Ed Brenegar cites the notion that in certain kinds of group the principal
of "primus inter pares" is the leadership style: first among equals.
Those in the university world are familiar with this approach to faculty
leadership: often departments have departmental "chairs": they chair the
meetings, keep things moving, but have little or no authority. In a
faculty department where the professors are authorities in their field
this weak leadership approach is often quite satisfactory.
I wonder why we are not advocating the "form follows function" approach to
designing leadership structures. When the team is composed of independent
scholars collaborating on certain projects but essentially independent, a
loose and weak form of leadership seems appropriate. For a football team,
or any mission-driven collaborative effort where coordination and
precision and time are curucial to success, such a loose form of
leadership is a prescription for failure.
Steve Eskow
Dr. Steve Eskow
President, The Pangaea Network
288 Stone Island Road
Enterprise, Florida 32725
Phone: 407-321-8770; Fax: 407-321-4861
http://www.durand.com/pangaea
dreskow@durand.com
--"Dr. Steve Eskow" <dreskow@magicnet.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>