Fifth Level Leadership Needed

5. Develop comprehensive solutions for your opportunities that include people, process, and technology

9. Measure results, learn and refine approaches

10. Keep an attitude of experimentation - we do not have "right answers" we have hypotheses to be tested and refined

To address these 3 statements, I have decided to comment on the financial crisis that affects us all and how fifth level leadership coupled with system/integral thinking would have forecasted this crisis and mitigated the severity of it all globally.

What does the future hold? Can we competently forecast the future? The use of trend analysis and scouring the various environments globally will take higher levels of thinking and selfless visions. The current financial crisis has devastated all forecasts, corporately and across all government budgets. Alan Greenspan made an admission that he and the fed did not foresee the impact of securitizing and selling mortgages. No one saw the consequences of the inactions of government regulators, public rating agencies, etc. Alan Greenspan claims ignorance in his statement, “We’re not smart enough as people…. We just cannot see events that far in advance. There are always a lot of people raising issues, and half the time they’re wrong.”

So are these statements just ignorance and the inability to see that far in advance or just greed coupled with selfish egotistical pride and self-righteous? Alan Greenspan and the Fed chose to view these actions with only one lens and only narrow perspectives of self service. If they would have listened to the nay sayers and truly took the view that no one understood the risks of these securitized mortgages using integral and system thinking, the severity may have been avoided or at least mitigated to minimum damage. It has been said that if Alan Greenspan would have taken an integral approach and used risk assessment on a global scale, he may have been able to predict the future. There were numerous warning signs pointed out by futurist and other higher level thinkers in the financial community. Politicians and CEOs with large ego may conscious decisions to ignore these scenarios. Not knowing that you have blind spots, is that you responsibility? I would say yes! One must use higher levels of thinking – critical and system thinking – to acknowledge ones ignorance and blind spots. This takes a selfless and humble approach, which is fifth level leadership. So we could use simple cause and effect analysis to come up with a logical conclusion that our country as well as global environments severely lacks fifth level leadership among the ranks of financial and government institutions. Leadership is driven by selfish egos, pride and greed for power and money. The securitizing of mortgages was a pure choice of greed of money above integral thinking of the consequences that would occur if the mystical cornerstone evaporated into digital fantasy world created by the innovations of financial engineers of these products.

Some say that forecasting and predicting results if only feasible 3 to 4 months out, beyond that is only silly. Is this true? Or do we just not have the ability to think critically enough to take into account the complexity of the global interactions between the developed countries, emerging countries, and environmental disruptions? Will developing more fifth level leaders, which will be able to develop higher levels of integral thinking, create this necessary forecasting wisdom? Scenario planning appears to be increasing in popularity, which requires deep levels of integral thinking and a vey open mind (whole brain thinking – multiple lens/perspective approach).

What else is needed? Fifth level leaders should also be able to humbly listen to all and not be in denial or numb to inactions and undesirable results. Embracing and acting on decisions through PDSA cycles and other tools will facilitate a culture of continual learning and discovery. This will in turn eliminate blind spots and discover further knowledge that was not even known that was not known. It has been said that in the whole of knowledge we know about 1/10 of what we know we know. There is probably another 1/10 to 1/5 that we known that we do not know. So that leaves about 7/10 or 70% of the knowledge that is out there to be discovered that we do not even know exists yet.

So how do we start to get there? It is a journey and not a destination that will take cross-functional and selfless communication. Open discussion with active listening, humility, and no judgment, just civil debate that is respectful – full of conflict and discovery. It is also embracing that there is no right and there is no wrong – there just is. Beliefs and assumptions are the same – they are predicated on what is known at the time to help people understand why something happened, but may not be true at all. A superstition is just a belief so ingrained in a person mind or a culture that it is actual fact. One must have an open enough mind to accept new ideas and concepts, even if they are counter to current beliefs and assumptions. This allows for nimbleness and flexibility in planning and forecasting. As one becomes further enlightened or different scenario develop, one can then go back and change the forecast via reallocating resources and changing direction to support the end goal – the vision. Enlightenment will occur if one travels outside of current circle and embraces conflicting ideas from others. Hubris and ego must be guarded against, because they are barriers to this embracement. One must also accept that uncertainty and ambiguity will be normal companions in this journey. People, communication, technology (to facilitate knowledge transfer), and processes that integrate all of the functions and science together in order to increase the velocity of discovery will be needed for future survival. Remember to be nimble – for it is not the strongest that survive changes in the environments that we all live in, but the ones that are able to adapt and be flexible that survive as well as thrive in the ever-changing world.