The Leader-Follower

Liberative Leadership and The Implied Potential of the Follower-Leader

2011-10-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

Of course, if we can have a leader-follower, why not a follower-leader?

The idea intrinsic to the model "A Vision for Leadership and Collaboration" is that in a healthy process of leading and following the leader and follower roles alternate or are exchanged, and I continue to believe that's a good paradigm. However, if we identify two, momentarily distinct roles, leader-follower and follower-leader, more powerful descriptive possibilities arise. The implications are:

As has always been the case in this model, when someone is leading in a healthy fashion, they will inevitably also find themselves following - an involving and participatory action that permits further development of the leadership role and contribution.
With the addition of a follower-leader role, not only does the one who is momentarily leading explicitly contain the potential to follow, but the person who is momentarily following, explicitly contains the potential to lead! (Remember how each part of the yin-yang symbol contains a dot having the same color as its counterpart?)

This expanded leader-follower/follower-leader paradigm, portrays the ongoing dialogical relationship between leader and follower in what for the moment I'm calling, a healthy relationship.

This perspective arose while I was reading, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by Paulo Freire, 1996, Continuum Publishing (a translation from Spanish, and originally published in 1970). The author offers an alternative to the banking model of education in which teacher and student roles are permanently, hierarchically separated and the teaching process oppressive, the leader investing in delivering his/her information which the student "learns" by valuing and acceptance. Freire's proposal is that we consider teacher-student and student-teacher in a dialogical relationship of mutual learning and liberation!

If mutual learning is the product of the the teacher-student/student-teacher dialog, the question that must be answered to complete the analogy is, "What is the product of the leader-follower/follower-leader dialog?" The best answer that presently comes to mind is "creativity." The paradigm shift provided by the model now becomes very clear. It is from the mechanistic, mutually oppressive roles of leading and following, transformed by dialog into the co-creative and liberating roles of leader-follower and follower-leader.

(Now "health" becomes clear; oppression is unhealthy and liberation is healthy!)

The Model: A Vision of Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation, Visual Refinements

2009-07-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

It has been 18 months since my last post. Even so, there is still a modest stream of visitors to The Leader-Follower and the site of the leadership model, A Vision of Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation.

Although some new ideas are emerging about the model, it is very largely unchanged. The exceptions are general refinements to details in its presentation and most usefully I hope, is a new, introductory, manipulable, three dimensional representation. My intention is that a new visitor can quickly understand the model's physical shape and layout and be better prepared to explore its details and apply them to real situations.

Innovation within a call center - how are team members provided with guidance and coaching?

2007-12-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

If you are asking about innovation in how team members handle calls here are some suggestions about behaviors that are important to develop: RESPONDING, IMPROVISING and REALIZING.

RESPONDING is about following what callers have to say, receiving, clarifying and understanding the information they provide and the needs they express.

IMPROVISING is about leading callers despite their often unpredictable way of communicating their needs and their unpredictable responses to questions.

REALIZING is about implementing the objectives of the call center however they are defined in terms of productivity, quality and service, for example.

Coaching these behaviors together will develop the important competency, innovation. These and other behaviors and competencies are shown in their interrelationships in the self-coaching model, Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation.

How does religious diversity impact team performance?

2007-12-06T16:40:00.001-08:00

The person who asked this question explained, "I am doing a group project on Management class and there is not much information on this topic. We have 4 people in group and their parts are age, culture, gender. Mine is religion, religion's impact on teamwork, that's team performance." Here's my answer.

Rather than a complete answer, here's a potential starting point.

I have concluded that team performance is something to do with competences in visualization, organization, collaboration and contribution for team success. The performance of a religiously diverse team will be impacted according to the degree to which the values of the traditions represented in the team can be used to support these competencies.

The same is true for differences in age, culture and gender. I suspect there is "not much on this topic" because there is not too much to be learned from generalizations. What you need it a case study! To get to the specifics for religion, try turning your "group" into a team! Explore everyone's religious affiliation and see how each supports visualization, organization, collaboration and contribution for team success.

I referred the questioner to the self-coaching model, Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation. The same competencies are in this model, so I expect the questioner's project will quickly reveal the leadership challenges and opportunities in a religiously diverse team.

"We should measure corporations by their impact on all their constituencies."

