Why New Types of Leaders are Needed in Business and Government

Organizations, businesses and nations can't function well when there isn't enough diversity of thought, various backgrounds that provide new ways of thinking about long stalemated issues. For example if we take current politics there are fundamentally differences between those who gravitate toward politics and those who don't creating self-selection for national leadership. Sometimes the very nature of politics attracts some personalities and leaves others behind and that can have a detrimental effect on long term business or government performance. 

We might also find that some people are groomed to be executives/government leaders more than others but that there are times when opening the leadership halls to new people provides more connection to the populace/working population and in turn new ideas that can be used to solve old problems. While we think of leaders as pedigree alpha (old world view) they often come with enhanced resources, educational background, and similarities among each other that gives them increased opportunities that are not always reflected in their skills. 

We shouldn't confused leadership ability and having all the right support and background to make success easy (Its the argument of who is more capable. The single mother who gets through school or the lady from a wealthy family who had everything provided. One has been socialized to success and the other earned it through the hard knocks of life.). Typically in history it is the second tier leaders that accomplish great things because they think different, have the right characteristics and understand enough of the senior world to accomplish important goals.

Sometimes our leaders (business and government) are really good and sometimes they are not so great. As with all management teams we sometimes need to sift through new blood to ensure new ideas are bubbling upwards. We only need to look at some of the dicey politics or stagnant companies to find that perhaps new leaders are sometimes needed. New ideas, thoughts, and perspectives break stalemates.

Research helps us understand that effective teams have some levels of the following characteristics (Kozlowski, & Ilgen, 2006):

cognitive: unit-team climate, team mental models, and transactive

motivational: team cohesion, team efficacy, and potency

behavioral team competencies, functions, and regulatory mechanisms

What the study does say is that there is science to leadership teams. It is an emerging field with new information but it is possible to understand. What I can say is that if these backgrounds are either too similar or they are socialized into a particular way of looking it may damage long term prospects of the nation if new ideas are not being generated or silence quickly. We aren't talking about the combative personality but the questioning personality that comes from a different grain that should be entered through the gates of the "interconnected". 

Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2006). Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7(3), 77–124. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2006.00030.x