Dear organlearners,
William Hobler <bhobler@worldnet.att.net> wrote in LO14523:
> I enjoy leaders who work with me to define the goals and establish the
> values that are to guide the work and then say - go and act in the best
> interest of (name the organization). I worked as the direct report of a
> CEO who expected us to exercise his authority. On a field trip I made a
> decision, which he explained the error of when I returned to headquarters.
> But he wouldn't allow me to call and change the decision right away. He
> said, "wait a few months. The situation will change and we can change the
> decision. No-one will ever know that you made a mistake.
>
> That kind of leadership pushes my button. The button is classical
> leadership. Make the goals clear, give your people the authority they
> need, get out of their way and clear obstacles from in front of them.
William
Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. You have shown us the
shining side.
However, please do not think I am picking on you. It may work for most
businesses in most cases because they have to operate as dissipative
adaptive systems, competing in an open market with other similar systems.
This time delay is essential to the feedback loop of the system when it
has to deal with the higher orders of complexity where things happens
slower.
But what you have written, has also a very dark side to it.
Our beautiful country South Africa has been mucked up the past century by
leading politicians who have employed exactly the strategy which you have
described! I have studied enough of our political history to know that I
will be able to write a book full of examples.
I do not know by far enough of the political history of the USA to say the
same. In fact, I will be quite relieved if some of you see the same dark
side in your country's political history. If it is the case, then we see
what is so dangerous in any monopoly, even if it is the ruling majority
party in politics. A monopoly need not to act as a dissipative adaptive
system in an open market, competing with similar systems.
I cannot explain it any better than refering all of you to the animated
movie/video The Lion King. (I have it in English and Dutch for the benefit
of my granddaughter. She loves the Dutch translation which is closer to
her own mother tongue. I do not know the name of Simba's Uncle in English,
but in Dutch it is Skaar. I suspect it is Scare in English). Anyway. the
devious Scare has been employing exactly this strategy. He nearly
destroyed the natural (animal and plants) kindom with this stratgy.
Please, have again a look at The Lion King to get your thoughts into gear.
The rewards of Scare punished the whole kingdom nearly into oblivion. The
same may happen to us all.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>