Rob Elkington - Exceptional Leadership by Design: How Design in Great Organizations Produces Great Leadership

Design: We see it everywhere, and yet we dont. That is because good design is subtle and enigmatic in that it does not announce its presence, but you and I both know when good design is missing. For instance, think back to the times you stood in long line-ups waiting to purchase something, or flew for 17 hours in Economy class on an aeroplane, or worked on a laptop that made your wrist or eyes hurt. These are examples of poor design, and we are reminded then of the power of design because it is missing! In our VUCA world, which is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, design thinking is one of the ways we might effectively cultivate VUCA prime, or vision, understanding, clarity, and agility. Ponder upon this for a moment and you will see that VUCA prime is a human-centric antidote to VUCA and thus design thinking fits beautifully!

Design is, at its core, an anthropocentric undertaking. It seeks to place humanity at the center of any process and ask the simple question: How can we make this product, process, or experience better for the people who will use it? Once that question is in the air we move through the phases of design thinking from the initial stance of empathy, in which we seek to understand the people who are impacted by our product through the next phases of defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. In fact, that is how we designed this book that you now hold in your hands we designed it with you in mind!

This design thinking approach is no less true of leadership, especially since at its core, leadership focuses on two key dimensions: task and relationship. All leaders, and by extension leadership, exist to accomplish a task. However, to accomplish that task, leadership needs to work with people, hence the need for relationship. Great leadership knows how to balance both task and relationship effectively and efficaciously so that there is a beautiful mutual synergy between both. Exemplars such as Madiba (Nelson Mandela), Ghandi, and Churchill come to mind.

We are excited about this book, which offers a fresh approach and a new way of thinking about how to bring human-centric intentionality to the leadership arena. We are excited about this book because by its development, design, and delivery, it is human-centric. This book exemplifies not a heroic leader but exceptional leadership by design.

The editors of this book were chosen by Design to ensure continuity with our previous book: Visionary Leadership in a Turbulent World: Thriving in the New VUCA Context. They were also chosen because each one of them focuses on human-centric processes in their leadership research and practice.

The authors of this book were chosen by Design because each one of them is a specialist in a specific area that relates to Leadership by Design, either task or relationship. We are also extremely privileged to have a design expert to author a chapter on the processes of design thinking.

It is our hope that by the end of this book, leaders will see the leadership function in a new light, as a function of design of putting people first. To that end, we acknowledge the hard work of our editorial team, especially our managing editor, Madeleine van der Steege, who, by design, inspired and kept us on track. To our other editors, Judith and Jennifer, who provided continual support, encouragement, and direction; they kept us on task while always strengthening our relational ties. To the authors, thank you for embarking on this journey, a journey in which we truly did not have a planned destination. We started with an idea, with empathy, and then from there moved through the design process together.

Finally, to Pete Baker, and the team at Emerald, we express our gratitude for their willingness to take a chance on this, our second book. They are a great team to work with and we believe that together we have co-constructed a useful work that will empower Exceptional Leadership by Design!

Rob Elkington, 2018