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Forbes
01-08-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Embracing Complexity: Why Traditional Leadership No Longer Works
Sandro da Silva is the chief growth officer at bettercoach, a triple-accredited executive coach and coach supervisor. In today's world, organizations are not facing isolated problems. They are navigating a web of interconnected, ever-evolving challenges. As the World Economic Forum notes, today's global challenges are increasingly interconnected and unpredictable, blurring the boundaries between economic, technological and social issues. Digital transformation, shifting workforce expectations, environmental responsibility and socio-political complexity are converging at a pace that renders traditional leadership ideas and interpretations obsolete. Yet many organizational members—no matter their seniority—still rely on outdated approaches and thinking: linear planning, top-down control, causal and reductionist problem-solving. These approaches might have served us in more predictable times, but in the face of complexity, they fall short. Why The Old Models No Longer Work Traditional management thinking has taught us that problems can be broken into parts, analyzed separately and solved through control and prediction. But complexity doesn't work that way. Organizations are complex adaptive systems. Small changes can trigger disproportionate ripple effects. Interdependencies, competing priorities and shifting contexts mean that today's solution may be tomorrow's liability. Linear thinking oversimplifies, often leading to unintended outcomes or consequences. To exercise our leadership effectively today, we must shift from seeking control to cultivating adaptability, resilience and collaboration across systems. What Needs To Change Leading in complexity isn't about having all the answers—it's about creating environments where the best answers can emerge. Here are four shifts organizations can make: Making an impact through your leadership today means moving from being an authority figure to being a catalyst that creates the conditions for innovation, trust and experimentation. This means letting go of rigid control in favor of distributed responsibility. People closest to the work are often best positioned to respond to complexity. By empowering them to act, experiment and learn, we foster a culture of shared ownership and emergent solutions. The complexity of today's problems exceeds the capacity of any one person or department. Distributed leadership and cross-functional collaboration are no longer optional—they're essential. Research on collective intelligence shows that diverse, collaborative teams outperform individuals on complex tasks, particularly when communication is balanced and team members contribute equally. Organizations should bring together diverse perspectives across disciplines to unlock collective intelligence. This helps avoid blind spots, surfaces novel insights and ensures decisions are made closer to the context they affect. Static strategies and five-year plans don't survive first contact with reality. Instead, we need short feedback loops and real-time iteration. Borrowing from agile and complexity science, organizations can experiment in small ways, learn quickly and adapt continuously. It's not about perfect planning—it's about building the capacity to learn, pivot and evolve. Complexity demands experimentation. And experimentation requires psychological safety. Organizations must normalize failure as a form of learning. This doesn't mean tolerating recklessness, but rather creating safe-to-fail spaces—a term popularized by complexity theorist Dave Snowden—where people can test ideas, share lessons and adjust without fear of blame. When this becomes the norm, innovation flourishes. A New Framework For Leadership At bettercoach, we work with organizations across industries that are navigating these shifts. What we've found is that success in complexity isn't about charisma or hierarchy. It's about cultivating key capacities across the system. That's why we developed the bettercoach leadership essentials, a practical framework with 5 core capacities to help people lead themselves, others and organizations with clarity and resilience: • Emotional Intelligence: Cultivating awareness and empathy to lead with heart in uncertain times. • Resilience: Adapting to change without losing momentum or purpose. • Interdependence: Leading through connection, not control—because we don't thrive alone. • Purpose: Anchoring decisions in shared meaning to stay focused amid ambiguity. • Change: Embracing change as a constant and learning how to lead it well. This framework helps shift the mindset from managing complexity to thriving within it. Final Thought: From Reduction To Regeneration The future won't be led by those who reduce complexity into digestible pieces. It will be led by those who embrace the whole, who see patterns, foster collaboration and build systems that can adapt and regenerate. Leadership today isn't about certainty—it's about capacity. Capacity to sense, respond, connect and evolve. It's time to stop asking, 'How do we solve this problem once and for all?' and start asking, 'How do we build an organization that keeps learning, adapting and growing?' That's the shift complexity calls for—and perhaps, the kind of leadership we need most right now. Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
Fast Company
02-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Why emotional intelligence is key to developing powerful teams
In our fast, interconnected world, the success of organizations depends not only on sound strategy and technical ability, but on the strength of the human dynamics behind everything. Humans need emotional intelligence to work together successfully. It's the social lubricant that helps individuals operate more effectively in adverse situations and also helps members of teams understand each other better and work more cohesively as a unit. The key components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. These all factor into helping individuals overcome and navigate social complexities and build strong relationships with diverse groups of people, which facilitates stronger collaboration in the workplace. Emotional intelligence complements and supports cognitive intelligence, enabling team members to work together more smoothly and cooperatively. It's what allows team members to build trust and cohesion, without which even the smartest, most skilled teams will struggle to be effective. I delve into this in Emotional Intelligence Game Changers: 101 Simple Ways to Win at Work + Life. Here are five emotional intelligence game changers that influence a team's performance. Enhanced communication Without effective communication, all teams will struggle to build and maintain momentum. Emotional intelligence helps teams build clarity, openness, and the ability to work with varying ideas from individual team members without divisiveness and conflict. By building two-way open communication, team members can focus on their tasks without getting bogged down in misunderstandings and one-upmanship. Team members can freely share their ideas without fear of being judged or misunderstood. 'Emotional intelligence is the catalyst for psychological safety in teams,' according to Debbie Muno, who is the managing director of Genos North America. Building trust and camaraderie Teams work best when members feel a sense of deep connection with each other. It makes them identify and feel pride for being part of the group. Instead of competing with one another, members support and help strengthen each other's skills and abilities. This leads to mutual respect and feelings. Emotional intelligence breaks down barriers and supports team members in reaching a place where they feel this way. 'Expressing feelings in the right place and time and encouraging others to express themselves leads to authentic, trusted communications and team cohesion,' Muno says. Increased engagement and motivation Emotional intelligence is crucial in helping team members build enthusiasm and interdependence with each other. When team members feel a sense of pride for what they achieve, they have the drive to achieve beyond their present level, building increasing momentum. This builds a strong understanding of and belief in the ability of the team to rise above and overcome challenges. Preventing and resolving conflict Differences and conflict are inevitable in any group setting where there are diverse viewpoints and personalities. But if members of the team possess a high level of emotional intelligence, they're better equipped to navigate past all the ego-driven issues and look for solutions. This requires transparency, open dialogue, and a focus on solutions instead of getting hung up on personal power struggles. If everyone on the team knows how to actively listen, they're more likely to have empathy and respect for viewpoints that differ from their own. They also know how to make other team members feel heard and respected, even if they don't end up implementing their ideas. Emotionally intelligent teams are also more likely to move past issues at hand; as they do so, their respect for each other increases, solidifying the belief that they can resolve disagreements positively. Improved resilience and adaptability In a rapidly changing workplace environment, being adaptable and flexible is crucial for success. 'Responding effectively in stressful situations enables team members to engage and communicate with each other productively,' Muno says. Teams that are highly emotionally intelligent are confident in their ability to adapt and change rapidly to new situations and environments that arise. They've proven their ability to overcome personality issues and bruised egos that are damaging to a team's effectiveness, so they can focus their attention and energy on the task at hand. And rather than engaging in one-upmanship that occurs in a dysfunctional team, they know how to get the best out of one another to maximize support and collaboration.
