The idea of leadership in the 21st century is emerging from the industrial paradigm while the remnants of the industrial paradigm’s influence upon consciousness are still very noticeable in our language, attitudes and behaviors. In order that we might develop our consciousness and shake off the remnants of the industrial paradigm, we must enhance our vocabulary (language) our images and our ways of knowing. The enhanced leadership vocabulary must speak to those aspects of being human the industrial paradigm has negated, namely, those areas of humanity that are not necessarily objectivated in observable behaviors: they include, but are not limited to the areas of consciousness, supra-consciousness, relationship, love and mystery.
In speaking about language and its effect upon our cognitive structures, Kenwyn Smith said:
How we experience, see, and infer organizations, relations between parts, and relations between relations will depend primarily on the characteristics of the metaphors we choose to use and on the relationships (organization) among the metaphors themselves, for how we talk shapes what we talk about. . . . We must also examine how we think and talk about relations, for our system of talking and what we are talking about are intertwined (Pondy, 1978). Because the structure of language has constraints that limit our thinking to particular contours (Feyerabend, 1975; Whorf, 1956), those linguistic limits will also shape our level of knowing about organization. (Smith, 1982)
read full article »