The “New Renaissance Leadership”
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
These words were written in the early 1930’s by the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci from his prison cell where he was locked up as an opponent of the Fascist regime.
Ninety years later, with the world grappling with the dramatic consequences of a global pandemic, this definition of crisis rings truer than ever. Whether we look at the world from an economic, social, cultural, political or environmental perspective, “the old is dying and the new cannot be born” and there is an abundance of “morbid symptoms” such as intolerance, racism, inequality, natural disasters, terrorism, boastful ignorance, human rights abuse, nationalism, and renewed geopolitical tensions. But this was true even before Covid-19, which has only exacerbated a much bigger crisis that will not be solved with a vaccine.
It is the crisis of a world where we insist facing new challenges with an old mindset; a world where we use outdated maps to make sense of new geographies; a world where, if we read the news with no critical perspective, we have the impression of sinking into a new Dark Age. But if it’s true that the “morbid symptoms” are all there, pessimism will lead us nowhere.
We need to have the courage to be optimistic, because, as Winston Churchill would say, it doesn’t seem too much use being anything else.
The audacity of optimism.
Optimism is a gruelling endeavor that requires courage and perseverance, while pessimism is easy; if everything is doomed, there is no point in trying harder to find ways to make the world a better place.
Being optimistic requires instead the rare ability to reframe the conventional narratives and imagine a different future.
It means, to borrow a beautiful formula from Howard Suber, to seek our destiny instead of succumbing to our fate[1].
If the reasons for pessimism are obvious, the grounds for optimism are there as well. They are simply more difficult to see because “good news is no news”. But we know that if we take a meta-view of the wider context, like Hans Rosling famously did in his book Factfulness[2], the state of the world is much better than it has ever been. It could certainly be much better, but the alternative is not a glorious past that has never existed.
Most importantly, if we look beyond that factory of anxiety that is the 24-hour news cycle, we can see the seeds for a better world everywhere, whether in the progressive and value-driven activism of the new generations, in the explosion of scientific discovery and innovations, in the cultural shifts around the sustainability agenda, in the emergence of new ideas and perspectives from parts of the world once at the margins of history, or in the increasing number of business leaders genuinely taking up the mantle of purpose and transformational change.
If we have the audacity to be optimistic, we can try to shape a new bold narrative of hope, ambition, and vision to counter the musty and depressing narrative of tribalism, laziness, and cynicism. And if we want to avoid sinking into a “New Dark Age” we have to pull all of our energies and ideas together, across cultures, continents, and fields to sow the seeds of a “New Renaissance”.
Shaping a “New Renaissance”
The old Renaissance, which ushered in the modern era through an extraordinary combination of philosophical, artistic, political, and economical rebirth, was born in the midst of a dramatic civilizational crisis following a period of continuous wars and the devastation of the Black Death.
Learning from our ancestors, we should see how it is exactly in the worst of times that the best ideas can flourish. And this is why the time to shape a “New Renaissance” and a better and sustainable version of modernity is now.
Taking inspiration from the past was actually one of the very keys to the success of the Renaissance, for it was the rediscovery of the texts of classical antiquity that paved the way to the birth of modern Humanism.
If we do the same today, we can see how many of the characteristics of the old Renaissance can guide us in building the new one by becoming the defining features of the “New Renaissance Leader”.
“Humanism 4.0”
Billionaire Mark Cuban has said that a degree in philosophy will soon be worth more than a programming degree[3]. What he meant is that the insistence to favor STEM education over the study of the Humanities is actually preparing many young people for jobs that will be taken over by machines, while we should focus on what we can do better than computers.
If the old Renaissance changed the world by challenging the authority of the Church and making man the measure of all things, the New Renaissance will have to challenge the cult of algorithms and bring the Humanities back to the core.
In its latest report on the future of jobs[4], among the top skills deemed essential to navigate the future the World Economic Forum mentions creativity, critical and analytical thinking, social influence, collaboration, and emotional intelligence, all dimensions where humans perform much better than computers and whose development requires an educational system rooted in the Humanities.
Even Microsoft recognizes that “languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions”[5].
If we really want to build a “New Renaissance”, the time has come to stop talking about soft skills and recognise their centrality by calling them core skills. This is the first pillar of “Humanism 4.0”
The second pillar is interdisciplinarity.
