Doc,
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I don't find much difference
between your perspective and mine. I agree that hierarchy is not
necessary for leadership to occur. I only reference that for two reasons,
a) that is the common environment in my world, and b) I find the way the
'management,' learning, and leadership interact to be fascinating.
You asked for examples of leadership in non-hierarchical situations. I
may have told this story already, but when I heard Posner speak on
leadership, he conducted an exercise in which everyone in a group of 600
people told of an experience in which they had been leaders. Even allowing
for the possibility that Posner's definition is not aligned with the
'partnership' model, which I am not sure is the case, the examples were
quite literally within each and every single person in the 600. We were
in groups of 8-10 people, and we each had to recount that experience. The
stories were moving and incredible, ranging from situations in which
communities were up in arms about something (eg "pornographic" literature
in schools) to situations in which a supervisor was diagnosed with a fatal
disease, and individual subordinates picked upt the slack to allow that
person to continue in their official role without being able to actually
carry out their reponsibilities. I wish I could remember the individual
stories, but I cannot. Yes, leadership can and does occur everywhere. It
was a dramatic illustration that leadership is not relegated to the few,
but is available to all of us.
A good example of incredible leaderhsip without hierarchic authority may
be that of former Senator George MItchell in the recently completed peace
talks in Ireland. Those of us who live in Maine, where he lives, have
read many recent stories of his abilities. I don't know if those stories
are wide-spread outside of Maine.
I agree that the owner is no longer the sole owner of the vision, but in
some sense, she does have some kind of veto power over competing visions.
An effective leader will exercise this power rarely, and when she does,
subsequent events must show that her vision still has power, or she will
lose her credibility, much as the dominant male in a pride of lions will
lose his place as his power wanes.
Also, as someone on another list has pointed out, positional power in a
hierarchic organization gives unavoidable credibility to a leader.
Perhaps the only place where you and I differ is that I believe -- I have
seen -- that positional power, effective management, and extraordinary
leadership can occur within one individual. However, perhaps my examples
do not meet the 'partnership' criteria in the truest sense. I agree with
you that these characteristics _can_ be mutually exclusive, but I simply
believe that having power does not exclude one from also being a leader.
Intuitively, and by experience, this makes no sense to me.
In your self-described "diatribe" you make the points that (my
interpretation) leadership can be -- and often is -- used negatively as
well as positively. Of course, it is all relative, as the gang member has
a positive experience of his leadership, even though society at large may
have a negative experience of it. There is nothing inherent in
"leadership" any more than in management that makes it necessarily good.
I am interested if you agree with this point.
I, too, have had the positive/negative experience of, as you say,
"work[ing] for some excellent managers, in positions of role authority,
who were often able to supply purpose, vision, energy (leadership) and
communicate these effectively. They were also paternal, to some extent,
in that they "nurtured and cared for" their subordinates. Many of these
subordinates (myself included) felt a great deal of loyalty, respect and
affection for these people (and it's so easy, under the influence of these
emotions, to muddle all of these characteristics into one
concept--leadership)."
I venture to suggest that some of these subordinates grew into leaders
precisely because someone "nurtured and cared for" as some have done for
me. I am not sure if this is an act of leadership. I suspect it is more
an act of management to attempt to create great leaders. I may
misunderstand the partnership aspect of leadership that you espouse, but I
find it hard to incorporate the notion of "creating the next leaders" into
the concept of leadership. If John Dentico is listening, I hope he will
jump in here.
I am totally unfamiliar with the literature you refer to, but of the
characteristics you describe: "intelligence, deep knowledge, mastery of
their discipline, systems thinking, understanding of personal capacity
(their's and their subordinates'), wisdom, affection, people-skills," I
would exclude intelligence (at least of the extraordinary, and
traditional, kind) and people skills as most people understand that
concept. Not that some level of intelligence is not important, but it is
not of the extraordinary variety, or it is not in the traditional IQ
sense. And people skills are tempered with a deep commitment to
extraordinary performance, and a demanding expectation that can make the
leader appear to be uncaring. On the other hand, under this pressure to
perform, people have been known to find within themselves capabilities the
leader always knew were there, but the subordinate was unaware of.
Thank you for the response. I find this conversation enormously helpful.
--Rol Fessenden
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>