Leadership

Leadership

our leadership crisis

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The past 20 months have witnessed a global crisis in leadership. We will not distribute vaccines to poor countries because we are letting the market lead our pandemic responses. Public health officials have held on to droplet dogmatism in spite overwhelming evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is airborne. Schools have been kept open while many children have not been able to get vaccinated. This pandemic has become a crisis in network leadership.

One design problem of almost all organizations and institutions is the inability to quickly change who is in charge. In dealing with complex challenges the best organizational form, according to Verna Allee, is loose hierarchies and strong networks. I also advocate for ways to enable temporary negotiated hierarchies for working and learning in the complex domain.

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masterclasses

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Several times over the past few years I have been asked to conduct online masterclasses to help organizations with their internal change initiatives, such as — digital transformation, distributed work, & online community building. These sessions are 1/2 day (±4 hours) and have from 20 to 60 participants. Each one is focused on the needs of the client which we discuss in advance. Here are the various components that we have used.

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convening the right people

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I have often said that a critical role for people in leadership positions today is helping make the network smarter. In a recent blog post, the author discusses another critical aspect of leadership — convening the right people — and uses the example of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Leadership in a collective or networked world is defined by those who have vision to convene the necessary group (Dixon, 2009) and those who spend resources wisely for the right things. Merkel was brilliant in setting up shop in Berlin. In the future, that means Germany will be internationally known for epidemiology. She will also inspire a new generation of German scientists and doctors based on this hub. Of course, she didn’t just fall into leading in science, she has her PhD in quantum chemistry (The Atlantic, 2020). Merkel is technically competent, knows how interact with others, and can conceptualize a future that is better than present for tracking pandemics (Jacques, 1986). That is leadership.” —Hilda831

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leadership in a distributed workplace

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Distributed, remote, and even hybrid work have one similar quality — they expose cracks in the system that could be covered over in face-to-face settings. They make dysfunctional workplaces transparently obvious. Distributed work, like online teaching, has to be much more explicit. Both require excellent communication skills, especially writing, because the work becomes more asynchronous. In a global economy, work is distributed across both space and time.

Those in leadership positions — servant leaders — have to manage networked contributors working in environments that are transparent, diverse, and open. Anything less is sub-optimal. They need the skills developed by leading multiple players in online role-play games — creating highly motivated and remote collectives to battle elves or aliens or build civilisations. These skills are not taught in business schools and few senior managers or executives have them today.

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battling elves and building civilizations

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Why do we follow others? Because we trust them for their knowledge, advice, support, vision, etc.

“We follow others for various reasons, some because of their knowledge, some because of their vision, some because of their inspiration, and all for the confidence we place in them. No trust, no follower-ship. Without confidence from others, a person can not effectively lead. No follower-ship, no leadership.” —Valdis Krebs 2014-12-11

As this pandemic becomes endemic, many organizations are returning to the office. But the past 18 months have showed most of us that we don’t have to work in an office to be effective. As remote, distributed work takes hold across many industries, what kind of leaders will be trusted?

In a long thread on Twitter, Simon Wardley describes where these new leaders — those who can organize distributed teams — will come from.

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leadership has a price

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I served for 23 years in the Canadian Army. As a young infantry officer, the concept of leadership by example was drilled into us. One event remains in my memory from almost 40 years ago.  A fellow junior officer had just joined the regiment. He had graduated from university then joined the Army and did one year of infantry officer training. At that time it was normal to send new officers to our Battle School, where recruits were trained. On graduation they would all come back to our unit. At the School, new officers had experienced, permanent-staff non-commissioned officers (NCO) for support, usually with 10 or more years of experience.

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subject matter networks

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We live in a networked world. Is it even possible for one person to have sufficient expertise to understand a complex situation such as this pandemic? So do we rely on one subject matter expert or rather a subject matter network?

I have noted many discrepancies between advice from our Chief Medical Officer of Health as opposed to a network of experts who I follow on Twitter. Our CMOH has been responsible for producing some of the most complicated public health guidelines and even our local CBC radio station staff could not come to an understanding of the concept of a ‘steady ten’ — Do these circles overlap? How long can they last? What about children going to school in contact with others? Talking with other people I have noticed that everyone interprets it differently. This is a failure to communicate.

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the moral minority

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The elites in charge of organizations and institutions like to think they take into account the opinions of experts, but as this pandemic has shown, that is often not the case. The pandemic response in many countries is political, not guided by the best public health knowledge.

“On any particular issue, people at the bottom can usually claim the most expertise; they know their job best. And when someone at the top has to make a difficult decision, they usually prefer to justify it via reference to recommendations from below. They are just following the advice of their experts, they say. But of course they lie; people at the top often overrule subordinates … Elites like to pretend they were selected for being experts at something, and they like to pretend their opinions are just reflecting what experts have said (“we believe the science!”). But they often lie; elite opinion often overrules expert opinion, especially on topics with strong moral colors.” —Overcoming Bias

If there is a moral aspect to the decision, elites feel even more justified in their decisions for doing the ‘right’ thing in spite of contrary evidence.

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walking the leadership talk

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I was a speaker at Amazon’s Global Learning Day in 2016 and one thing that struck me was how often one of the 14 principles of leadership would crop up in regular conversations I had during my three days in Seattle. As this event was focused on learning, someone made up stickers for principle #5 — Learn and Be Curious.

“This is perhaps the most important Amazon leadership principle as it sets the foundation of the entire business structure. Leaders are never satisfied with their product, the word, ‘perfect’ is not in their dictionary. It’s curiosity which helps them to achieve new feats. They are never done learning and always look to improve themselves. They are curious to know all the possibilities and acts to explore them. They are never satisfied at any point in their business development which makes them interesting. Some example questions from amazon leadership principles in this regard are: Tell me about a time when you:

Solved a problem through just greater knowledge or observation?
Influenced a change by only asking questions?
Went through that changed your way of thinking?
Curiosity helped you make a smarter decision?

and:

Tell me about the most significant and imperative lesson you learned in the past year from your experience?”
—Louis Carter

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six ways to make sense

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One of the big consultancies is promoting ‘six ways’ to make sense of these complex times, or words to that effect. If you believe you are getting leading-edge thinking from these types of businesses, think again. Here is a story about a major consulting company, from one of its own.

“Despite having no work or research experience outside of MIT, I was regularly advertised to clients as an expert with seemingly years of topical experience relevant to the case. We were so good at rephrasing our credentials that even I was surprised to find in each of my cases, even my very first case, that I was the most senior consultant on the team …

I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic successful businesses, and that as consultants, our earnings came from having the luck of being included in an elaborate cargo-cult ritual. In any case it fell to us to decide for ourselves what question we had been hired to answer, and as a matter of convenience, we elected to answer questions that we had already answered in the course of previous cases — no sense in doing new work when old work will do.” —The Tech 2010-04-09

Is this what clients really want?

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