Leader capabilities for systemic change

What does a true leader of systemic change look like?

The actions and reactions of various world leaders and citizens during recent world events caused many of us to sit up and think about what leadership looks like. For me, this happened to coincide with other events within my own context that reminded me that when leading toward systemic change in complex systems against a powerful norm, there are some quite unique characteristics needed.

There’s no shortage of analysis on leadership qualities in business. But what are the specific characteristics of a leader who is trying to lead change in complex systems against the grain in challenging times?

When looking at the variety of leaders in my current line of vision, I thought about some of the key traits that are more unique to leading systemic change. What characteristics does a leader of systemic change have?

The first thing I stumbled on was that the leader needs to navigate and optimise across 3 different scales to effectively lead:

• The macro system — The mission and the system they are looking to change — they need to be service of the mission, and be equipped to navigate the complexities of the system they are trying to change
• The meso system — The team or community — they are inevitably leading teams (or communities) towards change and need to serve the team in whatever way possible to maximise their efficacy
• The micro system — The person — To lead change, the leader needs to start by changing themselves. The leader is in a position of huge leverage: the leader’s ability to lead change will rely on them constantly evolving their own internal system — to evolve on Bill Gates’ quote — any efficiency (or in this case strength) and also any inefficiency (flaw, inner conflict) will be magnified across the team.

1. Called to lead: The need of the mission calls the leader to lead — they inherently know the mission needs leadership and their conviction forces them to step up to the plate, whether others do or not, and whether they themselves want to or not.

2. They put the mission above themselves: They are driven by the mission, it’s not about them. They accept that the trappings of power, status and money that leaders may usually enjoy will not be waiting for them at the end and the struggle will be long-term. They know the mission may never be ‘completed’.

3. Skin in the game: The leader puts their skin in the game for the mission. They accept that pushing against the norm, against powerful forces is unforgiving, involves sacrifice and may involve outcasting from the community rather than glory. They accept the risks that come with this.

4. Internal system change: The leader knows their own transformation is key, and challenges their own internal system continuously — they know that going deep inside to debug their own system is foundational to debugging the wider system. They know they are a role model beyond their team and conduct themselves in such a way not just because others are watching, but because they themselves are.

5. Runs into the pain: The systemic leader identifies the hardest topics to address, and actively chooses to face them head on. They don’t just do what they want to or feel like doing — they move their energy to the biggest risks and biggest levers and eat the shit that needs to be eaten to get the mission done. Having eaten the shit, they smile, and carry on to the next one. They embrace the fact that long-term decisions may be short-term painful for them and embrace the maxim: “Hard choices, easy life; easy choices, hard life”.

6. Invests in the journey: The leader accepts the unforgiving conditions of driving systemic change and the unnatural means to enact it: they accept that the path of leadership is a journey they will find themselves as a leader over time, brick by brick.

7. Bottom-up figurehead: The systemic leader leads into the unknown from the front but does so bottom-up. When they sense that the mission requires it, they step up as the figurehead.

8. Pragmatic optimist: The systemic leader is an optimist but a pragmatic one. While they are able to powerfully articulate a big vision for the future built on the foundation of a belief that they can get there. But they know the road is littered with twists, turns, and fallen brothers and sisters and they prepare and navigate accordingly.

9. Embrace Complexity and Emergence: The leader knows that one person’s “system change heaven” can be another person’s “system change hell. She accepts that the world is messy, grey and non-binary. There are no “absolute truths” when it comes to the stories we all tell ourselves, there’s no clear ‘right answer’ and as a result issues are knotty.

The leader smartly navigates this messiness to get the outcome, and does so with their ethics intact. To do this they are able to navigate extremely complex systems and complex decisions, and have comfort with emergence. The world is changing around them all the time and they need to adapt accordingly.

10. Resource investigator: Despite the uncertainty and emergence, the leader can identify which resources are required both now and in the future, and is able to find ways to get them that doesn’t conflict with the mission.

11. Shapeshifter: The leader can navigate the diffuse set of stakeholders they need to in the complex system using highly adaptable social skills — with a particular strength in communication. They can listen attentively to various groups, and then communicate complex topics in a way that lands with them without losing the necessary nuance. As they know there is no absolute truth and the world is messy, they can shift styles while also having compassion for the “opposite side”. Or maybe, transcending the idea of an opposite side altogether.

12. Multi-capital: As a result of this, the leader knows that the capital of leadership is beyond merely the intellectual: it’s social, emotional, practical, cultural even spiritual, and the right capital to deploy is situational. They not only know which capital (or combination of capitals) is appropriate for each situation, they also know when someone else may be best placed to deliver such capital.

13. Multi-scale thinking: The leader can zoom between scales easily, moving from the ‘trunk’ of the tree to the leaves and back again in the same conversation. This means they can inspire an inspiring vision for the future state of a system or see the intricacies of the macro system at play, but equally submerge deep into very specific challenges more deeply embedded in stakeholders, solutions, or deep parts of the system.

14. Levers for change: When working the system, systemic leaders can identify the biggest force multipliers — labour, capital, technology, media or other — aimed at leverage points they identify. They aim this not only at the macro system they are aiming to change but their own internal system and the organisational / team system. Like a skilled technician, they work the right levers at the right time.

15. Push the boundary: The systemic leader goes beyond the conventional leader’s responsibility of setting the execution quality bar, extending the impact ambition and pushing the boundary of what is possible for the team and their stakeholders. They move them beyond what is conventionally seen as ‘possible’, pulling up the ambition one step outside the comfort zone.

16. Grow other leaders: The systemic leader not only performs internal system change, they focus on growing other leaders and invest energy into individual’s own systemic change of their own internal system. Part of this investment means doing what is best for the team and the individuals in the long-term, even if in the short-term it makes the leader unpopular.

17. Get out of the way: Sometimes they know that they need to get out of the way and give their team the autonomy they need to go and lead themselves.

17 characteristics are a lot. More simply, Design Council in their “Road to Net Zero: A Systemic Design Approach” outline four key characteristics: System Thinker, Leader & Storyteller, Designer & Maker and Connector & Convenor.

Let’s assume for a moment my assertions are broadly accurate.

In an increasingly complex world, it would seem that we want more leaders who can successfully navigate these complex systems and aim to improve the world.

It would also seem that we want to catch them fairly early so we can shape their path towards the most impactful endgame. We may want to take the characteristics outlined here as leading indicators for great systemic leaders and use them to identify high potential people.

Finally it would seem that if we catch these high potential systemic leaders we want to be able to maximise their chances for success, by providing them with challenging opportunities to work on, developing their capacities, and providing them with the resources,

If you believe all this so far, three questions arise.

First, how can you recognise and test for such traits?

Second, how do you go about finding people with these traits, who aren’t already in leadership positions? What about all the people in the world who are overlooked due to their lack of access and resources?

Third, how do you help develop these traits further?

I can’t say I have the answers to these questions yet — although we started to develop infrastructures and models to find and develop future system change leaders in Metabolic Ventures and our sister Fresh Ventures — but my next step is to work on finding this out.