The art of relational management in a fragmented world.
Céline Schillinger
Céline Schillinger observes that "our organizations, and more generally our society, are sick – they make us sick. This is because of a noxious leadership that we continue to perpetuate, revere even, despite all the evidence that it doesn't work. We keep putting leaders on a pedestal, attributing to them singular virtues, linked to their charisma or to the way they demonstrate a 'natural' authority, which places them in our minds – and in organizational charts – above others.
"This view of leadership is a toxic ideology. It hurts people, it hurts organizations, it hurts the planet. It is time to 'un-lead': to realize that leadership is first and foremost a collective capacity to be cultivated, whose basic constituent is the relational and emotional fluency, which is served by a very different set of behaviors, including effacing oneself in the collective rather than standing above it. This requires not less effort than the traditional conception of leadership, but more. It is worth it. Un-leadership creates sustainable economic and human value, unlike the extractive model we are used to."
She's finishing a book on an alternative to the top-down model. Dare to Un-Lead will be available in the spring and is available for preordering now. Stowe Boyd recently sat down with her to talk about her discoveries and insights.
Author's Interview: Céline Schillinger, Dare to Un-Lead