Games leaders play: using process simulations to develop collaborative leadership practices for a knowledge‐based society

We live in a postindustrial/knowledge‐based society, the ramifications of which are transforming both manufacturing and service‐based organizations in the public and private sectors. The industrial models of leadership which were often autocratic and compliance demanding, are incongruent with the needs of people who search for intrinsic satisfaction from daily activities in an environment of rapid complex change, turbulence, ambiguity, diversity of interests, and information overload. New models of leadership such as post‐industrial, post‐heroic, collaborative, and critical theory, offer some measure of congruence with our postindustrial society. These models provide coherence with new organizational philosophies such as the learning organization. Building bridges or “microworlds” which provide a way in which leaders can investigate, analyze, interpret and build confidence in new models of leadership and the principles of the learning organization, are vitally important to the future of organizations and communities. Realistic, custom designed, table top, non‐computer‐based simulations, such as LeadSimm can be used to build such bridges.