2007-04-17T10:06:00.000-07:00

As someone who has long maintained that an enterprise is sustainable so long as all its stakeholders are satisfied, I was delighted to read this from the Nation, "The Establishment Re-Thinks Globalization," which comments on Ralph Gomory's book, "Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests.

"Gomory's vision of reformation actually goes beyond the trading system and America's economic deterioration. He wants to re-create an understanding of the corporation's obligations to society, the social perspective that flourished for a time in the last century but is now nearly extinct. The old idea was that the corporation is a trust, not only for shareholders but for the benefit of the country, the employees and the people who use the product. "That attitude was the attitude I grew up on in IBM," Gomory explains. "That's the way we thought--good for the country, good for the people, good for the shareholders--and I hope we will get back to it.... We should measure corporations by their impact on all their constituencies."

I found two item of good news in this piece. One is a challenge to the wisdom of "free trade" as an inevitable good and the other is the recognition of the necessity to include all constituencies or, as I described them, all stakeholders.

The specific problem Gormory is addressing and for which he is proposing solutions, is America's loss of economic strength and the general impoverishment that occurs when corporations acting globally fail to support the needs of their local stakeholders. In the context of leadership, these leaders who (un)consciously ignore a constituency have a narrowed vision and (un)consciously externalize costs to the neglected constituency. As can be seen in the first figure, any stakeholder that is excluded has no part in improvising, structuring and realizing solutions.

The general phenomenon is the same whether the externalized costs appear as auto industry unemployment and subsequent family and community dislocation, Enron employees' lost pensions or the pain of the Iraqi population. The institutions and their leaders lose these stakeholders' respect, their interest in conforming and willingness to respond. The second figure underscores how these potentially enthusiastic followers are excluded from the organization, are thus unable to contribute or collaborate with other stakeholders in finding solutions.

There appears to be a growing population who consider factors beyond stock price in their assessment of corporations as potential employers, good citizens and investment vehicles. This re-examination of Ralph Gomory's work is very timely.

Chief Responsibility Officer - CXO of the Month?

2007-04-10T20:52:00.001-07:00

Almost exactly a year ago, in my post Chief Innovation Officer I identified how CXOs are being named according to a variety of core corporate values like quality, information, learning and, at that time, innovation. Today the latest flavor is CRO or Chief Responsibility Officer which is so real that there is a magazine, "CRO" which is hosting its second (already) annual meeting of CROs in April.

A couple of things come to mind. Although I have not plotted the introduction rate of CXO functions over time I have the impression it is accelerating and wonder what that might mean. The other is that if there is a trend, what does it suggests about the next CXO function?

What is the job of the CRO? I'm not going to try to exhaustively define this but rather observe that its origins appear in the ideas around corporate social responsibility, i.e. that corporations should be good citizens and care for the environment, underprivileged and so on. As in the emergence of the earlier CXO functions it certainly appears the right thing to do, to ensure a corporation fulfills all its responsibilities beyond making money for its investors. But what are these responsibilities?

It is necessary that a corporation accepts the responsibility to satisfy all its stakeholders: investors, employees, customers, providers, partners, governments, local communities, and now including the environment, global communities. If any one of these stakeholders is unsatisfied the business is unsustainable, which becomes obvious earlier with dissatisfied investors and later with a dissatisfied global community, although those cycle-times may be-a-changin'.

There is a downside, however. It takes an individual to respond. Responsibility can only be taken, i.e. the commitment to respond can only be made, by an individual and it is a pretense to believe one person can take responsibility for the actions of another. The buck stops in the corner office because the occupant is expected to ensure that people in his/her organization do take responsibility and if they do not s/he has failed in managing and/or leading.

So, if someone else is in charge of others behaving responsibly with respect to a corporation's stakeholders, what does the CEO do? Meanwhile, does the CRO position open the door for thinking, "although I don't like what I see, I need not worry about it because that's the CRO's responsibility?"

A Leader-Follower can always be helped by good examples and role models. However, as this edge of the tetrahedral model "A Vision of Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation" shows,responding is about doing something new,innovating, as an action following some sort of stimulus, in a collaboratively negotiated fashion so the resulting contribution is satisfactory to all concerned.

The opposite, complementary edge of the model is about structuring, i.e. leading for implementation by providing vision and organization! We could jump to the conclusion that is the CRO's role. Wrong! It is the individual's responsibility to self-manage by visualizing and organizing thoughts, values and actions to implement what responsibility means to to him/her.

