The new rebels are looking for work that drives them with a passion and purpose. In the search for this passion and  purpose, either as entrepreneurs or as ‘entrepreneurs’ within organizations, they have become ‘agents provocateurs’ in business driving change by provoking and challenging new ideas and new solutions to established ways of doing things. This is causing some discomfort to those business leaders and owners who refuse to adopt a more modern style of leadership. I’ve used the term ‘Revolutionary’ business to describe the changes that these ‘re-revolutionaries’ are bringing into the workplace. These ‘revolutionaries’ are also seeking new ways of working and living and are increasingly more self-aware. Their loyalty is now first to themselves and then to the organisation. Because of this businesses require a new way of working with them in order to retain their skills and experience for the continued growth and development of the business. But before we explore this further, let me just take a moment to explain what the term ‘revolutionary’ means.

Firstly the ‘R’ stands for relationships. Business and society is rapidly adopting a new set of values as we move from the ‘old age’ to a ‘new age’. In the ‘old age’ the values of competition, dominance, conquest, command and control featured strongly in our values and language. They were pioneering values – values that were needed for a time of discovery and invention. A time when we learnt how to make machines and technology extend our psychological and physiological abilities to an extent never witnessed by any generation prior to this time. By adapting and creating technology we learned how to create greater wealth, exploit the resources of the planet, travel further and farther, defeat disease and broaden our knowledge and rapid access to information unlike any previous generation. However such values also led to the greatest wars in history, the rampant growth of consumerism, the continued ravaging of the planet, the deterioration of our communities and society as ‘personal responsibility’ is overlooked in place of ‘entitlement’ and by paternal social systems by which the population could be managed. These values, while they will never be lost and will always have a place in business, are rapidly being replaced by a new set of values – values more appropriate to a ‘new age’ of business. These new values in business are values of communication, co-creation, co-operation, connection, compassion, co-leadership, accountability and co-leadership. If we look at these values an interesting thing can be seen – that these values require us to work together in a more intimate way than ever before – as equals and not as leaders and followers. The more we can embrace people with a real purpose and passion, a vision that they can make their own, then the more we can create the leverage, the synergy, the trust and the loyalty that will create the great organisations of tomorrow. The corporations of tomorrow will exploit technology, creativity and communication more than ever before to become great – but they will essentially be virtual organisations. Their power will lie in their intellectual property and the creation of value through the synergistic co-operation and co-creation of all employees. We can then see that all of these new business values are based on the quality of relationships that we can form. It requires a high degree of understanding relationship skills. In fact, one could say that all leadership and power now comes from one’s ability to persuade and influence other people and not to attempt to command and control them, as it has been in the past. To collaborate with people through having them willingly comply and connect than simply trying to instruct and direct. In my view, the new skills of business leadership (based on observation over quite a few years) are; the ability to build networks internally and externally to an organisation; the ability to persuade and influence; the ability to effectively and systematically coach and mentor colleagues; the ability to create a viable personal ‘brand’ and the ability to communicate and present to groups and teams in a media-positive way.