E‐leadership: tackling complex challenges

In exploring the impact of digital technology on leadership, we identify e‐leadership as a complex challenge that is characterized by five key paradoxes: swift and mindful; individual and community; top‐down and grass‐roots; details and big picture; and flexible and steady. For people to function effectively in this changing environment, a broader definition of leadership is needed – one where people in organizations make sense together of the challenges facing them and where they participate in leadership at every level. This requires a training environment where individual skills of perspective‐taking, network and coalition building, and story telling are developed along with team‐based skills of using dialogue, managing networks, and protecting voices from the fringe.