The New Normal
and 21st Century
Legacy Leadership
Les Wallace, Ph.D.
2009 BOC Athletic Trainer Regulatory Conference
Our Best Seller…
Right Behind Good to Great
 30 dimensions of Contemporary leadership
 New research on leadership
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 Ten 21st Century Legacy needs
 Gobs of other great stuff
Leading in the 21st Century
We lead in a busy, complex matrix where we can easily…
…mistake busy for successful
…mistake email for human contact
…mistake Google & Wikipedia for intellectual activity
…mistake a job for a life
…mistake position for leadership
…mistake goal achievement for impact
…mistake management for leadership
21C…It’s Different
 Terrorism
 Nuclear
Proliferation
 Economy
 Energy
 Climate Change
 HealthCare
 Regulatory
oversight
 Pandemic
 Generational
mix
 Integrity
21C…It’s Different
Speed: blinding, touching every aspect of life.
Complexity: quantum leap in mix of related forces.
Risk: Upheaval raises threats and risks of “new.”
Change: radical, drastic, quick.
Surprise: hard to imagine—challenging sensibility
and logic.
James Canton, The Extreme Future (2006)
Also: The Meaning of the 21st Century, James Martin (2006)
The New Normal: Virtual

The growth of “on-line coursework” is 20% + per year

Hackers cost the U.S. economy $20 Billion in 2007

Costs from hacking in 2010 is forecast @ $100 billion.

Data security administrator jobs growing at 20% +

Identity theft is up 1000% in the last three years

An Internet terror attack to U.S. is likely w/in next 5 yrs

The “virtual Board meeting” is a growing standard

If I can’t find you in 3-5 clicks—I’m unlikely to find you
The New Normal: Virtual
“The internet is enabling conversations among
human beings that were simply not possible in an
era of mass media.”
“Hyperlinks subvert authority by empowering
every voice with an internet connection.”
“Millions of people now online perceive
companies as little more than quaint legal fictions
that are actively preventing conversations from
taking place.”
The Cluetrain Manifesto (2000)
The New Normal: Virtual
Unfiltered
chat/newsgroup/email/blogs/twitters finding
there way into search engines guarantees
that your constituents daily browsing
experience has a very strong flavor of
individual authorship…
…and in the process has the potential
to undermine everything you’ve done to
build
brand credibility!
The New Normal:
Virtually Transparent
? How many of your organizations have these
available on-line:

Your audited financials?

Your CEO salary?

Your annual budget?

Credentials of your Board ?

Minutes of meetings?

Disciplinary action (generic)

Most recent customer survey results?
The New Normal:
Diversity / Millennials
 One half the world’s population is under 25
 By 2020, new entrants to the workforce will be
dominated by women and minorities—
especially Hispanics.
 How will these changes impact your
organization?
 76 million baby boomers will retire in the next
20 years… and take with them the wisdom of
a generation.
 Millennials appear to want little to do with
management work—and are likely to job hop
every 18-36 months.
Leading in the 21st Century:
From Heroic to Transformational
Some thoughts for the day…
 Legacy
 The Leader in You
 Integrity
 Transformation
 Distributed Leadership
 Focus
 Governance Leadership
Leading in the 21st Century
If the 20th Century taught us anything,
it is to be careful with the concept…
IMPOSSIBLE.
A risk we face is applying old
solutions
to new problems.
May be time to change the conversation
about leadership: to think differently!
Leading in the 21st Century
 Legacy: How capable an organization is
to lead itself versus depend on you!
 Legacy: How well the organization
transforms to stay vibrant, valuable, and
relevant not simply manages change.
 Thinking about legacy requires us to
move beyond short term definitions of
success
 To consider a journey from success to
significance
 Success is accomplishing management
goals…significance is making a
lasting impact
Targeting Your Legacy
Competency
Organizational/
Constituent
Need
Legacy
Passion
C.O.P
Model
Leading in the 21st Century
Leaders help people think in the “future
tense”
Anticipating the future and our value in it is one
of the most critical set of leadership
competencies of our age:
o External awareness
o Strategic thinking
o Innovation
o Entrepreneurship
o Leading transformation
o Leadership vs Management
The Real Work of Leadership
Get out of the Blender
Into the Helicopter
…see ourselves and our organizations from a
distance— and test the moment to moment choices we
make.
“There comes a point in your career when the best way to
figure out how you’re doing is to step back and ask
yourself a few questions. Having all the answers is less
important
than knowing what to ask.”
“What to Ask the Person in the Mirror” HBR 1/07
The person in the mirror?
Leaders are Learners…
…and they have an ethical responsibility to
reflect, assess, and develop. The status quo
is slow death—for organizations and for your
leadership competencies.
What to ask the person in the mirror?







Clarity of Vision and Priorities?
Use of Time—our most important premium resource?
Inclusive Input and Feedback?
Alignment: values, vision, strategy, operations?
Integrity: transparency, values based, honesty?
Leadership Succession Planning?
Thinking Differently? Transforming or Changing
Leaders are Learners
½ of all Fortune 100 CEOs have coaches!
They all have mentors.
Who’s your Coach?
“Talent is overrated…a commitment to
extensive learning and practice is more
important to success than starting talent.”
Tiger Woods, Indra Nooyi, YoYo MAH
George Colvin, Talent is Overrated (2008)
Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (2008)
When’s the last time you invested
in building your leadership game?
Leading in the 21st Century
From “Heroic” to “Transformational”
“ Whereas the heroic manager of the past knew
all, could do all, and could solve every
problem, the post-heroic manager asks how
every problem can be solved in a way that
develops other people’s capacity to handle it.”
Charles Handy
The Age Of Unreason (1990)
Oversight lapses of this Board of
Directors will impact every board for
years to come.
Oversight lapses…
scar this century
 Securities and Exchange Commission
 Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System
 National Credit Union Administration
 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
 United States Department of Treasury
 50 State Bank and Credit Union Regulators
Integrity Beyond Reproach
“30% of U.S. High School kids have stolen from
a store; 64% have cheated on a test (Josephen Institute
2008)
Cheating is profitable:
Baseball--Barry Bonds,
2007 World Series of Poker--Jaime Gold,
NASCA--Darrell Waltrip/Jeff Gordon’s Crew
Chiefs
Celebrity—Martha Stewart
Government—Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich
Religion—Jim Bakker’s “sins of the flesh”
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder




