Global Trends Affecting the Capacity for Organizations (including Waldorf schools) to practice collaboration

I found this article by A DeMeyer from 2009 important for a deeper understanding of the trends in business and culture that are affecting the need for and practice of collaborative work in organizations at all levels. While the article is focused at a global scale, the insights De Meyer’s shares are relevant to our school movement. His introduction could easily be a description of the new qualities we need in school leadership. He is aware that the current definitions and literature about leadership are often conflicting or incoherent as are many approaches to and understanding about how to prepare the coming generation of leaders (in our case young teachers) to face the challenges of the degree of change they will face in their teaching career. De Meyer points to the need to help young leaders develop new capacities for meeting and adapting to change. And while this premise is not new, he continues to propose that developing skills and competencies for collaboration are essential if our institutions are going to survive thrive.

Here is a list of his trends.

For a discussion of them and their relevance to Waldorf schools, read the review of his article here.

To read the entire original article, Collaborative Leadership A D 2009 final.