Technorati Tags: A Vision of Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation, Chief Responsibility Officer, CRO, CXO, responding, responsibility, stakeholder satisfaction, The Leader-Follower

A Vision of Leadership is now named Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation

2006-11-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

The name of the model, A Vision of Leadership has been changed to Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation. All references in this blog will be amended.

Technorati Tags: Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation, A Vision of Leadership

A Vision of Leadership - Access to the Interactive Model

2006-11-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

The domain name www.avisionofleadership.com has become unavailable as the url for the model. The interactive version will therefore be inaccessible until new arrangements are made. Unfortunately, the links from this blog to the model will not function as intended.

Meanwhile, The Leader-Follower incorporates full details of the model. Entry pages include:

Features of the Leadership Model
Leadership and: Collaboration, Implementation, Innovation, Vision.

Interactive Leadership, the Associate and the Leader-Follower

2006-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Business Week 10/2/06 cites a study by CO2 Partners: Managers seeking advice tend to ignore lower grade workers, the one's who "actually make the stuff or are dealing with customers," which conclusion is supported by survey data.

Employees who say their bosses "often" ask them for advice:

Those with high school diploma or less, 24%
College graduates, 54%
Those earning less than $25,000 annually, 30%
Those earning more than $75,000 annually, 52%

These results reminded me of some of my observations in an earlier post, Interactive Leadership and how that relates to the concept of The Leader-Follower.

I'm associating a boss's "often asking for advice" with the boss stopping leading for a while and by inquiring, placing the employee in a temporary position of leadership. By drawing on some aspect of the employee's expertise and experience, by asking for advice and listening, the boss is adopting a follower role. Without this flexibility on the part of the boss, we get into a "chain of command" process in which the boss protects his power of position, using it to control the employee who does whatever appears appropriate to retain his or her job.

As I write, I am recognizing yet again the power our language holds over us and how it can promote the declining values of our culture rather than those which are new and vibrant. "Boss" and "employee" are incongruent. The only boss I know who is not an employee is a board member - a CEO is an employee and so is a Vice President or Director even while they can also be described as bosses. Ideally, every employee is a leader-follower, giving advice and receiving it as necessary to accomplish the organizational or team objectives. Fortunately, there is new language emerging. W.L. Gore among others now use the term "associate," de-emphasizing distinctions of positional power and highlighting the association brought about by shared objectives.

I believe the associate role implies interactive leadership and I want to briefly explore that in reference to A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).

In the "associate" concept, the values lead and follow are united by respect which permits the interchangeability of leader and follower roles, the interaction of leader and follower or interactive leadership. An associate is a leader-follower.

In an organization in which position power differentials still exist, interactive leadership supports healthier information exchanges than are possible with pure command and control or transactional leadership. In a collaboration or leaderless team where position power is absent, however, contributions become even more effective. In this way, interactive leadership can occur both in an organization and a collaboration and in each case this is possible when those involved perceive themselves as leader-followers.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leader, follower, leader-follower, Associate, interactive leadership, organization ,

Free Leadership Coaching !!!

2006-09-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

(A Vision of) Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation is already a reference in two university courses but there's nothing like testing a leadership model using real workplace issues and have the users themselves report the results. Hence this experiment and offer.

You are a candidate for free, confidential, leadership coaching if you:

Face a personal leadership challenge that you are ready to discuss with me in private.
Can devote one uninterrupted hour at your computer on a weekday, between 7 am and 6 pm PST.
Use Skype (or audio IM) + Webcam or can support my remote access to your video-conference system.

I am committed to:

Respond to every request. (If there are too many I will announce that.)
Make my best efforts, using A Vision of Leadership, to help you find a way to address the leadership challenge you face.
Keep the content of our conversation confidential.

To participate:

Email to my personal mailbox, a short (100 to 300 words) description of the issue you wish to address, including alternate dates and times for one hour of coaching together with your videoconference information.
During the 5 working days following your coaching session, apply what you discover.
Afterwards, enter a comment (anonymously if you wish) into this blog, including: the challenge, lessons from coaching, results in the workplace and observations about A Vision of Leadership.

I look forward working with you.

