As a leader, you likely seize opportunities many others miss.
But in this particular moment in history, there are opportunities before us that few are seizing well.
I was originally going to write this post for church leaders (that’s my context), but I think it has wider application for all leaders.
Our culture is undergoing radical transformation.
One day when historians write about our moment in time, they’ll refer to the change happening around us as being on a similar scale to the Christianization of the Roman Empire under Constantine, the invention of the printing press, the Protestant Reformation or even the Industrial Revolution.
The change is that significant.
And in the midst of the change, there are three opportunities not nearly enough leaders are seizing.
Leaders who seize these opportunities will have a rare and elevated influence in the future that other leaders won’t, because they’ll address three crises in our culture in a way others won’t.
Three Crises Wise Leaders Will Address
So what are the crises smart leaders will address? Here are three I see in front of us:
1. A crisis of meaning, not information
Information used to be rare.
As recently as a few decades ago, information was difficult to find and usually had to be purchased. You had to buy a book, purchase access to a talk (or the talk itself), or pay for access to an expert who would share information with you for a price.
Getting published was difficult and expensive. And access to publishing content of any kind (books, music, video, audio, let alone your thoughts and opinions) was controlled by industry experts who decided who got air time and who didn’t.
The last decade has fundamentally changed that in two ways:
1. You can find almost any information or content you want for free. When was the last time you googled something you couldn’t find an answer to without paying? Exactly.
2. Everbody’s a publisher. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram and other platforms have turned anyone and everyone into content producers, and self-publishing has turned every half-serious writer into an author.
As a result, the crisis in our culture no longer centers on access to information. We have more information than we know how to process.
The crisis in our culture isn’t a crisis of information, it’s a crisis of meaning.
