A clear picture of executive leadership evolved throughout the 20th Century, driven by conventional management thinking, and stereotyped – we have to say – by tall athletic men in expensive suits with good teeth and hair, who led from the top with strength, confidence, and the ruthless application of power in pursuit of profit. Whilst many executives did it differently, they were often judged – perhaps implicitly and subliminally – against this model.
Now, as we have seen, the expectations are changing, as is the understanding that we can get better results with better ways of working, especially in the context of today’s different world. We now need Open Governance and Open Leadership to enable Open Management and Open Work.
Here is how it all fits together:

Better ways of thinking are Open Better ways of working mean Open Work Better ways of managing are Open Management They need Open Governance and Open Leadership We must define the word “leader”. Teal Unicorn think leadership is a behaviour that anybody can exhibit, not a role. But the world is determined to call executives the “leadership” of the organisation, so we surrender – we use the term here in its popular meaning.
Open Leadership is a dynamic, integrative, and adaptive approach to leadership that recognises and leverages the strengths of multiple leadership philosophies. It’s about leading with vision, empathy, flexibility, inclusion, and a good understanding of today’s complex environment.

cultivating your Open Leadership in three ways:

🚀 liberating work: from command and control to cultivating trust and empowerment.

🚀 navigating complexity: from seeking answers to asking empowering questions.

🚀 leading as a catalyst for change: from directing to enabling.

We identified five areas of Open Leadership:

Inviting change: inspiring, motivating, pride, identifying, birthing a shared vision, influencer, leader, talking the talk

Exciting thinking: strategy, intellectual challenge, stretch goals, big bets, adaptability, investing in people , liberation, open

The hub of the way: confidently modelling behaviours so the organisation may pivot around you, walking the walk, integrity, transparency 

Encouraging aroha: safety, blameless, empathy, engagement, influencers, community bonding, individual recognition, inclusion, humanocracy

Inverting power: distributed authority, self-organisation, pull systems, servant managers, small teams, autonomy

 

To do this, Open leaders exhibit:

Holistic Approach

A system is not the sum of its parts, but the product of their interactions
– Russell Ackoff

While the imagery of a map or journey can be helpful for setting a general idea, it’s essential to hold it loosely. Perhaps a more fitting metaphor for leadership is that of a garden. You cultivate growth through intentional effort, but you don’t fully control the outcome. You can tend to the soil, plant seeds, provide nourishment, and prune back overgrowth. However, factors beyond your control – weather, pests, the inherent qualities of each plant – will influence the final results. Growth happens in cycles, with periods of dormancy, bursts of growth, and times for harvesting. Just as different plants thrive in different seasons and settings, you might find that certain people flourish at certain times and in certain places. There might be periods of advancement followed by times for integration and reflection, and then new cycles of growth. Diversity and interconnectedness enhance the ecosystem as a whole: just as a garden benefits from a variety of plants supporting each other, an organisation is enriched by engaging with diverse perspectives, building supportive relationships, and recognising the interconnectedness of all capabilities and experiences.

Too hippy? An organisation is a complex system: a collection of autonomous entities all networked together. You cannot control nor predict what will happen. You can only set the conditions, constraints, and controls that you hope will head in the right direction, then wait to see what emerges – constantly observing and adjusting.

Too abstract? Working on one bit of the organisation is pretty much useless. That bit is receiving and sending work and resources with other bits. It is all connected. Look at the whole organisation – the people, the flow of value, the work done, the three primary resources (capability, information, money) – and try to see patterns and connects. But don’t think they are real or certain: the future will always surprise you, and you’ll need to be always altering that model based on what you learn at each step.

Synergistic Thinking

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
— African proverb

Reality is a network. It is all connected: all the pieces of your organisation, all the pieces outside it such as suppliers, customers, regulators, and all stakeholders. It is about seeing the organisation as part of a wider social ecosystem, and intentionally creating environments and processes that allow diverse perspectives, skills, and knowledge to intersect, leading to innovative solutions that no individual – or organisation – could achieve alone. 

Practically, this means ensuring siloes are interconnected at many layers (work, skills, social…),and that – critically – that interconnectedness flows beyond the nominal boundaries of the organisation, in many ways: customer and supplier co-creation, outsourcing, crowdsourcing, executive networks, conferences and communities, regulatory lobbying, and so on.

This contributes to…

Collective action

None of us is as smart as all of us.
– Kenneth H. Blanchard

To get the most our of everyone in an organisation – to unlock the latent productivity and potential –  all action must be collective. This means:

  • inviting everybody to be part of all activities (vision, strategy, planning, design, creation, delivery, improvement, reflection…): the ones who come are the right people.
  • maximising the diversity of those collaborating, to stimulate creativity, objectivity, and breadth of views.
  • liberating the workers to do what they are best at in their best way for them.
  • creating an environment of psychological safety, respect, and empowerment.
  • distributing authority so that decisions can be made as close as possible to where they are needed.

In order to maximise the results of that collective action, it requires…

People-Centricity

Put employees first, focus on customer, benefit all stakeholders.
Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients
– Sir Richard Branson

The purpose of an organisation is to enable its members to be their best selves, not to enrich shareholders, satisfy customers, or regulate society – those follow from the first. Ensure employees thrive at work, through empowering, nurturing, investing in, respecting, and most of all prioritising  your staff. 

This will contribute to…

Adaptability

Efficiency remains important, but the ability to adapt to complexity and continual change has become an imperative.
– Gen. Stanley McChrystal

Conventional 20th Century organisations are characterised by rigidity, bureaucracy, and control. This optimises for efficiency in a stable world. That is no longer the most effective approach. What got you here won’t get you into the future in the 2020s and beyond. What is most important now is for the organisation – and the leadership – to be adaptable, which we define as a combination of resilience to survive the unexpected, and agility to change direction to take advantage of it.

If destinations and goals are often changing, you need…

Visionary Perspective

The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented.
– Dennis Gabor (not Peter Drucker)

Conventional approach to leadership says the leader should have the vision and impose it on the organisation. Open leadership requires the vision to be collaborative and invitational: all should contribute to developing it, so that it is everyone’s vision of the future organisation.  It is the leader’s role to seize the vision and inspire all to advance towards it. 

An Open vision should be

  • purpose-driven: the vision is not just about profit—it is about making a positive impact on employees, customers, and society.
  • inspirationally shared: leaders effectively communicate the vision in a way that energises and aligns the organisation, and its external network.
  • adaptive: the vision is not rigid. It evolves based on feedback, learning, and changing circumstances.
  • achievable: it is a vision of who we want to be – which we can better control – more than what we want to be doing.

 

We wrote a book:

and we are working on its companion book

 

Together they describe what the apex executive, the top leader of the organisation, should do to make work better.

The two books describe an executive who embodies Open Leadership. The books describe the main descriptors of the idealised hypothetical perfect “Open executive”:

Mana

status and authority granted by others out of respect

Mojo

energy, charisma, buzz, inspiration

Aroha

love, compassion, empathy, support, encouragement

Grit

resilience, courage, vision, commitment

Unity

wholeness, connectedness, networked, 

Grace

composure, humility, integrity, kindness

 

…and their principles:

Focus

People, values, adaptability, collaboration

Decision – making

Distributed, collaborative, inclusive

Communication

Transparent, open, frequent, networked

Risk tolerance

Embraces experimentation, sees failure as an opportunity for learning

View of staff

Values employees as individuals, recognises their potential, focuses on their well-being

Leader style

Servant leader, facilitator, coach