we can change our leadership style to match the situation at hand, we unconsciously engage our default behavior. Only when we become aware of something, are we able to make choices as to the action we wish to take. The ultimate leadership responsibility is modeling the behaviors you expect from others. To a large degree, leaders operate in a fishbowl. People are constantly watching the leader--and learning from him or her.Leaders, as all people, make their decisions in an instant based on their gut instincts.
Our intuition is nothing less than pattern recognition in our highly efficient emotional brain--making quick and effortless judgments and taking action. We form positive or negative impressions in a mere "blink" or "thin slice" of time as described in Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller, blink (Little Brown, 2005), which promotes decision concepts around what Gladwell refers to as the adaptive unconscious: "Decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately."
Source: SHIFT: AT THE FRONTIERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Winter 2008-2009