Systems Leadership and Platforms

The document argues that addressing global challenges requires 'systems leadership'—a collaborative approach to creating 'intentional systems' that weave together diverse institutions and networks. It outlines key leadership practices, such as identifying leverage points and fostering a bias to action, and proposes the use of mobilization and learning platforms to scale these efforts through shared workspaces, feedback loops, and trust-building mechanisms.

• Systems leadership is defined as a collective, collaborative pursuit of stewardship rather than a hierarchical 'command and control' approach, aimed at creating 'intentional systems'—models for organizing people and resources specifically to bring about change in existing systems.
• Effective systems leaders focus on long-term transformation by communicating a shared vision, framing powerful questions to mobilize learning, and targeting 'leverage points'—specific elements that have a disproportionate influence on the overall system's evolution.
• To scale impact, systems leaders should encourage the formation of small, trust-based local groups (typically 5–15 people) that can iterate quickly, achieve 'early wins' for motivation, and then connect via a broader network to share resources and success stories.
• Successful systems leadership requires specific personal attributes, including the ability to 'let go' of control, intellectual humility, empathy for participants' motivations, and a comfort with ambiguity and multiple time horizons.
• Systems leadership efforts frequently fail when they are too tightly managed, too risk-averse (too slow), too narrow in their participant pool, or rely solely on rational data analysis while ignoring the emotional engagement of people.
• Platforms for systems change should move beyond simple aggregation or social networking to become 'mobilization and learning platforms' that provide shared workspaces, reputation systems to build trust, and indexed archives of questions and experiences.
• To avoid the common failure of overdesign, platforms should be deployed with minimum functionality to meet immediate needs and then iterated based on how participants actually use the tool.

APA

Hagel, J., & Mortensen, G. (2018). Systems Leadership and Platforms. World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Systems_Leadership_Platforms_Community_Paper.pdf

Chicago

Hagel, John, and Gemma Mortensen. Systems Leadership and Platforms. World Economic Forum, 2018. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Systems_Leadership_Platforms_Community_Paper.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hagel |first1=John |last2=Mortensen |first2=Gemma |title=Systems Leadership and Platforms |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=November 2018 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Systems_Leadership_Platforms_Community_Paper.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hagel2018systems, author = {Hagel, John and Mortensen, Gemma}, title = {{Systems Leadership and Platforms}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2018}, month = nov, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Systems_Leadership_Platforms_Community_Paper.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }