subject: Leadership Development - the Sigmoid Curve [print this page] Leadership Development - the Sigmoid Curve
Charles Handy in his book the Empty Raincoat discussed the Sigmoid curve and its implications for organisations. In essence, Handy was explaining that all organisations have life cycles that are fairly predictable and can be expressed in terms of 5 shaped curves, like a product life cycle. The curves show how organisations form and start to grow, before eventually reaching a peak and then starting to decline. The time span for the growth, maturity and decline may be very long or fairly short (think of the life span of a games console).
However, there is no simple way of calculating exactly how long an organisation will take to reach a peak or when the decline will start. What is critical though is to begin a second wave / curve of organisational / business development before the peak finishes and not wait until pending disaster has become clear to everyone.
This is a paradox, of course, because why change something when everything is apparently going so well?
One of the critical roles of leadership is to identify when to change. This takes vision and courage from the leader because in the short term the risk to changing the business may appear to be large. Leaders therefore need to be forward thinking and able to see the "big picture". Leaders need excellent strategic thinking skills. However leaders need also to be aware of their own and the organisations' mind sets, which can constrain them and their organisations; a "mind set" being a "way of doing things" that can ultimately by limiting belief.
Examples of mind sets can include :
"All watches must have hands."
"All letters must be sent by post."
"You need film to take photographs."
Leaders therefore need to continually challenge, innovate and develop if they are to successfully reinvent themselves and their organisations. In the words of Marcel Proust - "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes".