The increasingly complex, uncertain, and ambiguous nature of our world requires leaders able to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity by embracing them. To do that, like the polymaths of the Renaissance, they will have to think and act across disciplines, because in a multidimensional and complex reality only a mind open to explore unknown territories and imagine new connections can scan the larger context and perceive new patterns and possibilities.
My favorite German word is Fachidiot: it is the combination of the words Fach, which means discipline, and idiot, which doesn’t need any translation. It describes the specialist who, in the words of the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset, “knows very well his own tiny corner of the universe while being radically ignorant of all the rest”[6].
The Fachidiot is the product of decades of hyper-specialization and compartmentalisation of knowledge that has led to a situation where, as Richard Haass has pointed out, “it is possible to graduate from nearly any two- or four-year college or university in the United States, be it a community college or an Ivy League institution, without gaining even a rudimentary understanding of the world”[7].
The “New Renaissance Leader” is exactly the opposite of the Fachidiot. He is not prisoner of mental walls; he tears them down.
The “New Renaissance Leader” is a passionately curious explorer of complexity in a relentless search for new meanings at the nexus of different disciplines, ideas, people, and cultures.
Today we don’t need more Fachidioten. What we need are leaders who push the boundaries of knowledge and imagination like the “neo-generalists” described by Richard Martin and Kenneth Mikkelsen: “When the context shifts, so do they. They are fluid and flexible. Their generalist preferences, when combined with what they have experienced through specialist activities, contribute to the development of meta-skills: boundary-crossing capabilities that are essential as we respond to big issues or take advantage of unforeseen opportunities.”[8]
The “New Renaissance Leaders”, drawing on the wisdom of the Humanities and the adventurous spirit of the explorer of multiple fields and perspectives, are not afraid of contradictions; they know that the beauty of life is made of its very contradictions, that people (as Walt Whitman would say) are large and contain multitudes, and that truth, which is always relative, is not black or white but can only be found in the infinite shades of colors hidden in nuances.
This is why the leaders of the “New Renaissance” will be those “able to hold and manage paradoxes that are inherent in the world — like how to be a tech-savvy humanist or a globally-minded localist”[9].
Cognitive Diversity
For the “New Renaissance Leaders” to be able to thrive, they will have to create the right environment for ideas to bloom. And the best way to do it is to create an environment that is as safely diverse as possible, meaning that for diversity to unleash its power, diverse ideas and perspectives need a safe environment where they can be expressed, discussed, and considered.
If being able to draw on different perspectives to navigate complexity is a prerequisite of the “New Renaissance Leadership”, this will not be possible without a full commitment to leverage diversity as a strategic asset, and not just as something that is morally good (which it is), because, to quote Philip Tetlock, “the more diverse the perspectives, the wider the range of potentially viable solutions a collection of problem solvers can find”[10].
The goal of the “New Renaissance Leader” should be therefore to foster cognitive diversity in an inclusive environment where bold, contrarian, and uncomfortable questions and ideas are rewarded, while groupthink is banned. Because the only one thing worse than a Fachidiot is a team of Fachidioten walling themselves up in a fortress of conformism, the worst enemy of innovation, change, and visionary thinking.
In my experience working with global companies with multicultural teams, I have clearly seen how, when not properly and proactively managed, diversity can be an element of dysfunctionality; but I have also seen how it can be an extraordinary driver of growth and value creation when companies shift their mindset from living with diversity to living diversity.
By leveraging on the different cultural perspectives represented in their organisation, truly global companies proactively turn diversity into a strategic asset instead of treating it as something you simply need to deal with.
In an increasingly fragmented yet hyperconnected global context, leveraging diverse cultural perspectives to build a new global vision is an essential skill for leaders, and this is why the “New Renaissance Leader” is, by definition, a global leader.
Global Mindset
The backlash against globalization, while understandable, is producing many “morbid symptoms” such as nationalism, tribalism, and protectionism. But the reality is that, whether we like it or not, we are so interconnected at all levels that there is no alternative other than to be a global village.
Today we don’t need less globalization, but more globalization.
The most existential challenges we face are global in their nature and they require global cooperation. Retreating into a tribe might be reassuring, but it won’t help in solving any of the problems we are facing. It will only make them worse.
However, we need a different kind of globalization, not the ideological construct born out of the ashes of the Cold War which was conceived as a synonym of westernization.
The West is no longer at the center of the world and it is time that it accepts that the Western perspective is just one among many.
Globalization is not about having the opportunity to eat the same burger anywhere in the world, which is fine, but rather to have the choice of many different types of food from all over the world or, even better, to have the chance to experiment the mixing of different cuisines to create something new.
