“We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society.
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr., “Revolution of Values” (1967)
Equity in Business is a Priority
To spend the majority of our lives dedicating our time, talent, and energy to a business that further entrenches inequity is not a viable option for our team. At OwlHub, we have made the decision to exist beyond the current cultural stalemate of debating the existence of structural inequity and step fully into finding total solutions. Our collective experiences demand of our conscience something more meaningful than banter or half measures.
If you took a leadership development course twenty five, or even ten years ago, the form and content would have evolved, but only slightly. At Owl Hub we’ve found ways to deliver leadership development programs that are 18x more effective when measuring the retention and application of new leadership capacities. Every HR professional that has invested in leadership development has seen an obscene amount of money go out the door, with very few tangible results to show for it. It doesn’t need to be that way. We’ve evolved not just the content delivery but the content itself.
Shouldn’t effective leadership have helped unravel inequity in the workplace? The fact that decades of leadership development has not sufficiently moved the needle on this issue points to an incurable oversight—leadership development exists for the business and not for the actual people. And because of this fundamental disconnect, everything that follows is fatally flawed and can’t possibly meet the demands of current day leadership.
The Next Evolution of Leadership Development
Leadership development as a field of study is only now reaching maturity. Until this point, there have been a lot of parts and pieces of the leadership puzzle, but not a coherent understanding that fully prepares leaders for the challenges of doing business in our modern world. Business itself has evolved, but leadership development has not kept pace. We are entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution twice as fast as normal, only 50 years into the Third. Such rapid change in business demands more of leaders and current methods of development are falling short.
We have identified that we’re in the dawn of Third Evolution of Leadership Development. Any leadership development methodology that hasn’t evolved outdated notions of leadership and the rapidly changing role of business in society, can’t possibly prepare leaders. They are being forced to navigate wicked problems, with no training to ensure lasting success.
The field hasn’t fully diagnosed the central problem leadership needs to solve. That’s why current methods are best suited to help develop discrete leadership skills, not develop effective leaders. Our approach to leadership development has widened the aperture to include the current circumstances that leaders and businesses are facing. If you look at persistent people problems in business and understand why leadership development hasn’t effectively solved them, now you’re on to something.
Businesses can no longer exist in a vacuum where they operate purely for the bottom line without regard to their impact on employees and our larger society. Most businesses have realized this fact, but they haven’t truly grokked the implications of this seismic shift. This fact alone should dramatically alter leadership development content, but the prevailing Second Evolution Leadership Development methodologies and content have not, as evidenced by the fact that adequate answers to persistent people problems have not been found.
Dedicated to Making an Impact
We have decided to dedicate our time, energy, and the fruits of our expertise to help dismantle inequity in the best way we know how: using our unique talents to make the deepest impact possible. The reason we believe this will have such a deep impact is because we don’t treat leadership development as business-as-usual.
To that end, we have created our Buy One Give One program. For each person that joins a Leader Hub program, we will enroll one person from an underserved community free of charge. This is the thing Owl Hub can do and do well to have a demonstrable impact on equity in business.
Entrepreneurs from underserved communities will have free access to the most cutting-edge, effective leadership development available simply because we want to be part of the equity solution. This is what we’re really, really good at, so we’re offering it up for free.
Emily is the Director of Leadership Development at OwlHub Inc. Emily is committed to developing leaders who exude their humanness in all they do. She is dedicated to using her gifts to close the opportunity gap in our society.
