Insights on business leadership and the ethical design of modern technology, and the subsequent environmental impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and climate.
By Hakan Kapucu
The positive impact of technology on human advancement and easing life is irrefutable. It has become a milestone in transportation, medicine, communication, education, space discovery, and many other fields. Its intended use is very significant. A baseball bat can be a tool in sports, yet it can be a deadly weapon in other hands. Some can use technology to make weapons, create viruses, or make propaganda.
Technology is a good phenomenon, yet it is a fact that the purpose of using it can change everything. In this article, I will point out its impact on the environment and biodiversity indeliberately and deliberately caused by people, businesses, and other institutions. I will also emphasize why business leaders’ involvement can be crucial.
Where Did Humanity Reach Today?
The Earth has a long history. But the age we are in is called the Anthropocene. It is an Epoch. This geologic time describes the most recent period in Earth’s history. Human activities began strongly impacting the planet’s ecosystems and climate in this period.[1]
It is when humans accelerated biodiversity loss to an unimaginable level, which is very sad. Of course, it correlates with population growth. When we look at the world population around a hundred years ago, it was 1.86 billion.[2] And it is 8 billion today. Medical advances, agricultural developments, and ease of transport are some reasons for this exponential growth. And technological discoveries and improvements are facilitating factors behind all these, thus having a direct influence on population growth. I repeat that medicine, agriculture, transport, and technology are significant for humanity. But humanity must consider population growth for the sake of other co-existing living.
Credit: Kuebi = Armin Kübelbeck – Own work
Self-Created-Problem-Solution Cycle
The Self-Created-Problem-Solution cycle refers to the technological circles when technology triggers a challenge, then responds or solves this challenge that is its own creation, and it brings another new challenge, or the original problem is still there. I named such technological problems Self-Created-Problem-Solution Cycles. It is a type of vicious cycle.
A couple of examples will give a better grasp. There has been excessive data storage, especially in recent years. This complex structure of data is hard to perceive by the human mind. But the exponential growth of processing power and the communication speed (technology itself) brings solutions to analyze this massive data. Another example will give a broader understanding of these circles’ environmental impacts. Every industrial revolution brings discoveries and machinery. Some of these machines pollute the environment, or errors from these machineries cause ecological disasters. And then, businesses manufacture new technological advancements to clear the environment or reduce the impact of the original problem.[3]
For the sake of growth and profit, corporations ignoring environmental priorities while manufacturing products and making errors in production processes are reasons for these dead ends. It is not technology but the minds exploiting these spearhead technologies for the wrong purposes. In short, human feelings, errors, and frailties are initial points to consider.
Leaders’ Involvement
First, we need to understand leadership a little, so we can understand where leaders stand and how they can be keys to solving problems. When you look at leadership, one of the first things you will notice is leadership style. Some styles will require further learning, so for brevity, I will give examples that the name is enough to grasp fundamental principles. A short list of these leadership styles can be Democratic, Servant, Autocratic, and Charismatic. Many know what democracy, serving, dictating, and charisma are. So the names gave us intuitions about these styles.
So-called necessities required researchers and institutions to create styles, so others were born as Self-Disruptive, Altrocentric, Leadership 4.0, Agile, etc. It is a long list indeed. Of course, an ongoing debate exists about leadership styles as well. I have discussed leadership styles in some of my works. One of this matter’s essence is that ‘’a great leader also possesses an understanding outside the business world, such as global structure, biodiversity loss, and climate crisis, which will finally impact every individual.’’[4]
You probably might ask if the styles mentioned here and others act for biodiversity loss and climate. The answer underlies the core principles (essence) of these styles. And their core principals do not say ABCD Style has a mission to be aware and aid animals or protect nature.
You might see the terms like the environmentalist leader, but is this a leadership style that prospective business leaders adopt? I have not noticed it as an indispensable Core Principal after raking thousands of sources, interviewing many corporation leaders, analyzing data, and interacting with leaders at work or summits. For example, a transactional leader can personally care about biodiversity loss, but is acting to stop it this leadership’s core principle or simply being an aware person? It simply is of awareness.
Perpetuating biodiversity protection, nature, and the environment to leadership’s core is one of the main reasons I offered the Technoversal Leadership style. Every time it passed the peer review when it was an element in the article. And to make the Technoversal Leadership phenomenon easily understandable to any audience, readers can look at this entry.[5]
The business world usually perceives success as growth, profit, and positive leader-follower interactions. Technoversal Leadership also assures success in them with its other attributes as businesses would reject any style without these offerings. But the Technoversal Leadership purpose is to go beyond expectations, as we understood.
Credit: Sasata – Own work
Why Leadership Matters
And why do leaders play a key role? In a nutshell, ‘’because as the driving force of businesses and societies, leaders are key people who must initially adopt crucial ideas. They play a significant role in the propagation process of these ideas and phenomena as they inspire their followers.’’[6]
Avoiding Human Impact on the Bad Use of Technology
Again, a pen can be a tool to change the world for the better when a leader writes a peace treaty. Or it can serve something horrible when another leader prepares a war declaration. The intended use of objects, ideas, or technology will determine the good and the bad. While many will continue to discuss different trending aspects of technology, humans’ historical technology use impacts the Earth, its flora, and fauna is a fact.
References
[1] National Geographic. Anthropocene. Retrieved from https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene
[2] United States Census Bureau. Historical estimates of world population. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html
[3] Kapucu, H. (2020). Technology effect on the leader behaviors in the digital era. Business & IT, 10(2), pp. 12-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14311/bit.2020.03.02
[4] Kapucu, H. (2023). One is not enough; all is not possible. The European Business Review. Retrieved from https://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/one-is-not-enough-all-is-not-possible/
[5] Kapucu, H. (2022). Technoversal Leadership. E Scholarly Community Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/25584
[6] Kapucu, H. (2022). Technoversal leadership for biodiversity and climate. Unsustainable Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.unsustainablemagazine.com/biodiversity-technoversal-leader/
About the Author
Hakan Kapucu has founder roles at companies and projects. He has over 20 years of work experience. He has analytical thinking, and he is a polyglot.
He contributes styles and concepts to the literature. He has novel works in leadership, technology leadership interactions, and leadership-biodiversity loss-climate correlations.
Hakan took courses from the top universities and respected institutions in different parts of the world. He is an MBA with Summa Cum Laude.
He traveled to many countries on different continents of the world. Hakan believes in ethical working, the power of knowledge, and conscience as he wishes to spread the good. He regards it as a right that all flora and fauna exist for their own sake, so humanity ought to give them a chance to keep going.