I toyed around with the idea of a "leaderless organization." I used Carl
Rogers work with encounter groups as a pattern. I ran into a number of
problems, which have caused me to think the idea isn't all that practical.
a) In any team where there is a serious objective to be achieved, someone
inevitably assumes a leadership role.
b) Leadership in the sense of knowing what needs to be done is a unique
skill. Not everyone "intuitively" sees what needs to happen. those people
that do see what needs to happen seem to assume leadership roles.
I don't know if what I experienced is enough to cause me to question the
idea of a self-directed work team or not. It has certainly impacted the
way I see corporate governance. I see the role of leadership as a vital
component to long-term survival. In th is context I mean leadership in the
sense of providing vision, purpose, and direction. I also see leadership
as a necessary component at every level of the organization.
This represents a significant shift in my thinking over the last three
years. I used to think businesses should be more democratic; that they
should have a more participatory decision-making mechanism. I'm now
questioning that conclusion. For what it's worth. . .
-- Benjamin Compton DWS -- "The GroupWise Integration Experts" (617) 267-0044 ext. 16 E-Mail: bcompton@emailsolutions.com http://www.emailsolutions.comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>