The age of heroic leadership is over
Leaders create ongoing conversations about the future
Leaders help people let go of old models that worked in
the past for new models that better fit the current
environment
What’s the sense of urgency?
Revolution vs Evolution
“Evolution keeps us alive…Revolution keeps
us relevant.”
How many organizational associates do you think
are willing to go on this revolutionary journey with you?
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder





15% are ready to go and wonder what’s taken
you so long to figure it out!
Another 15% are right behind, willing to join in
shortly
30% are slightly wary and will look for signs it’s
safe
25% are comfortable, skeptical, fearful
15% are dinosaurs with walnut brains and the
ice age is upon them! Everett Rodgers, Diffusion of
Innovation (2003)
Gaining Commitment
to Organizational Transformation
 Why are we changing? Or, must change?
Create ongoing conversations about the future.
 What does the destination look like?
Develop several scenarios for consideration.
 How will we get there? Is there a roadmap?
Roadmaps and measurable milestones.
 What’s my role?
Inclusive participation from constituents.
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder
“Change is hard,
it’s hardest on those
caught by surprise.”
Tom Friedman, The World is Flat
How Leaders Reduce the Impact of Surprise:
 Inoculation—ongoing discussion about the future
 Anticipation (scenarios)--“What if?”
 Course Corrections quickly—early warning signs
 Inclusive intelligence—every person a sentinel
 Change leaders at all levels—broad based coalition
Strategic Thinking
Strategic Thinking precedes Strategic Planning
 Challenging Core Business Assumptions
 Stretching / Merging Boundaries
“Our biggest competitor is our own provincial view of
ourselves.”
What will be different about our organization in the
next five years?
Distributed Leadership
“Leaders don’t create followers,
they create other leaders.”
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder
Distributed leadership vs top down




When a team looks to a single person for
rescue or guidance…it’s a risky game
The heroic leader may only see other leaders
around them… the transformational leader
seeks out, develops, and rewards leadership
at all levels
Resiliency and resolve is built
deeper into the bench rather than
with only a few power hitters
Leaders at all levels?
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder
Develop others

Developing others pays some of the greatest
return on investment over other leadership
competencies

A “differentiating” competency… developing
others acts to grow strength as well as
associate confidence in your other leadership
competencies

Private sector managers invest 15-20% of
their
time developing others
U.S. Federal Government managers invest
<5%

Distributed Leadership
Most of us do a great job distributing leadership
to the top 15% of our team.
 How might we better distribute
leadership to the next 35%
 Is there a common energizing vision
throughout your
team/organization?
 2008 Research suggests:
Only 30% of our staff fully engaged
19% are actively disengaged
30% are almost fully engaged
21st Century Leadership
Points to Ponder
Focus on the Vital Few



An overly ambitious, busy set of priorities is a
rookie mistake
Leaders work to whittle down a long list of
priorities and initiatives to the “vital few”
Maybe a “stop doing” list works here.
If you could only work 2 hrs a day
in the next three months,
on what would you focus?
The New Future: Governance
Leadership is not technical competency—
yet that’s what many depend on for
Governance.
The governance model grounded in politics
of our associations is a dangerous model
for credentialing and regulatory
organizations—yet, we are more like that,
than we are a corporate governance
model.
The Real Work of Governance Leadership
 Fiduciary governance ($, quality, integrity) 33%
 Policy and Strategy governance
(standards/planning) 33%
 Generative governance (What If strategic thinking)
33%
A “governance leadership” model is driven by a
culture of inquiry—focusing as much dialogue on
thinking in the “future tense” as possible at every
Governance Leadership
Environmental scanning /
tracking
Strategic Thinking about
transformation
Scenario building
Strategic Plan Review (5 yr)
Innovation / breakthrough
discussion
Benchmarking innovators
Purposeful transparency
Board Leadership
Succession
Organizational leadership
succession
Inclusive customer input
Customer value tracking
(not simply satisfaction)
Annual self-assessment and
development plan
Final Thought from Yogi Berra
“When you come to a fork in the road…
This conference was about exploring
the many forks in the road ahead.
Kudos to the STRATEGIC THINKERS who
conceived this conference and the other
strategic thinkers who presented.
Interesting Books on the Future
Leaders of the future are known less by what they
control and more by what they shape.
James Canton, The Extreme Future (2006)
Richard Chait, et. al., Governance As Leadership (2005)
Jim Collins, How the Mighty Fall (2009)
George Day and Paul Schoemaker, Peripheral Vision (2006)
Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat (2005)
Rick Levine, et al, The Cluetrain Manifesto (2000)
James Martin, The Meaning of the 21st Century (2006)
Mark Penn, Microtrends (2007)
J.L. Petersen, Out of the Blue: Wild Cards and Other Big Future
Surprises (1997)
Peter Schwartz, Inevitable Surprises (2003)
Les Wallace & J. Trinka, A Legacy of 21st Century Leadership
(2007)