Sunday, 16 November 2014

21st Century Leaders List

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‘Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.’ –Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Laureate.
Who are the 21st century leaders?
Where can we find them?
The premise–stated or unstated–is that there’s a leadership gap today.
Who can argue against the spectacular failures of leadership in large institutions? They range from the White House and Congress (whether in the hands of the Democrats or Republicans); to Wall Street and back around to Main Street; in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors (including religious institutions); around the world.
It’s easy–perhaps too easy–to find reason for disappointment.  And yet… there is also reason for optimism.
It’s often said that these are among the worst of times for leadership… it’s also, arguably, the best of times.
This list is updated quarterly. Please send your suggestions of other inspiring 21st century leaders.

What is 21st Century Leadership?

Serve to Lead is a manual for 21st century leadership effectiveness. It includes a working definition of 21st century leadership, as well as a comparison between 21st century leadership with 20th century leadership. The book offers 21st century leadership principles, linking theory and practice.
To be sure, many individuals in high leadership positions today are falling far short of the standards demanded by the level of events. And yet, many others are achieving unprecedented levels of service in unexpected, non-traditional settings.

21st Century Leaders in Business and Finance

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New Faces of 21st Century Business.
To an extent not seen since the dawn of the 2oth century, business and finance is outpacing and displacing the nation-state as a driver of work and life. Where U.S. Steel had a larger capitalization than the entire U.S. federal government budget in 1901, now a number of companies have greater resources than many nations.
Among the 21st century leaders:
–Jeff Bezos.  Amazon.com is cutting a swathe across the realm of retail, from books to groceries to clothing to electronics. Bezos has now moved into Washington, D.C., purchasing the Washington Post from the Graham family. Is he playing corporate defense–or preparing to disrupt American politics?
–Sir Richard Branson.  Branson brings together business and art and life. His entrepreneurial ardor renders the Virgin brand a worldwide phenomenon. His joie de vivre is an infectious inspiration. Branson’s mantra–“Screw it, just do it!”–encapsulates a universal can-do spirit of action, action, action.
–Bill Gates.  His contributions go well beyond helping set off the creative destruction of the Information Age—though, that alone is a spectacular achievement. He has moved his numbers-driven approach into the not-for-profit sphere, where, along with his wife Melinda, he is triggering additional, overdue, disruptive change.
–Tony Hsieh.  Hsieh’s entrepreneurial effectiveness in Zappos has become a model of customer service through employee engagement. Now he has set his sights on re-imagining central city Las Vegas as a diversified entrepot.
–Carl Icahn.  Robert A.G. Monks, guru of corporate governance reform, declares that legendary financier “Carl Icahn deserves the Nobel Prize” for his leadership of hedge funds into corporate governance reform. Jim Cramer calls Icahn “the greatest investor in the world.” His reach extends across the range of the economy, and he’s also used his clout to boost NGOs such as the Humane Society.
–Arthur T. Demoulas.  Market Basket CEO Demoulas was ousted by his board. Just another day in the corporate jungle? Decidedly not. Market Basket employees took to the streets, backing their beloved ex-CEO. In the end, Demoulas succeeded in buying out the company, returning as CEO. Will this surprising stakeholder engagement set the tone for management-labor relations in other enterprises?
–Steve Jobs.  He is an archetypal 21st century leader in many aspects. By no means flawless in his interpersonal relations, Jobs is memorable for his capacity to spur innovation and harness it into transformational product lines. His influence is so great that the narrative of the arc of his career has become a bit of a battleground among thought leaders and practitioners seeking to distill lessons from it.
Herb Kelleher.  Corporate lawyer Kelleher has created a dynamic, customer-focused culture at Southwest Airlines. That culture is in sync with the emerging 21st century leadership and management and communications, when customers are empowered as never before to express their wishes or convey their dissatisfaction. Kelleher never accepted commonplace assumptions, such as the widely presumed inevitability of adversarial relations between management and organized labor in the passenger airline space. Now, other organizations are going to school on Kelleher’s works and legacy.
–Elon Musk.  From PayPal to Tesla, Musk has had a key role in disrupting major industries, changing the game for the better. Now he’s taken Tesla to the intersection of the automotive, energy and utility industries, committing to the world’s largest battery factory.
–Alan Mulally might be forgiven for forgetting that the Ford Motor Company was left for dead just a few years ago. To his lasting credit, then-CEO Bill Ford recognized the need for a new kind of leadership–to disrupt the company and the notoriously insular American automobile industry. The Ford scion showed courage in turning to Mulally, whose career had been entirely at Boeing. Little noticed among Mulally’s relevant credits from his Boeing apprenticeship was his learning from effective enterprises outside of his company’s space, such as Toyota. Mulally led Ford to a historic turnaround–symbolized by its standing alone among the Detroit automakers in turning down federal bailout funds in 2009. Mulally represents 21st century leadership in breaking boundaries inside and outside of Ford Motor Company. That includes re-imagining the company as a consumer electronics enterprise.
–Indra Nooyi.  The PepsiCo chairperson and CEO consistently ranks among the top executives in the world. She has led the world’s second-largest food and beverage enterprise in a time of extraordinary change, including the transition to meet rising demand for products that are conducive to healthy living.
–Charles Schwab.  The CEO of his eponymous company helped spark an ongoing revolution in mass finance, beginning in the 1970s. His vision is to empower ordinary investors to take charge of their own financial lives, through access to more information and more products at lower prices through competition. The onward march of technology into the Internet Age has taken this vision ever farther.
–Howard Shultz.  The Starbucks founder and CEO has exhibited resilience and creativity in guiding his company through many challenges. One of the golden threads of his leadership is a relentless focus on the customer experience. From the product offerings to details such as the shape of its tables, Starbucks strives to serve the customer, taking the customer’s point of view. To accomplish that, Shultz has created an exemplary relationship with Starbucks employees. The company’s financial success also demonstrates that a commitment to diversity can be a competitive edge in attracting talent in the 21st century.
–Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg.  Zuckerberg’s public calls for a new kind of corporation–focused on social good and stakeholder engagement–were temporarily drowned out amid the furor over Facebook’s bungled IPO. Now that’s long past. Facebook stock is soaring, and the company is proving its skeptics wrong. Facebook is creating immense value through the power of social media. Will the now-giant enterprise successfully navigate the ongoing evolution of social networks, enabling groups to move beyond information sharing, to redefining and resolving complex problems in creative ways in real-time? Sandberg has leveraged her success at Facebook into a best-selling book on female empowerment in work and life. Will she move into other fields in the coming years?