Technorati Tags: leadership, leadership model, leadership challenge, coach, coaching, leadership coaching, free coaching, A Vision of Leadership, collaboration, innovation

A Story of Power

2006-09-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was recently told about gentleman living in a city in another country, who carried a concealed pistol. There, it is very rare for a civilian to legally carry a firearm in public and, indeed, he had obtained the appropriate permit. When he was asked by a visitor what he was protecting himself against his reply was unexpected. "I am protecting myself from myself."

As I understand it, this gentleman is using the pistol as a reminder of how powerful he is, how easy it is to call on his power, how potentially dangerous his power can be and therefore how circumspect he must be in its use.

I might have been skeptical except that the story was told me by the visitor, who is someone I tend to believe. As I thought further I realized that the gentleman had provided a wonderful example. It is not that I am proposing we all carry handguns but it does make a lot of sense, before we use our power to serve an objective, to consider the downside that can come from its even accidental misuse.

Leadership Quotes

2006-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is a compilation of quotes to which I add from time to time.

RELATIONSHIPS
In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of the relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions.

- Margaret Wheatley

GOOD LEADERS
Good Leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that's what gives their work meaning.

- Warren Bennis

FRIENDSHIP
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Can Respect Survive the Bad Times?

2006-08-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

In her 8/18/06 article in wsws.org, Joanne Laurier describes an extreme case of lack of respect between leaders and followers: Northwest Airlines to laid-off workers: rummage through the trash. Workers who have already made substantial concessions and are now to be laid off as their jobs are outsourced, received a company published book, "Preparing for Financial Setback," which contained this and other unusual recommendations. Meanwhile it is reported that executive earnings exceed $20m and prior to Northwest's bankruptcy filing the chairman dumped stock worth $26m.

The Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) shows how, in the name of effective organization and collaboration, respecting binds together leader and follower. The leader is usually the person or people who take an initiative. Over the years Northwestern employees have lead by striking (disrupting organization and collaboration) in the hope of retaining benefits. In the present case management leads by publishing "Preparing for Financial Setback" against a background of pocket lining by executives. At this point any residue of mutual respect is likely to have evaporated, creating yet more obstacles to organization and collaboration.

Before airline industry deregulation Northwestern had a very successful business model and since then the company has been adapting to the new circumstances. The news item highlights how respect between leaders and followers is probably more important and harder to sustain in the bad times than in the good. In the good times organization and collaboration appear to be effective. In the bad times, with the stress of change, assumptions are challenged and small, misplaced actions can be potently negative. Without basic respect, an enterprise's survival through bad times appears less probable and if that culture continues, longer term success appears improbable.

Return on Leadership Investment

2006-08-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

The Boss's Paycheck

CEO compensation policy is "not rocket science" yet it "remains remarkably disparate" at major U.S. corporations, according to two studies by The Corporate Library, an independent research firm.

The first study, Pay for Failure, highlighted 11 companies that authorized a total of $865 million in pay to CEOs who presided over an aggregate loss of $640 billion in shareholder value.

"Pay for Failure"

AT&T Inc.
BellSouth Corporation
Hewlett-Packard Company
Home Depot, Inc.
Lucent Technologies Inc.
Merck & Co., Inc.
Pfizer Inc.
Safeway Inc.
Time Warner Inc.
Verizon Communications Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

The second study, Pay for Success, highlighted 10 companies that awarded $190 million in pay to CEOs who presided over $82.7 billion in gains.

"Pay for Success"

AutoNation, Inc.
AutoZone, Inc.
Express Scripts, Inc.
Franklin Resources, Inc.
Humana Inc.
NCR Corporation
Nordstrom, Inc.
Nucor Corporation
Progressive Corporation
Whole Foods Market, Inc.

Source: BusinessEthicsBuzz, August 2006

Relationships

2006-07-12T11:02:00.000-07:00

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of the relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles and positions.

- Margaret Wheatley

Courtesy of HeartQuotes

Good Leaders

2006-07-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

Good Leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that's what gives their work meaning. - Warren Bennis

- Courtesy of HeartQuotes

Editorial - If a person is to be included he/she must be able to make a contribution, i.e. to lead, at least at the time of contributing in a way that makes a difference. So, organizationally, it is fair to say that "feeling centered" is experiencing that one is neither solely a leader nor a follower but a complete leader-follower.

A Nice Angle on the Innovative Process

2006-06-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

"The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created--created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination."

