Gone are the days of the ‘buffoon’ leader, those individuals put in leadership positions due to family position, money or nepotism.   Today’s leaders need to reflect competence, not only in terms of getting things done but also in unlocking the potential of their people.   

In 1990, Peter Senge of MIT created a groundbreaking concept in his paper “The leaders new work: creating the learning organization”. Senge argued that the real job of the leader for the future was to create organizational capability by unlocking the potential of the people within the organization.  He did this by focusing on five key issues: 

• systems thinking
  
• personal mastery
• mental models
• building shared vision
• team learning 
  

If a leader is to achieve this she or he needs to be intelligent and not just operate through ‘command and control’. Tomorrow really is about creating intelligent leaders who not only understand the nature of leadership and leadership models but are able to apply that learning for the good of all concerned. In particular emotionally intelligent leadership is the direction in which we will have to head if we are to unlock the potential in our people.  And there are many examples of how everyone has the potential to achieve excellent results.  The DVD “Beating the Moon” covers a classic case study of how intelligent leadership may be achieved by harnessing peoples’ emotions and generating leadership from within the group rather than imposing it from the outside.