Leadership is a social process, and like any social process it must reflect the society in which it occurs to remain relevant. Leadership must keep up with the times, so to speak.

This presents a serious dilemma, as our most popular and widespread leadership models, situational and transformational leadership included, were developed to understand and improve leadership in an industrial era. However, our society and its needs are changing, and consequently, so are the needs of our institutions and organizations. The inevitable shift in the nature of the work force demands that leaders and the very concept of leadership adapt accordingly if they are to remain socially relevant concepts.

Soon we will understand leadership to be:

More than good management

While competent management remains essential to organizational effectiveness, it is a function distinct from leadership and serves a different purpose.

Dispersed, collaborative, situational and provisional

Leadership is and will be a process in which leaders and followers engage. In contemporary organizations, leadership increasingly depends on influence relationships and a shared-power environment. In the future, effective leadership will rely less on individual leader behavior and more on mutual influence. Leadership is all about influence: Supervisors influence subordinates, subordinates influence supervisors, and peers influence each other. The challenge is to transcend self-interest, attend to mutual purpose and achieve the common good.

Why should we think of leadership this way? First, consider that many scholars agree and evidence shows that we are leaving the industrial era and transitioning into a knowledge or information society. In this emerging era, knowledge is becoming a raw material; the means of doing much of our economy's work; and a commodity that we create, buy, sell and trade. Consequently all our institutions, are responding to the trend, and “knowledge workers” are beginning to dominate our society.

Not that I'm dominating society, but take me for an example. I often describe myself as a nearly worn-out firefighter with an interest in people and organizations. For most of the last 10 years, I've stayed busy, kept mostly out of trouble, and made a modest living by consulting and helping people learn. I don't make anything to sell. Except for a few times a year, I don't put out or light anything on fire, and I'm not restoring fire to its natural role on the landscape as many of you are. All I have to offer is my knowledge and experience, and I bring that knowledge and experience to bear on other people's problems. In short, I've become a knowledge worker.

What's more astounding than the fact that I could become a knowledge worker is that I've managed to do so from places like Moran, Wyo.; Washburn, Wis.; and Wisdom, Mont. Like most knowledge workers, my ability to do what I do depends on technology and my (somewhat limited) ability to use that technology. If you reflect on your jobs, you would realize that you are participating in this trend as well, particularly if you've been in the business for more than 15 years. What you know has likely become at least as important as what you can do.

For example, 30 years ago about 30% of American workers belonged to labor unions, and a very large number of those workers made steel and cars or manufactured clothing, shoes and durable goods. If General Motors decided to eliminate your job, you couldn't make a go on your own. First of all, making cars takes a lot of money, part of which bought steel, aluminum and other raw materials, which in turn took up a lot of space. Second, that machine you ran, you couldn't take that with you. Finally, you didn't really know how to make a car. You installed the transmission and hooked it up to the driveline, but you didn't know the whole process. When you walked out the door, GM still had the capital, the raw materials and the means of production.

Fast-forward 30 years. Less than 13% of American workers belong to labor unions and only a small portion of our work force is engaged in heavy industry — and new knowledge, information and technology industries employ millions of Americans. The raw material used by these organizations rests between the ears of their employees. The means of production exists at the interface between their fingertips and a keyboard, and they complete whole processes not only from start to finish, but beyond — to innovation. Sure, they need the company's computer and software, but in most cases you could buy the same computer at Costco, and the software is either commercially available or the employee wrote it.

When a knowledge worker walks out the door of today's organizations they take the raw materials, the means of production and the entire process with them. People can leave their employers and put their talents to work on their own, and they are doing so in great numbers. No longer does quitting your job or changing careers seem strange or particularly risky.

I'd like to share a story a little closer to home. A few years ago, I was teaching in L-380 classes at the Joint Apprenticeship Academy in Sacramento. We were conducting classes both simultaneously and back-to-back for several weeks. It was an interesting time to be there because, as it was told to me, the last of the early MEL hires were completing their academies, and the first of what I call the “MEL recruits” were coming through.

In the first week, my partner and I had a class composed of people who had been seasonal employees for some time, had intended to make fire a career, and the National Fire Plan had provided them their big break. The following week, we had a class of the new generation, and I was astounded by the contrast between their introductions and those we had heard just the week before.

A significant portion of the class introduced themselves along the lines of “I was an elementary ed teacher and was fighting fire in the summer because it was a fun and exciting way to make extra money. Teaching fifth grade wasn't really what I had expected.… One day the FMO approached me and told me they had these permanent jobs open and that they wanted me to put in.”

A significant number of people in class indicated that, while they were currently pursuing fire careers with their agencies, they possessed other skills, other interests, and alternate careers. Consider three additional factors:

The demographics of your agency will change

Baby Boomers will begin to retire in droves over the next three years. Assuming fire agencies can fill the gap, in the near future your agency's employees will be primarily from Generations X and Y. It's safe to assume that by 2008, much of your work force will have been born after 1980, and their attitudes will differ significantly from Baby Boomers.

By 2010 there will be a labor shortage in this country of 10 million people. Competition for employees will be fierce.

Careers and industries will emerge over the next 20 years that don't exist today due to an explosion of knowledge and innovation. Some futurists speculate that most of today's young children will work in jobs that don't yet exist. Remember, if you were born before 1960, personal computing, software, Internet service provision, e-commerce and wireless communication didn't exist when you were in high school.

The leadership implications are enormous. The nature of the incoming agency work force can best be described as young, well-educated and confident. They will have plenty of career options. They will ask why. They will expect to be involved in decisions that affect them, expect their supervisors to listen to them and will count on having influence. Industrial era notions of leadership just won't cut it anymore

Mike DeGrosky is the chief executive officer of the Guidance Group, a consulting organization specializing in the human and organizational aspects of the fire service. His interests include leadership, strategy, and bringing the concepts of learning organizations and high reliability organizing alive in fire organizations. He recently completed a master's degree in organizational leadership. He can be reached at info@guidancegroup.org