{"id":42732,"date":"2021-12-08T11:55:34","date_gmt":"2021-12-08T09:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/?p=42732"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:23:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:23:40","slug":"3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Watch Sue Dopson, Programme Director on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/products\/oxford-women-leadership-programme\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oxford Women\u2019s Leadership Development Programme<\/a> discuss ways to adopt contemporary leadership in your organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"3 Ways to Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g4LCyOuw2yA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Contemporary leadership involves tackling problems within complex, uncertain, and ambiguous environments. While traditional hierarchical management is outcomes-based, contemporary leadership draws on insights from those throughout an organisation to drive change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-transcript\">Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So, the challenge of contemporary leadership is that we\u2019re dealing with very complicated, wicked problems where there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty. And, essentially, you can\u2019t solve those on your own, and that actually you need to convene conversations, often across boundaries, and help people learn together and have conversations together in order to make progress. And for that kind of situation, that reality, leadership needs to be very flexible, it needs to be adaptive, and it needs to be distributed.<\/p>\n<h2>Be a leader, not a manager<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s a topic in organisational studies that has been explored a lot. There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people who sought to define it. One of the debates in that literature is what is the difference between management and leadership.<\/p>\n<p>I think when you\u2019re managing, you often feel you\u2019re right, you\u2019re in control, but when you\u2019re leading, it\u2019s as though you\u2019re stepping into a swamp of ambiguity, uncertainty, and you\u2019re dealing with emotions and the unknown.<\/p>\n<p>And essentially where we land is that management is about outcomes and controlling, where leadership is more about change and persuasion. It is not a hierarchical concept. It\u2019s much more about relationships, and crucially, relationships in context.<\/p>\n<h2>Shift the power<\/h2>\n<p>If we turn to more contemporary views of leadership, there\u2019s been a big shift away from discussing leadership as an individual phenomena, and thinking more about leadership as a distributed phenomena, something that happens throughout the organisation.<\/p>\n<p>We can look at leaders a bit like farmers. Farmers don\u2019t grow crops, but they do create the<br \/>conditions for crops to grow. So essentially, we\u2019re encouraging the notion of creating a<br \/>system or a context that can support other kinds of leadership and energy within the<br \/>system.<\/p>\n<h2>Reflect on your role<\/h2>\n<p>For me it\u2019s about three factors, a combination of three factors. Of course it\u2019s about ourselves as leaders, and understanding your own journey and who you are, and experimenting with that understanding. It\u2019s also about what your followers want you to do. You can only be a leader if you\u2019ve got followers, so understanding what they need, what incentivises them, becomes very important. And then finally, this notion of being curious about the context \u2013 that\u2019s the organisational culture, the different groups and subcultures within the organisation, but also the wider context that\u2019s changing and affecting that organisational context.<\/p>\n<p>The art of reflection, curiosity, noticing things, and understanding that you have agency to make a difference becomes very critical.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watch Sue Dopson, Programme Director on the Oxford Women\u2019s Leadership Development Programme discuss ways to adopt contemporary leadership in your organisation. Contemporary leadership involves tackling problems within complex, uncertain, and ambiguous environments. While traditional hierarchical management is outcomes-based, contemporary leadership draws on insights from those throughout an organisation to drive change. Transcript So, the challenge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":42736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"article-format":[],"class_list":["post-42732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-advice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership - GetSmarter Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Watch Sue Dopson, Programme Director on the Oxford Women\u2019s Leadership Development Programme discuss ways to adopt contemporary leadership in your organisation. 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Transcript So, the challenge [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"GetSmarter Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-12-08T09:55:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-12T11:23:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/getsmarter_blog_header-banner_3_Ways_To_Overcome_the_Challenges_of_Contemporary_Leadership.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"844\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shameel Mohanlal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"GetSmarter Staff\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Shameel Mohanlal\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/527df7e5676f2bfa7c943e1653764bff\"},\"headline\":\"3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-12-08T09:55:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-12T11:23:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":501,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/12\\\/getsmarter_blog_header-banner_3_Ways_To_Overcome_the_Challenges_of_Contemporary_Leadership.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Career Advice\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/12\\\/getsmarter_blog_header-banner_3_Ways_To_Overcome_the_Challenges_of_Contemporary_Leadership.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2021\\\/12\\\/getsmarter_blog_header-banner_3_Ways_To_Overcome_the_Challenges_of_Contemporary_Leadership.jpg\",\"width\":1500,\"height\":844},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\\\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Blog\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.getsmarter.com\\\/blog\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<meta property=\"og:video\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g4LCyOuw2yA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:type\" content=\"text\/html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:duration\" content=\"182\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:width\" content=\"480\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:video:height\" content=\"270\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:adult\" content=\"false\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:upload_date\" content=\"2021-12-08T09:55:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"ya:ovs:allow_embed\" content=\"true\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership - GetSmarter Blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/blog\/3-ways-to-overcome-the-challenges-of-contemporary-leadership\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"3 Ways To Overcome the Challenges of Contemporary Leadership","og_description":"Watch Sue Dopson, Programme Director on the Oxford Women\u2019s Leadership Development Programme discuss ways to adopt contemporary leadership in your organisation. 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