Civil Leadership as the Future of Leadership (2018)

Based on many (international) lectures and my PhD research about civil leaders I wrote a new book ‘Civil Leadership as the Future of Leadership. Harnessing the disruptive power of citizens’, that has been published on Amazon end of November this year. (Download synopsis)

The analysis is strategic: how the same digital technologies that caused disruption in many markets, is also at the basis of more power for citizens and civil society (information, opinion, mutual organizing and sharing, self-production of data, information and opinion) and that that power already is disrupting politics, democracies and public services. The hopeful message follows my research: the only right answer is civil leadership as a new public leadership from an attitude and value-pattern of ‘one of us, citizens’. The time leaders in this new public arena could get away with just economic rationality or defence or  their formal status as ‘big boss’, is over.

Our societies, institutions and social fabric are currently in the early stages of the third revolution of humanity, the Digital Civil Revolution. Disruption is not restricted to markets. The same technologies that cause and fuel it are giving citizens more knowledge and information, more public and political influence, and tools to organize themselves and so to disrupt politics, democracy and public services. This totally transforms the media landscape, public opinion, political debate, and the roles of industry and the state toward citizens.

Using multiple examples from across the globe, this book explores, analyzes and defines this revolution, its impact, the underlying technology and trends, as well as the special kind of civil leadership needed to harness this new citizen power that is disrupting the public domain.

The main message is summarized in a recent TV interview I had on Dutch television (English subtitled)