14. Winners and Losers 1: The Leadership Fitness Continuum

                In our last post we discussed the recent London riots and the way in which our media, Prime Minister David Cameron and the justice system all jumped on the bandwagon of calling for drastic action against the perpetrators without proper consideration of its consequences and validity. We stated that this might be expected of society's "winners" - taking the opportunity to keep the "losers" down. This blog develops this thought by way of our Leadership Fitness Continuum.

                Globally Fit Leadership is our term for the best possible leadership that humans are capable of while Diabolical Leadership would be the worst possible. Actual Leadership Fitness represents the quality or fitness level of leadership currently taking place. The gap between actual and globally fit leadership is the room for improvement and that between actual and diabolical leadership the extent to which we should be pleased with the leadership we have!

                                              

                                       Leadership Fitness Continuum

                                    Globally Fit leadership

                                                Room for Improvement

                                    Actual Leadership Fitness

                                                Potential for Decline

                                   Diabolical Leadership

                       One explanation of the current crisis in leadership might be that the fitness level of current leadership is not sufficient to cope with the challenges of the modern environment.  Leadership fitness may have declined in recent times but it may equally be the case that the challenges faced may be much greater so the Globally Fit Leadership goal is much harder to achieve.  The Leadership Fitness Continuum is useful for identifying a number of points for reflection:

                  - What would globally fit leadership look and feel like?
                 -  What would be the outcomes if globally fit leadership were present?
                 -  How fit is your own leadership?

                To close the gap between actual leadership fitness and GFL we need to identify and reduce the MisLeadership that is taking place. It is difficult to stand still so unless we work on our fitness it is likely to decline – perhaps the current leadership crisis is partly due to historic complacency?

                Our next blog considers the importance of these ideas to 'winners' and 'losers'