Celine Schillinger argues for systemic leadership that moves beyond rigid models. She proposes three pathways: freedom to break from entrenched norms, equality to replace hierarchies with networks, and community to build from the bottom up around shared causes.
I'd love to mention system leadership or systemic leadership. I think that's, to me, that's a really, really important line of thought that takes into account a broad perspective of systems and where leadership, how leadership can be impactful in a system where everything is interconnected, where consequences are unknowable, where, but there's one thing you can be sure of is that every action has unintended consequences. And so that kind of, that line of thought is to me really important. And in my own reflection on leadership, I've tried to, to establish, I wouldn't call it a model because as you said, it boxes things too much. And I think it's a too aggressive form of simplification. But I've tried instead to offer pathways. So there's 3 pathways I am offering for anybody interested in reflecting on on a better and more systemic kind of leadership. The first pathway is one of freedom. It's about injecting more freedom into the system rather than reducing freedom. Very often freedom is seen as a danger, something that brings chaos, you know, and something that has to be reduced to the minimum because An orderly system is still seen by many as the best system, right? And in my opinion, considering the era we are in and how change is bombarding us from everywhere and every day, you can't look forward to an orderly system because to an orderly system, change is a problem, right? So instead, we need to create a system that is much more at ease with freedom, with liberty, with innovation, with taking initiatives. And it starts with oneself. It starts with liberating oneself from the dominant patterns, from, "Oh, that's how we do it here," from the kind of normative, and systemic culture you're in when you enter in an organization. So that's the first pathway. The second pathway is a pathway of equality. I think our current systems are dominance systems, as Charles mentioned. They are based on domination, on hoarding power to the benefit of a few, and on very unequal relationships. And this is not serving the collective. This is not serving at all, the collective, anymore. Maybe it worked in the past with, you know, when most of the workforce was illiterate and you had to rely on a few, you know, experts who knew better. Now in the knowledge or even post-knowledge economy, this doesn't work anymore. So we need to create, um, or to, to, yeah, to create leadership systems that are based on equal relationships, on, on relationships between equals. And to me, the great opportunity here is networks. So networks as technology, but also as organizational, as organizing principles. And finally, the third pathway, and I think they go together, is a pathway of community. So community building does not happen from the top. I don't think you can force or cascade a community. A community stems from joint activism in the service of a shared cause. So I think the mechanics, the, the, the, the patterns, the tools, the, the history of activism should be a source of inspiration for leadership today in order to enable this possibility of activism in the workplace in, in the service of a of a shared cause, of a truly shared cause. And, uh, all together, so of course you, you recognize the pattern here, um, uh, freedom, equality, community, uh, to me is, uh, possibly it's not a model, uh, but it's, uh, possibly what can help people evolve their leadership towards something that is much more collective, relational, and that is much more open to emotional connection rather than purely rational, expert, knowledge-based kind of relationship. So you call that the systemic leadership, if you had to summarize? Yes.
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