We all know the pyramid as a symbol for a classical leadership approach working top-down. With the current situation in nowadays organisations this symbol often can’t keep up with any longer. Conditions of our life and work changed and new challenges arose. Therewith a reasonable understanding of leadership also changed and led to a real paradigm shift.

Paradigm shift in our leadership approach

Lateral leadership – which means leading without hierarchical power – more and more finds its way into today’s organisations. The reasons are manifold: a rising democratisation of our society during the past years – most countries with a high per capita income are democratic since about 70 years – as well as higher educational standards and much more.

The lateral leadership concept now causes that the pyramid does no longer work as a symbol for leadership, at least not from the conventional view. So the pyramid gets replaced by the circular cone form above, a pyramid with a circular base. In this circular cone from above the lines of hierarchy are still visible but they are implemented in a new way.

In this impulse video, Gunther Fürstberger, expert in lateral leadership and CEO of MDI, talks about the consequences and explains how the new concepts enables quicker and higher quality solutions.