THE RENAISSANCE LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVE: MASTERING AND INTEGRATING THE DISCIPLINES OF OUR TIME

In every course, lesson and insight across this site, the role and contribution of leadership cannot be overstated.

Yet the kind of leadership required to diagnose, design and implement the most effective strategies for a legacy family differs in many ways from other forms of modern leadership models.

Mastering family leadership challenges in a legacy family setting requires defining and addressing all of the issues of a complex family – both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ – in a rapidly changing context. It requires investing the time and effort to develop an understanding of the changes taking place in the world surrounding the family as well as the evolution of the family itself, it requires long term thinking when many strategic cycles are getting shorter and shorter, and it involves identifying and implementing both proven ‘best practices’ from the past and creative new ‘next practices’ for the future.

The Renaissance Imperative

The successful example of the vaunted ‘Renaissance Man’ of the Enlightenment period, in many ways, captured the ethos underlying the model best suited to inform and guide leaders of modern legacy families in mastering the challenges they face today, and those they will need to address tomorrow as well.

These few individuals (a group which would include a substantial portion of women as well in today’s world) were skilled in many areas of knowledge and activity, were exceptionally creative and innovative in their thinking and, most importantly, were capable of ‘mastering and integrating the disciplines of their time’ in an effort to bring about substantial change in both the lives of individuals and the broader societies in which they lived.

The Renaissance Imperative here is thus based on a great model from the past, but has also been developed through the understanding and application of a number of more recent developments that contribute to its application and potential impact on current legacy families and their members.

The Renaissance Imperative Seven Principles of Success for Leaders of Legacy Families

Aspire and seek actively to improve on what is currently there

Master and integrate the disciplines of your time

Apply the highest levels of creativity and innovation

Take a holistic approach

Do not be afraid to end the old to make way for the new

Benefit from the wisdom and capabilities of others

Provide authentic leadership in a manner which inspires trust and engenders support

Course Modules

This Foundation Course will provide detailed explanations and practical examples of what you can do to become a Renaissance Leader in your own right: mastering and integrating the disciplines of our time, applying creativity and innovation, and inspiring trust in a manner which will enhance your own personal legacy as a family leader and give your family the best possible future it can possibly have.

The course content is structured around the seven principles set out above, captured in four related modules:

Module 1: Understanding where you are and what you want to be, setting aspirational goals for the future

Module 2: Defining the content of an approach to leadership, including a full thought
process as reflected in the seven principles set out above to identify the best pathway forward for your family

Module 3: Defining the major challenges you face and thinking about what you need to do to master the longer term challenges in front of you, including the development of your family and its members in a broad set of capabilities and inculcation of the right set of values and guiding principles.

Module 4: Identifying and mustering the required supporting resources to move from deep insight to the informed action needed to build and maintain a laudable and enduring family legacy for your own family

Essential Content of the Seven Principles

The four modules will address these seven principles as defined above and as expanded upon in more detail below:

1. 1. 1. Aspire and seek actively to improve on what is currently there: Great leaders of legacy families do not accept passively what they inherit. They look afresh at their situation from all perspectives and redefine what is truly possible. They ‘think big’ about what can be achieved and set about to make it happen with confidence and energy: accepting and building on history and the foundations of the past, and defining with clarity their purpose, vision and values on the high road forward which leads to a better future for their families. 
      2. Master and integrate the disciplines of your time in understanding challenges and finding solutions.  Complex problems often find the best solutions through the application of knowledge and experience in more than one domain of expertise, and often benefit from a perspective built upon an integrated approach.
      3. Apply the highest levels of creativity and innovation:  There is, arguably, no group of individuals in our history who represent the skills and benefits of creativity and innovation than the scientist-artists who lived the Renaissance Ideal in the Enlightenment period.  Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, all famous artists but also much more when looked at closely, were joined by Giorgio Vasari and many others in their polymath capabilities and accomplishments.
         Today, fresh approaches are found in blending both best practice and next practice, balancing art and science, and developing the ability to see and understand complex patterns and systems dynamics from multiple complementary perspectives.
      4. Take a holistic approach: In keeping with the principle of mastering and integrating a diverse set of capabilities, leaders of legacy families would benefit from ensuring that they consider, separately and together, all of the aspects required to understand problems and then design and implement effective solutions.  This would require understanding of both ‘hard’ (technical) and ‘soft’ (human) issues, and exploring both science (proven) and art (creative, unprecedented) thoughts in appropriate measure.  
      5. Do not be afraid to end the old to make way for the new: The value and role of creative destruction has also long been found in many other civilizations at many different times in history.  Creative destruction leading to rebirth and positive progress has long been an obvious, but often painful, part of human progress.  

   The modern legacy family is no exception, with tough decisions about what needs to be carried forward from the past, and what needs to be left behind, being a key part of every family leader’s most important obligations.

   1. 1. Benefit from the wisdom and capabilities of others: No man or woman is an island, and no man or woman as a legacy leader can identify, understand, design and implement the best solutions to so many unrelated elements of a successful legacy by himself or herself. 

   As knowledge has expanded so rapidly in recent years, it is no longer possible for individuals to master, as Renaissance Men once did, all of the domain knowledge in multiple areas; the information now available is so vast, growing so quickly and found in so many fragmented areas that there is far too much to know for any one person to comprehend it all.  While important to ‘know what you know’, it is equally important to ‘know what you don’t know’, and ‘know what you can’t do on your own’ as well. 

   The wise leader will need to reflect upon the limits of his or her capabilities and identify the need for support in understanding, designing and implementing effective strategies for the family and its individual members where needed.

   1. Provide authentic leadership in a manner which inspires trust and engenders support: For leaders of legacy families today, it is important to provide a living example of the change you want to see in your greater family.  The two biggest factors in providing a leadership model which can produce enduring success are authenticity and trust.</li
      Living the values, acting with integrity, being fair and sensitive to the concerns of family members are essential.  Good listening and communication skills are at a premium.  Defining a shared sense of purpose for the family (and possibly the individuals within it), articulating a clear and inspiring vision and defining the set of values which determine who a family is as well as what they do, are key considerations in assessing the effectiveness of modern leaders of legacy families today.