Chris’s blog provoked my thinking and I want to pose even broader questions about the world of work today. I am not sure that by simply identifying examples of forward thinking in action, without there also being a strategic object at organizational levels, can lead to the needed wisdom for sustained and productive organizational change. I think we need to examine the forces that are giving energy to these phenomena.

To make leadership everyone’s responsibility and thereby create the most productive and professionally satisfying organizations, it is imperative that there be clarity about the tidal wave of change that has been brought on by recent economic developments. This altered context requires rethinking about how the basic employer-employee agreement is understood and what impacts follow when “leadership as everyone’s responsibility” is now the norm.

It is suggested that when the economy recovers, things won’t return to normal in the workplace and instead it will defined by its “permanent crisis” state (Heifetz et al. “Leadership in (Permanent) Crisis”, Harvard Business Review June-July 2009)

To accept this paradigm means that organizational effectiveness is contingent upon everyone practicing both leadership and “followership”. Being a leader no longer describes a hierarchy of titles, but rather an intended dynamic interaction among all levels of staff to accomplish organizational goals. Leadership is influence at its best. Influence happens in “the space in-between” individuals and is reinforced, developed and recognized through organizational structures and systems.

It can be argued that individual expectations of the employment agreement often do not align, nor do they support, the behavior of individual leadership required to do “best practices, while establishing next practices” (Ibid). The rapid expansion of varied “employment” models (project work, contingency employment) and the rise of “encore careers” as an option for boomers and talent managers alike, contributes to an urgency to re-examine the assumptions that drive today’s major HR practices .

To understand the context of today’s world of work and the altered employer-employee agreement will drive organizational transformation to expect and require the demonstration of “leadership” by all employees and contractors.

Are organizations, HR professionals, managers and the workforce ready to recognize this reality and take incremental steps toward this new world of work?

Action without thought will be unproductive.

Bill Tietjen is a certified consulting associate with the Lee Hecht Harrison (LHH) Career Transition Practice of Greater Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley Region. In addition, Bill is a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice and is a lecturer at Temple University’s Executive MBA Career Management Program and mentors the MBA students at Drexel University.