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Have you ever wondered how to enhance yourself as a leader, with a new way of doing things, and do a better job?
The business environment is quickly evolving and the "sharing economy" is one such new thing that gives leaders access to vast resources. Also known as the "collaborative economy," the sharing economy is real and here to stay, and business leaders need to adapt as it is changing most business sectors and workplaces.
So, what is the sharing economy? The sharing economy is "the peer-to-peer based activity of obtaining, giving, or sharing access to goods and services," according to Brookings Institution. This includes the world's biggest hotel company without any hotels, Airbnb; companies such as UpWork or MissionHeroes that enable leaders to work with thousands of passionate staff without having any employees; and companies which share cars or rides (SoCar or UBER), bikes or co-working spaces. They all enable the utilization of distributed resources and the collaborative way we work.
In many companies, the leadership paradigm is rooted in traditional regimented structures, where the leader is the individual everyone follows and the one who makes the decisions and takes all responsibility.
This is quite prevalent in Korea where people struggle to make ends meet due to the broken paradigm of working for 35 years (age 25 to 60) to earn enough money for an 80-year lifespan. This is a challenge in a labor market where roughly half the population is employed and over one million people aged 25 to 29 are unemployed, not to mention women and people over 60 years old. With new labor regulations limiting work to 52 hours per week, the struggle to earn enough in the given time has become even more difficult.
The current leadership model is also struggling in a world where tech companies expand into unrelated fields, such as food, health and transportation, where information is often free and where products are 3D-printed in real-time rather than manufactured. Leaders are faced with the reality of an ever-changing world where leaders are stuck in their traditional ways.
To thrive in this environment where millennials are becoming the majority of the workforce, leaders are rethinking their role and focusing more on the "why" rather than the "what" of their business. Without putting values first, leaders will fail to compete for the attention of talented people. Leaders must set audacious goals that align with their values and attract the talent needed to achieve them, whether from within or outside the company. By correctly aligning individuals' passions and skills with goals, leaders can lay the foundation for success through creative collaboration of people who work much more purposefully, as they share the value of the goal and see meaning for themselves in achievement.
Traditionally, leaders have faced resource constraints due to massive systemic inflexibility. The sharing economy now enables rapid and organic progress, where individuals own their decisions and wield responsibility for the achievement of goals, whether they are company employees or not.
So, what does the future of leadership look like? A new paradigm of leadership will arise in which leaders are the environment maintenance people, and the spotlight is on the values they enable. New tools will become available to enable each participant in each "value ecosystem," that is, "company," to contribute based on their skills and passions, and to contribute to multiple companies at any one time. By refocusing on the value of a person's contribution to a company on the basis of their skills and passions, redundant leadership structures will eventually wilt and erase the barriers of age, gender, location and language. This new style of leadership thinking is needed to succeed in the vibrant sharing economy.
Lukas Beech (info@missionheroes.com) is a partner at DHR International and a director at Mission Heroes, Inc.
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