Globalization should be about diversity, not uniformity; fusion, not division; integrating different perspectives into a new one, not imposing one over the others.
Globalization should be a process where local and global are not seen as two opposites, but rather — like Ying and Yang — as two complementary, interdependent, and interconnected parts of a bigger whole.
The “New Renaissance”, therefore, is also about shaping a different kind of globalization, and this is why businesses have a big role to play. Because companies who make the effort to develop a truly global mindset will spread a language that spells inclusion, respect, and curiosity. And the businesses that will succeed across cultures and continents will be those led by adventurous “New Renaissance Leaders” driven by the ambition not to conquer the world, but to embrace it.
Certainly, navigating the unchartered waters of global business in an era of connected fragmentation is a daunting task and one that requires special intellectual skills as well as character traits such as patience, resilience, and, most importantly, courage.
Courage
Terence Mauri has written that “ all the great advancements of leadership are based on our ability to expand our psychological horizon, take a step into the unknown and make a path where there is none”[11]. To do this you need courage. And if there is one thing that the “New Renaissance Leader” doesn’t lack is courage.
George Bernard Shaw famously divided men in two categories: “Some men see things as they are and ask why? Others dream things that never were and ask why not?”
The “New Renaissance Leaders” are certainly in the second category. They are not overcautious managers of normality, because — like the Renaissance Men described by Giorgio Vasari, the quintessence of the Renaissance spirit — they breath the air that “makes minds naturally free and not content with mediocrity”[12].
The “New Renaissance Leaders” might set SMART goals, but merely as means to achieve something bigger and inspiring. They will certainly not shy away from an executive coach spurring them to pursue what John Blakey and Ian Day call courageous goals: goals so “outrageous, visionary and game-changing to define a whole epoch of a company’s existence”[13].
But the courage of the “New Renaissance Leaders” is not just the courage to shape a new vision by thinking bold, challenging assumptions, and defying conventions.
It is also the courage to show their vulnerabilities, to ask for help, to share their doubts, to admit that they don’t have all the answers.
“And he pushed them. And they flew”
Kenneth Clark, one of the 20th century greatest experts of the Renaissance, said that “in the end civilization depends on man extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost”[14]. Today, as a civilization, we are at a crossroads and we need a new kind of leaders to stop the descent towards a new “Dark Age”.
To build a “New Renaissance” we need leaders willing to extend the power of their minds “to the utmost” to transform business and, with it, the world.
We don’t need more transactional leaders seeking the reassuring but deceiving comfort of certainty.
We need transformational, unconventional, and adventurous explorers of complexity and navigators of ambiguity; we need holistic thinkers, shapers of new perspectives, builders of bridges between people, cultures, and fields, who are never content with the easiest answer or the shortest path.
The “New Renaissance Leaders” are out there. They might not be many, but they are more than we think. Sometimes they are themselves unaware of their own full potential and they just need a push, like in the beautiful poem by Guillaume Apollinaire Come to the edge:
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, we’re afraid!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“We can’t, We will fall!” they responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
And so they came.
And he pushed them.
And they flew.”
[1] https://www.etbscreenwriting.com/tag/danny-boyle/
[2] Rosling, Hans, Factfulness : Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Flatiron Books (2020).
[4] https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020
[5] https://www.mentorworks.ca/blog/professional-development/humanities-degree-in-business/
[6] Ortega y Gasset, José, The Revolt of the Masses, W. W. Norton & Company (1993 Paperback Edition), p. 111.
[7] Haass, Richard, The World. A Brief Introduction, Penguin Press, 2020 (Kindle Edition), p. XV.
[8] Martin, Richard, and Mikkelsen, Kenneth, The Neo-Generalist, LID Publishing Ltd., 2019 (Kindle Edition), p. 39.
[10] https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Diversity_Paradoxes_1.pdf
[11] Mauri, Terence, The 3D Leader. Take Your Leadership to The Next Dimension, Pearson Education Ltd., 2020 (Kindle Edition), Loc. 772.
[12] Clark, Kenneth, Civilization, John Murray, 2017 (Kindle Edition), p. 82.
[13] Blakey, John, and Day, Ian, Challenging Coaching. Going beyond traditional coaching to face the FACTS, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2012 (Kindle Edition), p. 111.
[14] Clark, Kenneth, op. cit., p. 95.
