New Thinking Requires New Leaders
Cathy is excellent at delivering insights for a new generation of leaders with passion as well as compassion for the needs of individuals, groups and organizations across generations and with the sensitivity needed in today's diverse work force.
The new world of business calls for a fresh kind of leadership, one that is deeply focused on a more positive, collaborative style of entrepreneurial behavior, and which seeks to give associates as well as management the confidence to be creative and to lead change. Leadership must allow people the freedom to maximize their input and thus confidently add value above and beyond their daily output, regardless of whether or not their ideas are successful every time. This is at the core of creating Happy, Healthy Companies.
This level of receptivity to ideas and potential failure is never easy. Research by international consulting firms show that challenging employees to create an environment in which we are never satisfied with whatever success we enjoy at a particular moment in time is one of the most difficult behaviors for leaders to accept. Yet, we know all too well that the potential benefits of positive entrepreneurial behavior can be extremely beneficial to both business and to society. Thanks to the contributions of both local and global entrepreneurial creativity, this is now evident in the breakthrough thinking that is taking shape in the world of microchips, genomics, and biotechnology.
There could never be a worse time for a shortage of positive leadership and entrepreneurial spirit. As corporations are challenged by smaller, more nimble competitors, the thriving organizations of the future, as well as the successful leaders of the future, will be those that thrive on change and never become complacent. Yet, according to a recent study by Accenture, entrepreneurial behavior, in both leaders and followers, is in short supply in the current market and almost two-thirds of the Fortune Global 50 has fallen off the list in the last 25 years.