Steve, I don't know too much about football teams (having been a
long-distance runner, mostly), but I do know a little bit about
"mission-driven collaborative efforts where coordination and precision and
time are crucial to success." I saw many different leadership styles
within several organization's hierarchical structures. The one that
seemed most successful (and enjoyable) to me were those that fostered what
might have seemed to outsiders as a loose and weak form of leadership. By
that I mean that the mission was staffed and coordinated--and pitched to
the boss with the appropriate SWOT assessment. Each of the staff
proponents had had the ability to review, consider and hash out much of
the collateral issues associated with the recommendation. If the
preparation and recommendation were solid, the boss usually bought the
recommendation--perhaps with some slight changes. Sometimes the boss had
special insight--or knowledge--that he shared with his staff, setting a
new goal or objective for the staff to go back and reconsider. Many
times, these activities occurred after midnight--when people had been
involved in physical and mental hardship. Often the decisions were hard
fought. But, by the time the boss made the decision and the operational
orders got sent out, the staff and subordinate leaders had had
considerable input into the decision.
Ironically, these decisions were made just as fast as those where leaders
didn't rely so much on their staff input--but almost always the mission
was more concrete, clear, and possibly more obtainable as a result. Now,
the boss (in my example) wasn't weak; and the organization was anything
but loose. But each of the staff principles--and their staff
members--felt like the shared in the leadership, and in the decision, and
almost always felt much closer to the leader who made the final decisions.
I think the cameradery that I experience during these processes certainly
were in the spirit of "primus inter pares," that Ed cited.
My experience, though, was with army field commanders involved in combat
operations decision-making processes. I think that the difference may be
(in the mission-driven efforts) that the actors have a deadline that's
very real. In faculty (I imagine from your example) and non-profit boards
(in my experience), processing ad infinitum is evidently preferable to
making a decision. I guess my point in all this is that leadership is not
tied to a structure--as a style it may exist in many forms within many
structures . . . or it may not exist at all.
The leaders who I remember in drawing my examples from were considered to
be among the very best by their peers. It was quite an opportunity for me
to learn from their behavior. I don't have an antileader bias--though
hierarchies are not (in my mind) the superior structural entity for
people. I just think that some time people who aren't very good leaders
end up being bosses--and they rely on the hierarchy and their role
authority, to get them through their situation. Sometimes they don't
realize how incompetent they are. Sometimes, they do. I've felt sorry for
these latter people, because they simply don't know how to get out of
their predicament.
regards,
Doc Holloway
Dr. Steve Eskow wrote:
> 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.
--"We think highly of men when we do not know the extent of their capabilities, for we always suppose that more exists when we only see half." -Marquise de Sabli
Thresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>
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