[Ailist] Democratization of?

[Lionel Boxer]

Good point Roger

I think that strong leaders (I do not mean influential tyrants who allow hubris to lead them to abuse their appointed roles) have always challenged their subordinate leaders to lead on their own right.  See this 1957 paper to the Australian Institute of Management: http://intergon.net/slim.html

If you fuse Slims message with Foucault's concept that power flows and is not possessed, then the internet can be seen as an enabler of democratising leadership.

In the military, there is a realisation that the everpresence of journalists, instantaneous transmission of images, and the pace of action have made it necessary to create the "strategic corporal".  For those who do not understand military heirarchy, a corporal is the first level of leadership in any army.  Traditionally, their job has to be to think only about the eight soldiers in their team and the issues at hand; they have not been required to deal with operations or tactics.  Now, they are expected to be able to deliver intelligent and constrained comments that encompass strategic ideas as well as operate independent of higher command (of course military engineer corporals have been doing this for centuries, but as Rudyard Kipling noted, sappers are a breed apart from ordinary men - and hopefully imune to hubris!).  In fact, often individual soldiers are called on to make comments.  This is not to say that making a statement to a journalist is the same as inspiring others to perform as required, but it is an example of how technology has in a sense democratised the environment in which people do their jobs as well as deployed the need for strategic thinking and leadership to new limits.

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/sappers.html

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Associate of RMIT University - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
What's up?: http://intergon.net/events.html
The Sustainable Way: http://intergon.net/tsw
>>> "Roger Davies" <rdavies at rtpcompany.com> 12/03/08 4:27 AM >>>
All,

I watched an interesting program regarding the internet today. In that the
author argued that many great, transformative events led to economic bubbles
that burst but the end result benefited all. Railroads democratized travel,
automobiles even more so, telecommunications democratized long distance,
rapid communications. The internet did the same for many things including
commerce and to some extent celebrity. All of things also had there obvious
downsides. It did leave me wondering what would be next. Perhaps the
democratization of leadership? (is that an oxymoron kind of thing?). Anyway
what I mean was that all of the above great transformations gave more power
to the average Joe & Jane. Ultimately will the cult of personality go the
same way and we will all become iconic leaders or our own selves? Any other
thoughts on what might be next to be democratized?

Roger 




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