The legitimation of leadership is historically founded on adherence to a well-defined axiological system, and the figure of the leader has traditionally been a clear reflection of the group’s culture. In today’s rapidly evolving world, however, values tend to become confused with and distorted by technology, which has for decades now determined the pace of change in an apparently exogenous manner.
In political and social spheres, both the technology factor and the decline of meta-narratives have contributed to a shortage of intermediaries, depriving the electoral base of directly accessible interlocutors and engendering mistrust, delegitimization, the reduction of ideologies to story-telling and, finally, a crisis of leadership. In economic-corporate spheres, technology has called values into question as well as even the advisability of human action, fueling fear and reactionism. Thus, to modern leadership falls the general task of responding to the major issues of meaning and significance of this era.
As much as the concept of leadership is in many ways situational, it is in any case possible to distinguish the fundamental features of the leader. Beginning with the more concrete aspects: leadership is founded on skills and necessarily requires the achievements of impactful results. To that end, the leader must be able to set priorities, select the components of the group and organize operational strategies. As for more strictly human qualities, in exercising their authority, leaders must be capable of motivating and inspiring trust, of transmitting the sense of the means and ends pursued and displaying a spirit of service to their collaborators. Underpinning this is strong self-awareness and of a role that calls for the courage to innovate, but also to foresee and steer that innovation, within the limits of possibility.
Leaders must therefore consider technology as a tool to be employed in a reorganization of the productive structure that aims to empower human resources to fully achieve their creative, productive and relational potential. Modern leaders do not ask technology to replace them in the decision-making process, but rather to assist them, be an augmented version of themselves, act as a font of inspiration and research but not of answers: the leader asks of technology that it pose problems, enriching them with a greater quantity of data, but does not resolve them.
In principle, the new generations possess fresh skills by which to make virtuous and beneficial use of technology, and this in and of itself is a radical and inevitable factor of change. It is true that prevailing Western demographics risk inducing young people – and not infrequently those more highly skilled – to model their ambitions on the dominant categories of past generations, thereby slowing the evolution of processes and widening the gap with much more dynamic regions of the world, such as Asia and the Middle East. Hence the need to open a constructive intergenerational dialogue at all social levels that asks young people to take a more proactive approach to reality in terms of respect and spirit of service, strengthened by their skills but also open to encounter and with a desire to innovate not cancel.
The question remains: how to cultivate leadership? As much as this may, with variable results, evoke the historic and fundamental empiricism/innatism dichotomy, it would seem useful as well to recognize the incremental nature of the processes of personal maturation. To that end, if school systems and universities are the indispensable agents in the formation of the skills that in various spheres are the foundation of credible leadership, it is equally important that aspiring leaders seek out differentiated and stimulating professional and personal settings that offer the possibility of both peer and intergenerational dialogue and encounter.
In conclusion, going back to the theme of values: authentic leadership is necessarily based on the values that generate community and maintain unity. Thus, in a world whose values appear distorted and confused, it is up to the leaders of the future to redefine them and advance them with new determination.