Recently I was reading about the need to recruit I-shaped people and T-shaped people for innovation in these articles:

• BusinessWeek’s Innovation Calls for I-Shaped People by Bill Buxton
• FastCompany.com’s Strategy by Design by Tim Brown

As I glanced over them, I suddenly had a flashback to e-leadership, EQ vs. IQ and managing knowledge-workers. These were the terms for leadership competencies that were tossed around back in 2001. And, as part of my Management of Technology course work, I wrote an article comparing these leadership competencies from Deming’s philosophy on management, first published in the 1950s.

Demming’s leadership fundamentals revolve around the concept of “Everything is a system, and we are part of it.” His new leadership competencies are outlined by Scholtes in The Leader’s Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done.

• The ability to think in terms of systems and knowing how to lead systems;
• The ability to understand the variability of work in planning and problem solving;
• Understanding how we learn, develop, and improve; leading true learning and improvement;
• Understanding people and why they behave as they do;
• Understanding the interaction and interdependence between systems, variability, learning, and human behavior; knowing how each affects the others;
• Giving vision, meaning, direction, and focus to the organization.

Back in 2001, I concluded that Deming’s philosophy from the 1950s represents the principle and foundation for leadership. For me, that still holds true today. We need individuals with empathy, who can comfortably deal with the complexities and chaotic nature of today’s systems and can integrate business, people and technology. We need people who can inspire with vision, focus on the details to get things done, and then learn from failures. We need individuals and leaders who can act upon their observations and intuitions, lead and facilitate the change that is needed to succeed.

What do you think? Are Deming’s ideas and philosophies really that timeless? Are we now just restating the obvious using new terms? Do the complexities of our current environment require new perspectives on leadership? Or is this just common sense, which is unfortunately not so common anymore…

You can download my original paper New Principles of Leadership?

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