I t is becoming evident that the current leadership models used by many executives today are both obsolete and ineffective, as well as somewhat ‘socially dangerous’. They are simply not in line with the requirements of our brand‑new world in the making. Society has changed dramatically over the past 10 years and the issues that decision-makers are currently facing are quite different from those of yesterday. Leaders are experiencing what some experts call a ‘period of singularity’, characterised by many drastic changes happening very quickly at the same time. The need to reinvent leadership is driven by three major new trends: the growing involvement of artificial intelligence in human affairs (ie the challenge of co-evolution); the uncontrolled role of social networks (ie populism, fake news and demagogy at work); and the critical issues around the need to organise our collective life (ie the imperative to consolidate our mechanisms for social and cultural cohesion). A sociological perspective From a sociological viewpoint, leadership is essentially about the role played by individuals in the invention and selection of those assumptions and values that help people live together. Such societal constructs, whether guided by leaders or not, are dynamic and can shift due to internal or external forces, including the influence of internal change agents (eg inventors), as well as unexpected environmental factors, such as for instance a virus. And here we are again – once more facing a major revolution in our human ways of thinking, evaluating and behaving. Here are three major current leadership challenges to be taken into consideration: • Leadership & cultural management: The ability to master the product of human interactions that have, until now, been spontaneous and unmanaged. The main objective is to produce those assumptions and values that are good for us and avoid the ones that are destructive. • Leadership & self-correcting processes: The need to create and use in our societies ‘self-correcting devices’, ie processes that signal to us what’s right and wrong in the way we live together and help us make the appropriate adjustments. • Leadership & mind expansion: The idea is that the evolution of our society requires a redefinition of the concept of work. Leaders will increasingly be confronted by the challenge of expanding their role in teams, organisations and society at large. They will have to focus more and more not only on the empowerment of people for good performance, but also on the transformation of work into a mind expansion experience. We must ask ourselves: where are the leaders who are going to take on these challenges? Strategic leadership for an uncertain future Strategy is about the future. Traditional approaches to strategic behaviour are being challenged. Are they still worthwhile in the new world that emerged at the end of the last century, a world
In the first of a new trilogy of articles, sociologist Pierre Casse collaborates with philosopher Paul Claudel and economist Maurice Saias on an in-depth discussion of the challenges that today’s leaders face A singular challenge
28 Ambition • ISSUE 3 • 2025
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