Most people who claim to have authority only do so because someone else has granted it to them, usually of higher authority. Fortunately, this ego-powered process is in quick demise as the new economy demands leaders who create more leaders rather than cracking the whip.
Authority flourished in the industrial economy because most work was piece rate and required fairly low skill and so the tasks we can now program into robots was done by real people at the expense of their human potential.
Value in the new economy comes from ideas and so the challenge is then how we return permission back to employees in order to reconnect them with the creativity and genius they were born with.
“Everybody is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”
“I worry that people are put in a position of authority because they’re good talkers, but they don’t have good ideas.”
(Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking)
The new economy will expose ‘good talkers’; the true leaders will be those who generate ideas that move us forward – the quiet ones, slowly reclaiming their voice.
