Leadership in an Era of Context Collapse

The phenomenon of context collapse continues to be a vexing issue for organizations. Defined as “the near impossibility, in a social media era, of intentionally and credibly managing different identities with colleagues, with family, and with friends,” this concept was at the crux of the MIT Sloan Management Review 2021 Future of Leadership report, published in collaboration with Cognizant. In the 18 months since that research was published, we’ve seen more examples of why context collapse is one of the most fraught aspects of our digital age, at both the individual level and the organizational level.