21st Century Leaders in Politics and Government

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Social media transform personal tragedy into global statement.
From World War I through the end of the Cold War, political and governmental figures would surely top any list of 20th century leaders. What’s notable today is the absence of transformational leadership–or even effective transactional leadership–in politics and government. In the United States and elsewhere, traditional positions of power are, for various reasons, failing to attract and nurture talent.
Instead, 21st century leadership is emerging in alternative ways. As in all eras, in part it is linked to changes in information technology.
Nonetheless, two exemplars of 21st century leadership in politics stand out, each tempered by the cauldron of change underway in the greater Middle Eastern region:
–Mohamed Bouazizi.  The tumult known as the Arab Spring was sparked by the 26-year-old fruit vendor, who set himself afire in suicidal protest against governmental abuses in Tunisia. 21st century communication tools spread his message through the world, sparking courageous action throughout the Arab world in 2011.
–Malala Yousafzai.  A Pakistani schoolgirl was shot in the head and neck at point-blank range by Taliban gunmen. Despite their savagery, Malala’s mind and heart emerged stronger than ever. She inspires people world-wide, including girls seeking education against the odds. 21st century communication tools have accorded unprecedented influence to a teenager who personifies timeless virtues, and is pointing the way to the future.  
If the nation-state is in a malaise–waiting inevitable disruption–subsidiary governmental levels are often moving ahead:
–State of California.  California’s shortcomings in governance are widely known, even notorious. That should not obscure the fact that the Golden State’s governance is world-leading in environment and energy. In a time when the last major United States environmental statutory reform is more than a generation-old–the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990–California’s enduring environmental leadership role looms ever larger.

