In her keynote on leadership in complex times, Professor Karen Wouters explores this body of research in greater depth. Not to walk organizations through a long list of theories, but to show why traditional leadership models no longer suffice. More importantly, she offers organizations a shared language and a practical framework that can help them develop a form of leadership that does work in these complex times.
The world is changing, and so is leadership
To understand leadership today, we first need to look at how our thinking about leadership has evolved. During the Industrial Revolution, for example, organizations sought efficiency and predictability. Leadership was therefore associated with traits or behaviors that could deliver immediate success. Later, as globalization expanded and technological change accelerated, models such as charismatic or transformational leadership provided valuable insights. But as Professor Wouters points out in her keynote, these models fall short when organizations are confronted with challenges that have no clear solution.
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Complex challenges cannot simply be managed away
Issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, and geopolitical uncertainty cannot simply be solved by introducing new procedures, tightening control, or bringing in an external expert. Yet, research on adaptive leadership shows that leaders often try to tackle these challenges in exactly that way. In an attempt to make these challenges more manageable, they try to simplify them.
Although this reaction is quite understandable, it is far from harmless, as Professor Wouters explains in her keynote: “To effectively address complex challenges, you have to resist the urge to oversimplify reality and instead create space where different perspectives can exist side by side.”
Moving beyond the myth of the lone leader at the top
Research increasingly highlights the importance of shared or collective leadership. This does not mean that hierarchy disappears, but rather that leadership is no longer concentrated in a single role or position. For organizations, this shift has important implications.
Professor Wouters explores this further in her keynote and leaves little room for doubt: “However tempting it may be to fall back on authoritarian leadership in times of uncertainty, twenty years of research show that organizations that deliberately develop shared leadership perform better, both at the team and organizational level.”
Rethinking how we develop leadership
So how can organizations break this deeply ingrained reflex? The answer lies in a different approach to leadership development, one that goes far beyond simply training skills. As Professor Wouters explains: “We need to help people look differently at themselves, at their role, and at the complexity of the world they work in. And that can only be done if organizations are willing to make time and space for sensemaking.
In her keynote, Professor Wouters offers a well-grounded framework and a shared language that help organizations engage in conversations they too often avoid today: conversations about complexity, about power and responsibility, and about who takes on leadership and why. Her keynote does not promise the ultimate solution, but it helps organizations ask the right questions. And in today’s complex world, that is precisely what makes the difference.
