Dear Organlearners,
Steve Kelner <Steve_Kelner@cqm.org> writes:
in replying to John Dentico (LO21422)
>>The job of the leader in the knowledge era is to initiate and
>>facilitate the leadership relationship and create and environment
>>where leadership can flourish at every level of the organization.
>>I call this model collaborative leadership only to distinguish it
>>from the industrial models.
>I hate to disagree with a noted author, but I think the nature of
>leaders is what it has always been: to tap into the motivation
>of those they lead and get them focused on a common goal.
>The means have changed, the style has changed, the goals
>have changed, but the core has not.
(snip)
>In fact, the description above could probably be applied, without
>alteration, to Julius Caesar as readily as modern leaders.
Greetings Steve,
I am not sure to which description you refer, yours of that of John.
In any case, it does not really matter to me. Your description falls under
what I call the dynamics (physiology, semantics) of creativity. John's
description falls under what I call the mechanics (morphology, syntaxis)
of creativity. (Choose any of the other names in brackets if dynamics and
mechanics do not ring a bell for you.) Comparing the dynamics of
creativity with its mechanics is for me like comparing appels with pears
to decide which are the best quinches.
Both you and John have focused upon very important facets of creativity.
You focus on motivation which has to do with the free energy for
organisation of self-organising systems, whether they are material or
abstract. John focus on the the association of various "holons" (
surrounding systems, system, subsystems) making up the whole hypersystem
(universe). It has to do with the essentiality of wholeness.
In my personal learning of leadership, I follow a dual approach. On the
one hand I study books on leadership. They often cite case studies and
data to sustain their claims. But on the other hand I read biographies
(where they are available) of great leaders through all the ages all over
the world in any kind of organisation (political, business, science,
social, religion, etc.). I use these biographies as the background at
which I moderate the books on leadership.
Julius Caesar was the greatest leader which the Roman Empire ever had, so
much so that he is simply refered to as the "Caesar". If there already had
been such a person among the presidents of modern democracies all over the
world, all the people from all those democracies would have refered to
this person as the "President". (Maybe we are waiting for a woman to
appear on the scene.) Only a few other leaders in the history of humankind
occupy such unique position that they can be refered to by the title of
the office which they bear. Jesus of Nazareth is such a person, bearing
the office of Saviour (the English for the Greek Christos).
Sometimes I read in studies on other themes something on a leader which
did came out in the one or more biographies on that leader. Such was the
case on Julius Caesar. I was studying the theme "top_to_ bottom"
(hirarchial) law versus "bottom_to _top (distributed) law. Obviously, I
had to encounter sooner or later Roman Law as a magnificent example of
"top_to_bottom" law. But finding examples of "bottom_to_top" laws was,
except for modern common law in Anglo-Saxon countries, was much more
difficult. However, the "anglo-saxon" was a pointer in the direction which
i had to search. So I went back into the history of the (lower) Saxons,
then the (lower) Franconians (modern Dutch and Belgian people) and also
the (upper) Franconians (modern French people).
In the days of Julius Caesar the (upper) Franconians was called Gauls by
the Romans. Julius' star began to rise when he was made proconsul of Gaul
in 59 BC. Before him there was already Roman incursions into Europe north
of the Alps, but always in the spirit of imperialistic colonisation,
typical of all the great civilisations (Egyptians, Babilonians, etc.)
before the Roman empire. But when Julius arrived in Gaul with his cultural
background of top_to_bottom organising, he was surpised to find people who
were able to care for themselves with a bottom_to_top organising although
much chaos was present. But so great was his leadership that he was able
to recognise a powerful way of organising people even though it was alien
to his own upbringing.
Rather than forcing his own culture (law, lanuage, religion) upon the
Gauls with a different law, language (germanic) and religion (teutonic),
he decided to face the facts and help them to build their culture on what
was their greatest motivator, namely their love of freedom. He began to
conquer or drive neigbouring peoples away who caused havoc in Gaul like
the Helvitians (upper Germans) in Switzerland, the lower Franconians, the
Sequinians, the Nervains, etc. Obviously. he also had to fought against
some Gauls who believed that he was just another imperialistic predator.
Once he got control over Gaul, he began to tap the force, intelligence and
enthusiasm of the Gallic people. He began to do things untypical of any
Roman officer. He lightened the tributes of the Gauls to Rome, mitigated
slavery, forbade human sacrifices, supressed the Druids, initiated schools
in rural communities and encouraged Gauls to make their own regional laws
rather than waiting upon Rome to set the pattern. In other words, rather
than trying to make Gaul a Roman province according to Roman templates, he
helped them to emerge into a powerful province in a way which suited them.
So great was his success that he was elected as Caesar by the Roman
senate. The rest is common history. He died at the hands of someone who
feared a future based on his success.
But we have to look at Gaul to see the deeper meaning of his success. In
all the other provinces Rome had to fight continually against rebellion.
But in Gaul within a couple of generations the people even transformed
their germanic mother tongue to give birth to a strange, "singing" form of
Latin, namely Old French. They even became masters themselves in
top_to_bottom organising, supplementing their own culture of
bottom_to_top, thus increasing their creativity. Eventually, many
centuries later when Itally could not sustain the Roman Empire anymore, it
shifted from Italy to France. In the early eight hundreds these Francs
under Charlemagne managed to accomplish something which Rome never could,
namely to crush the lower Franconians and Saxons under their heels.
Unfortunately, Charlemagne, great as he was, did not do it in the way as
Caesar did it himself more than eight centuries earlier. Thus a struggle
for freedom and federalism was initiated which would ego up to modern
times. Charlemagne thought of these Franconians and Saxons as savages with
no civilisation. But Caesar thought of the Gauls as fellow humans with
great potential. Both were great leaders. But who was the greatest?
Best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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