Drucker and other early thinkers of management had a strong focus on what might be called today community building within organizations. In Drucker’s depiction of the knowledge worker, we can find hints at how community-building should be pursued in the present digital age where generative AI seems poised to disrupt white-collar work much like blue-collar work has long been disrupted by automation. Community-ship may be regarded as true leadership, as opposed to self-centered leadership, and that may allow it to transcend the divide between blue-collar and white-collar employees and create solidarity in this time of disruption. The Japanese understanding of leadership is inherently relational and contextual, just like community-ship. The time is right to revisit what has been done by leading Japanese companies to allow blue-collar workers to contribute to value creation and benefit from that contribution.
Daniel Heller (Mon,) studied this question.