- John Schaar

Courtesy of HeartMath

Friendship

2006-05-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

-Albert Camus

Courtesy of Heart Quotes

The Next Big Thing

2006-05-01T16:27:00.000-07:00

I found myself reading Alex Cameron's post, "If we don’t know where we are going – then where is The Next Big Thing?" on EDS's Next Big Thing Blog and was stimulated to comment as follows.

The Next Big Thing is indeed a technological manifestation of leading and innovating. No, we cannot we predict what TNBT will be or from where it will come except that the source will be a person (or group of people) and quite often not the person we might expect. A person who appears to have been following will surprise us by taking the lead and solving the problem while immediately before, s/he had been implementing rather than innovating. If all this is true we have some important clues to the source of TNBT.

Let's make a shift in our assumptions and propose that all followers are potential leaders and that all implementers are potential innovators. Also let's also propose that with respect to others a person can only be leading or following and with respect to their work they can only be innovating or implementing. This takes us to the idea that any person in the workplace is exhibiting at a given time some combination of leading or following and innovating or implementing.

As each of these is a desirable activity and the implied versatility is very desirable. For lack of a better name lets say this person is exhibiting leadership! Yes, this is a different model of leadership but test it. Just imagine if this or something similar was pervasive in your organizations!

Leadership and Implementation

2006-04-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

This is an ongoing list of posts that have a focus on implementation:

Technorati tags: Leadership, Implementation

Leadership and Innovation

2006-04-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

An ongoing list of posts from this blog and my website that focus on innovation.

Innovation Distinguishes Between a Leader and a Follower
Innovation vs Implementation
Chief Innovation Officer
Realizing Drives Innovation and Implementation
Responding - Follow and Innovate?
Improvising - Lead and Innovate
Collaboration and Innovation (model)
Innovation Occurs on a Foundation of Organization
Collaboration and Innovation (program)
Articulating a Vision for Collaboration and Innovation (program)

Updated 4/22/06

Success

2006-04-12T18:18:00.000-07:00

If I could write like this I would not be bothering with a model.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Success

Leadership and Vision

2006-04-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

The idea of 'vision' is important to all human behavior because, as recent research has confirmed, our brains cannot always distinguish between an experience we are having, a memory of a prior experience (deja vu etc.) or a memory of a prior visualization.

A vision is important to leadership for a couple of reasons. A person with vision is empowered by mental maps s/he has developed that extend beyond the field of immediate experience and suggest new possibilities for action and can be acted upon as 'real' extensions of the field of immediate experience. In other words this person can create his or her own future. This individual capacity becomes massively multiplied when the vision is shared by others. The relevant leadership attributes therefore, are to envision, create/share a vision in a meaningful way with others and act upon it.

This is an ongoing list of posts that focus on vision or visualization:

Articulating a Vision
(A Vision of) Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation (Interactive model)
A Vision of Leadership - A Heartfelt Vision
Visualization - the First Face of Leadership

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Vision, Leadership Vision, Visualization

Leadership and Collaboration

2006-04-05T18:15:00.000-07:00

This is an ongoing list of posts with a focus on collaboration.

Leader vs Follower
Chief Innovation Officer
Collaboration for Innovation (model)
Implementation Energized by Collaboration
Improvising, Lead and Innovate
Articulating a Vision for Collaboration and Innovation (program)
Collaboration for Innovation (program)

(Last updated 4/22/06)

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Collaboration

Transactional Leadership

2006-04-05T11:52:00.000-07:00

In two earlier posts this subject was discussed but not made explicit in the title.

" . . . Transactional leadership it is about the power of position and interactive leadership is about the power of relationships. . , " from Interactive Leadership.
". . . Where this leads-follows is that of transactional and interactive leadership, neither is inherently superior. . ," from Leadership and Gender.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Leadership, Gender, Interactive Leadership, Transactional Leadership

Leader vs Follower

2006-04-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

This title suggests that one can be only a leader or a follower and this is possible but often with disastrous effects. A single person can be a leader or follower and anyone that is one now can be the other next. Many searches for "leader vs follower" bring readers to this blog but the results page that is chosen doesn't explain this principle of the leader-follower relationship.

Using illustrations from the proposed tetrahedral model, " A Vision of Leadership" (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), we can see it is respect that keeps leader and follower in relationship, each respecting the other for the role they are taking. With no respect the relationship becomes dysfunctional and one or both will give up their roles or, if both choose to be leaders they will compete and if both choose to be followers nothing will happen! Respecting is a leadership practice necessary for leading and following in at least two different, important contexts, organization and collaboration.