21st Century Leaders in Non-Governmental Organizations

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Yunus exhibits 21st Century Leadership from the bottom-up, from the outside-in.
–Bill Clinton.  The former American president left office under ethical and legal clouds–and has emerged as a “Comeback Kid” yet again. Whatever one might feel about his presidential record, his work at the Clinton Foundation is setting new standards for post-presidential careers. His organization strives to offer adaptive solutions to social problems, not accepting traditional limitations imposed by outdated boundaries between the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. Will his political legacy be secured by the presidential aspirations of his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?
–Scott Harrison.  The founder of charity: water found a calling: “In 2004, I left the streets of New York City for the shores of West Africa. I’d made my living for years in the Big Apple promoting top nightclubs and fashion events, for the most part living selfishly and arrogantly. Desperately unhappy, I needed to change….What would the opposite of my life look like?” Harrison’s odyssey took him to the poorest parts of the world. He was motivated to help achieve the goal of potable water for everyone on this earth. The organization he founded achieves results by a model of 100% of donations going to into the projects; transparency through social media; and local partners. Harrison has enabled people to serve in tangible ways, in places they might never have imagined they could affect for the better.
–Wendy Kopp.  Through the organization she founded, Teach for America, Wendy Kopp is having a profound influence on American public schools. She has directed the talents of high-achieving college graduates into often neglected classrooms. As with any educational enterprise, there is attendant controversy. What cannot be doubted is that the experience of serving in Teach for America is informing and empowering young people who will carry their first-hand experiences into careers in many sectors. This alone ensures enduring influence.
–Muhammad Yunus.  The Nobel Peace Prize-winning banker, educator, and entrepreneur has pioneered the micro-credit and micro-finance space. His fundamental insight is that many of the people who were viewed as high risks for credit under longstanding lending criteria are, actually, exceptionally promising as entrepreneurs. Yunus was then able to translate his vision into practice. His bottom-up, outside-in perspective, combined with his real-time accomplishments, place him front-and-center as an influential 21st century leader.

 21st Century Leaders in Religion and Popular Culture

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Pope Francis reaching out, touching the future of the 21st century.
–Pope Francis.  The Catholic Church is a non-governmental organization, a political enterprise, and a spiritual enterprise. No matter where one places its primary significance, it’s had a major role in world affairs throughout modern history. Moving into the 21st century, the Church made a strategic decision in selecting Pope Francis. In one person, the new pontiff is the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first from the Southern Hemisphere. In keeping with his Jesuit beliefs, Francis is emerging as “the people’s pope” for our time. He has chosen a manifestly more transparent, non-pretentious approach to the papacy. This includes a less opulent lifestyle than is customary, as well as notable informal interactions with people on the street or in a crowd. This is in keeping with his early emphasis on Catholic teachings relating to economics and finance. Illustrative of his comprehension of 21st century leadership and communications, Francis is active in social media, including 10 million Twitter followers
–Popular Music.  Sir Paul McCartneyBono, and Lady Gaga exemplify the now longstanding and accelerating trend of popular entertainers leveraging celebrity to advance political and social causes.  Sir Mick Jagger, along with other older performers, is also recasting understanding of the contributions of older generations.

21st Century Legacy Leaders

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Mandela | Timeless Leadership Legacy
Some leaders achieve influence beyond space and time. Any list of great leaders–“great” including a positive evaluation of their moral impact–would include Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare and others.
Among 20th century American political figures, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan continue to offer lessons, in new contexts.
Who else would you include in such a list? Who speaks to you from across the divide of other historical times?

Great 21st Century Leaders

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21st Century Leaders on the March
Serve to Lead argues that one of the great changes underway in our time is that Everyone Can Lead–Because–Everyone Can Serve.
If “great” leaders appear to be more scarce than ever, the capacity of  otherwise “ordinary” people to do great things has never been greater. The Internet and social media can leverage far-reaching influence. And they can do so outside of traditional gatekeepers in large institutions.
Where are you finding leadership today? Are you seeing it in large, centralized organizations? Or are you finding it in decentralized settings?
Where do you see the trends heading?
Where are you investing your own resources?
Read more; http://ht.ly/CZurW

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