The old paradigm of leadership was much like a pack of lions. There could be only one alpha male, and everyone else was subordinate to this male. There was a clear hierarchy when it came to feeding, with the most important eating first and the least important last. If a member of the pack didn’t abide by the rules, the violator was ostracised from the community. They were left to become either a lone male in search of another pack or ultimately die.
Leadership in the Industrial Age followed a similar model. One CEO at the top was ultimately responsible for all the decisions. The rest of the organisation is subordinate to this one leader. The hierarchy was also much the same. There was fierce competition among the pride members to compete for the alpha male position, with the strongest and most cunning ultimately emerging as the winner. When a team member didn’t follow the rules imposed by the leader, they were fired or, in more subtle ways, invited to leave by making the environment so uncomfortable that the only option was to exit.
The message was quite clear. Either you follow in the leader’s footsteps, or you leave. It was a matter of survival of the fittest in the quest for more power. The winner takes all. The lower down the hierarchy, the less you earned and the less power you had.
It worked well, and a great deal was accomplished using this method. Were it not for the Industrial Age and the invention of management, much of what we have today wouldn’t exist. It made cars, books, education, clothes, furniture, and even money more accessible, making many scarce resources abundant.
A New Paradigm of Leadership
However, the world changed with the advent of the knowledge worker era. Suddenly, information became the most valued asset, and creative thinking the most sought-after resource.
What worked before no longer works. It is becoming increasingly harder to get results from employees with an approach designed for labourers who were expected to follow rules. Do not question anything with quality. The ability to reproduce as many identical objects as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible. Quality in the age of knowledge workers is the ability to produce the most unique, new solution to old problems as fast as possible. Copying what someone else has already done is a recipe for failure, whereas previously it was a recipe for success.
A new paradigm of leadership is needed. A paradigm where an environment for creative thinking and collaboration is possible, where people can produce unique solutions and learn as fast as possible. An environment where the knowledge of the group is more valuable than the knowledge of one individual. Where more of the same was valuable before, now more of what’s new and different is valuable.
The Beehive as a Leadership Model
The new paradigm of leadership can be compared to a beehive. The bee colony is a social species. Its sole purpose is to sustain the environment and the hive, maintaining a balance between nature and the organisms within the hive. The quest is to live in harmony with the environment, rather than overpowering and controlling it. The goal is to benefit from the environment and, in return, give back equally in service, not seeing how much you can take with giving back as little as possible.
The purpose becomes creation, not consumption.
1. The leader as a visionary
In the beehive, the queen bee’s sole responsibility is to produce more bees. She is ultimately responsible for the existence of the colony, as the only bee capable of laying eggs. She can be considered the primary caregiver, with the health of her hive her ultimate goal.
In the age of knowledge workers, the queen bee is not as much the manager in the same sense as the pack of lions; still, rather than the visionary, giving birth to new ideas that will enable the organisation to survive and expand.
In the organisation, the queen bee is the person who is the strongest visionary, not the most dominant personality. It was Steve Jobs of Apple who envisioned making technology accessible to everyone while also making it beautiful. Also, it is the Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google whose aim is to organise the world’s information and make it accessible and usable to everyone. It is Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, with her sleep revolution, Thrive and one of the first media houses to listen to their audience and give them a voice.
The leader is the person with the strongest vision which the followers believe in, not the most dominant, as it was in the lion pack.
2. Chosen by the people
When a queen bee dies, the hive decides who the next queen bee will be, not the queen bee herself. It is a collective vote from the bottom up, not a decision made by the leader at the top.
In the new paradigm of leadership, leaders are selected by the people they serve. The people choose the person they trust the most in the organisation to have their best interest at heart, and can lead them towards a shared vision that everyone believes in.
This implies that each person in the organisation can rise to become the next leader. Where previously leadership development was only available to a select few, everyone should now strive to develop leadership qualities such as responsibility, trust, and respect. Each person in the organisation should ultimately be equally equipped to become a leader when the need arises.
3. Collaboration towards a shared goal
The worker bees tend to the queen bee, knowing that she is the reason for their existence. There is as much benefit to her as there is to each bee in the colony. There is no competition between the bees, with each responsible for a different role within the hive. They work together to sustain the hive’s existence. There are bees cleaning cells. Bees receive and store nectar and honey. Bees collect the nectar and honey. And finally, bees who guard the nest and bees who ventilate the nest. Each bee rotates through each role and can switch between tasks as required by the hive, without any hierarchy.
Each bee contributes to the existence of the hive, working together, not in competition with each other.
In the organisation, this means that silos are broken down and layers of management are removed to create a flat structure, where each person contributes to the shared vision of the organisation by performing services for the greater good of the organisation. No one service is deemed more important than the rest. Everyone realises that each role is needed for the organisation to survive.
4. Self-organising teams
In a hive, the queen bee isn’t responsible for telling the bees what they should be doing or where they should be. When the temperature within the hive rises too high, more worker bees start flapping their wings to cool it down because they sense the need, not because someone has told them to. When more nectar is needed, more worker bees go foraging. The goal of the hive is to remain in equilibrium.
In the organisation, this means teams are empowered to react and respond to the changing needs of the organisation as they arise. Each team member is willing and able to help their colleagues, maintaining a balanced approach. They aren’t restricted by the rules and roles imposed on them. This means that everyone has to make decisions and act in the best interest of the group, without a manager or leader telling them to.
5. Sensing and responding
In a hive, when conditions change, the hive as a whole reacts to the change. When there is a danger, they attack without first waiting for approval from the queen bee or an appointed supervisor. When the hive gets too cold, they sense this and fewer bees flap their wings, servicing the hive in another form without first obtaining permission to change roles.
The hive operates on the principle that the bees who sense disharmony in the environment respond to it. The rest of the hive follows. When there is a danger, the first bee that spots it attacks, knowing that the rest of the hive will follow because every bee shares the same goal: the survival of the colony.
In the organisation, this means that decision-making happens where the decision is required, not at the top. When a team needs more resources, it finds ways to acquire them. When the customer’s needs change, the client-facing person observes and responds to these needs. The rules and products are updated to align with environmental considerations, ensuring a balance between offerings and customer needs is maintained.
This requires that each person has the authority to make decisions. It also means that the group as a whole needs to respond to the change as one, knowing it’s in the best interest of the organisation, not a competition to become the next queen bee.
A New Paradigm In Leadership Is Needed
A new paradigm in leadership is needed —a paradigm where each person in the organisation works together in pursuit of a shared vision, a vision they believe in and choose to contribute to. It requires personal leadership development for everyone in the organisation, not just a select few.
Leadership needs to become a less scarce resource in the age of information. Just like access to cars, education, and books became more accessible resources during the Industrial Age.