By organization I mean the structure that is formed by leaders for implementation in which followers conform. This is typically the traditional hierarchy structure used to reliably and repeatedy implement routine operations according to policy, a necessary component of all collective activities. A leader leads followers even while following his/her leader. Really there is no such thing as a leader or a follower. Each person is both, a leader-follower, following one or more people and leading one or more, different people. (Notice that this applies to the person lowest in the hierarchy if they are taking initiatives with respect to others.)

The leader-follower behavior is quite different in collaboration. In this case the person leading improvises in order to innovate and the person following responds to support the innovation. Unlike in a hierarchy the leading and following roles are not fixed according to positional power but are situational, according to whoever can contribute most effectively at any moment. Rather than choosing a leader or follower role according to the position of the other, it is selected according to the value of the other's contribution.

The question, "Am I a leader or a follower?" implies a person can be only one or the other which leads to very unfortunate consequences. Someone who is just a leader will give orders, take independent action, be answerable to no-one and be unable to collaborate; such a person is a dictator. On the other hand the person who chooses just to follow can exist only at the lowest level of a hierarchical organization and be unable/unwilling to take any initiatives with respect to another person; this person is a slave. "Leader or follower?" implies only bad choices unless the response is "both."

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Lead, Leader, Follow, Follower, Innovate, Innovation, Implement, Implementation, Organization Collaboration

Chief Innovation Officer

2006-04-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Jena McGregor with May Barrett in the current edition of Business Week wrote the very interesting article, "Dawn of the Idea Czar." I commented as follows.

The task of the newer senior management positions, including CXOs for quality, information, learning and now, innovation is to elevate specific values. Traditionally, enterprise culture is shaped by organizations with the largest resources, usually focusing on implementation often within cultural silos. The CIO can counter this tendency by engendering innovation focused cross-organization and cross-function collaboration. Success requires a dynamic interchange of leader and follower roles according to who can contribute most usefully in contrast to the static leader-follower relationships of the hierarchical, implementation organization. Cultural change is a leadership responsibility. The primary task of the CIO is to model leadership that brings leading or following and implementing or innovating appropriate to the situation and to stimulate a culture that situationally values these four attributes. Their possible relationships are detailed in the model Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Lead, Innovate, Innovation, Organization

Cross Boundary Collaboration

2006-03-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

In his new blog, collaboratioNation, speaker and author Seth Kahan examines how people work together across boundaries with illustrations from a multiethnic school, a toy company where customers design products, a story of how stone soup fed a village and more.

I'm comfortable proposing that leading and following is about changing one's physical, emotional and mental boundaries for the benefit of others and welcome Seth's contribution to the conversation about the collaborative aspect of this.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Collaboration

Leadership and Innovation

2006-03-19T23:01:00.000-08:00

An ongoing list of posts with a focus on innnovation:

Chief Innovation Officer
"Innovation Distinguishes Between a Leader and a Follower"
Innovation Occurs on a Foundation of Organization
Lean Leadership
Collaboration for Innovation (model)
Innovation vs Implementation
Improvising - Lead and Innovate
Responding - Follow and Innovate?
Realizing Drives Innovation and Implementation
Articulating a Vision for Collaboration and Innovation (program)
Collaboration for Innovation (program)

(Last updated 4/22/06)

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Lead, Innovate, Innovation, Organization

Leadership and Decision Making

2006-03-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes . . . and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility."

Eleanor Roosevelt
(from HeartMath)

Inner and Outer Leadership

2006-03-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

There's an external face to leadership. First the personal - gestures, tone of voice, content of speech, expression and so on. Beyond that but still close to the person, there are the symbols or accouterments like a bench, a chair or a throne. Then, physically independent of the person, are their results such as the attitudes of those around them, their reputations and their products including projects, organizations and enterprises or writings, science and art. Meanwhile we know so well that leadership is more than these externals but these are what we most easlily observe and together comprise what we call "character" in our attempt to describe the real person.

Descriptions of character or personality may be as close as we can get to describing a specific leader unless that person does it for us by telling us what they think about themselves and what they stand for. But this gets complicated. Are they really describing themselves and how are we interpreting this information? Although we can develop skills of discernment we can never know the truth of it and ultimately the decision to trust, to follow, requires a leap of faith. And just the same applies as a leader enrolls a follower.

