May 30, 2025- Over the past decade, we’ve witnessed a profound shift in the nature of effective leadership. What once revolved around competence – defined by a reliable set of skills like planning, decision-making, and team development – has now evolved into something deeper and more dynamic: capability.
Historically we have paid attention to outward things like planning, decision making, developing others, leading a team, and so forth. Capability is more of the “inner game” way of thinking about leadership, said Randy Chittum, PhD., a leadership consultant.
When senior executives are surveyed, a great number of them refer to increasing complexity as a major challenge for their organization. When things are truly complex (unpredictable), all the old leadership lessons are insufficient. “In this world, we need leaders who are present to emergence, who are adaptable, and can shift as things evolve,” Dr. Chittum said.
However, doing this requires that leaders can see what they might not have seen before. Further, leaders in this world need to understand how their own internal sense-making keeps them seeing what they are used to seeing.
Repertoire Magazine spoke to Dr. Chittum about how leaders can move more into the inner way of thinking.
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