2012 Trends in Organizational Leadership

• Sharlyn Lauby


• 8 Jan 2012

I always find this time of year fascinating.  There’s no shortage of articles about trends and predictions for the upcoming year.  If you read enough of them, you can start to see some consensus about a topic.  For example, there are far more people talking about 2012 being a tough but overall positive year rather than a year of impending doom-n-gloom.

McGraw Hill put together an ebook of prognostications for the year titled “What’s Next 2012”.  It has some well-thought insights about business for the upcoming year.  Topics include the global economy, customer engagement, financial markets and leadership.  Couple of reoccurring themes I noticed on the role of leaders:

• A realization that leaders don’t have to be perfect; they do need to be honest and authentic.
• Leaders will not only use their expertise to deliver profits to the bottom-line of their organizations but commit to tackling social problems.
• More conversation will take place about LEAN principles and continuous improvement.

I can easily see how these trends in organizational leadership could dominate conversation in 2012.  And frankly, if they don’t…they should.  Especially the one about LEAN principles – I’m quite surprised more companies aren’t investing in continuous improvement principles.

If you want to check out all of the comments, visit the McGraw Hill site to download the ebook (email address required).  I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

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