The need for better leadership

Much has been written and debated about the fall of the Roman Empire: the rise of the Barbarians, over spending on the military, over reliance on slaves and corrupt leaders in the senate.  As the empire expanded, leading the empire as Roman Emperor, became a perilous job with 20 men taking the throne in the last 75 years.

As the complexity of an organisation increases we need better, more effective and stronger leadership to steer the organisation to higher levels of maturity.  These higher states require leaders to ensure the interest of all people are taken into consideration and everyone feels part of the onward journey.  We can't be in the situation where the people at the bottom of the structure feel so disillusioned that they will start rebelling against the organisation itself like the Barbarians and the slaves rebelling against Rome.

I believe this is true in all types of organisational structures such as small project structures, large companies or world governments. In a project or company environment, having a clear vision that everyone involved believes in, helps to keep everyone engaged effectively.  However, they also need inspirational leaders that will help them achieve and reach that vision.  Leaders who will make everyone want to participate in assuring the journey has a successful outcome.  This holds true at a government level too and if you look around the world today at the world leaders - how many really inspire you?  How many of the world leaders are in fact divisive and political animals looking after their own welfare?

It is my view, to make our world better in these difficult and changing times we need more effective leaders and more of them.  All organisations should make it one of their priorities to create the next generation of leaders, who are better leaders than us, so that we can continue on our onward and upward journey.