[12-04-19]

Our future leadership

In Civilekonomen, professor Mats Alvesson and lecturer Göran Nilsson talk about leadership and the expectations we have on leaders today. An interesting expression that they bring up is ”functional stupidity”, which Alvesson describes as a way of limiting your own thinking, staying inside the box and doing things the way everyone else is doing it. He also says that ”this leads (…) to a waste of time and resources and (…) a lacking sense of meaningfulness among coworkers.”

Challenger companies’ hallmark is thinking differently, challenging norms and changing structures. The company’s passion and higher meaning is also crucial for self-driven employees in order for them to have the energy to go on and do it in the right direction. To get stuck in so called “functional stupidity” would slow down the company’s progression and risk getting them back into hierarchical structures.

Göran Nilsson also highlights that risk in the article: ”When we experience how the pace of change is increasing among us, we seek some steady points. It is a natural human reaction. Although the control that an increased examination can be experienced as, is just an illusion. Because it does not make the world less dynamic but often the organization less flexible.”

It is a very important argument that he is making, that the world does not stop spinning just because we stop acting. That is why we mean that the hierarchical structure that is today’s norm will be less and less relevant. In order for companies to be successful in the future, they have to organize themselves differently and we are convinced that challenger leadership is the way forward.

Evelina