Playfullize the Enterprize!

2006-03-02T09:36:00.000-08:00

This is the admonition of Major Fun himself, otherwise known as Bernie Dekoven. To appreciate this gentleman it is helpful to know that he once ran a small operation initialed IBM. In this case IBM stood for the Institute for Better Meetings. If I called him and he was away from his phone the voicemail message was, "Hello, this is Bernie. I'm presently conducting a Better Meeting, so please leave a message." Bernie brings a uniquely multifaceted approach to revivifying the fun that was in an enterprise. You can sample the possibilities at DeepFUN for Businesses and Institutions.

Leadership and Gender

2006-02-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

The model, "A Vision of Leadership" (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) incorporates the assumptions that we are all inherently leaders and followers both externally with respect to others and internally within ourselves. Additionally the model assumes that we are all driven to innovate and implement, or create and do. At different times these values or imperatives to lead, follow, innovate and implement, have different powers in our lives proportionate to our needs, habits and context. "A Vision of Leadership," however, contains no consciously introduced gender component.

Earlier, in Interactive Leadership, I touched on gender for the first time. The proposition was that transactional and interactive leadership were masculine and feminine leadership styles. I have just read the traditional story "The Handless Maiden," as told by psychologist Robert Johnson. I was reminded that Jungians contend it essential to our wellbeing that a man has a complementary female aspect (anima) and a woman has a complementary male aspect (animus). The extent to which these aspects of our psyches are active or inactive is a significant determinant of our behavior.

With this perspective, I took a look at the model and found that each of the following pairings of values (corners) and outcomes (faces) can be considered a pairing of complementary masculine and feminine attributes. Remember now, as in the opening paragraph, A Vision of Leadership is an integral perspective and no part stands on its own or acts independently, i.e. you cannot effectively appreciate leading without appreciating following. With that in mind the complementary aspects can be classified: (if you go to the model, use the 'Reverse' link to toggle between value/corner and outcome/face)

These ideas are tested by looking at the practices responding and structuring.

Responding is driven by the 'feminine' imperatives to follow and innovate and supports the 'feminine' outcomes of contribution and collaboration.

Structuring is driven by the 'masculine' imperatives to lead and implement and supports the 'masculine' outcomes of visualization and organization. (If you go to the model, you can toggle between responding and structuring using the Reverse link.)

In the Jungian context, structuring is the leadership practice of a man or the animus in a woman and responding is the practice of a woman and the anima in a man. Additionally, structuring as a masculine practice is consistent with ideas earlier expressed around transactional leadership and responding as a feminine practice is consistent with interactive leadership. Where this leads-follows is that, of transactional and interactive leadership, neither is inherently superior. Leadership comprises some combination of both, fluctuating according to needs, habits and context. There are also some clues here about the importance of acknowledging/activating the opposite gender aspect in each of us.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Innovation, Implement, Responding, Structuring, Organization, Collaboration, Visualization, Contribution, Leadership, Gender, Interactive Leadership

"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."

2006-01-24T23:34:00.000-08:00

This Steve Jobs quote courtesy of Subconscious Films.

I perceive innovation as a driving force, an imperative or fundamental value. It shows up in a leader as the act or practice of improvising - making the implicit explicit to satisfy a need. An Apple PowerBook or iPod are both good examples. While the underlying architectures of a laptop or an mp3 player were well understood the Apple designs are innovative because some talented people, leaders in their field, improvised around those general themes to create exceptional products.

Innovation is a quality of a leader but not exclusively so. What about the people who purchase Apple products? They are followers! While innovation shows up in a leader as improvising it shows up in a follower as responding. Continuing the example, Apple's innovative designs resonate with a segment of consumers who respond by purchasing their products.

Innovation is a value important both to one who leads and to one who follows. In this context, leading and following are really distinguished according to how innovation manifests, in improvising or responding.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Innovation, Improvising, Responding, Leadership, Apple, PowerBook, iPod, Steve Jobs

Walking the Talk

2006-01-11T00:14:00.000-08:00

I didn't expect to continue to write about the model A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) however I gain new insights as I work with it, this one about "walking the talk." I first came across the expression early in the nineties and ever since have taken it as a reminder that it is appropriate to do or at least be able to do whatever one recommends to others. One not only gains from the presumably beneficial action but models it for others, leading by example. Conversely, one would fail to walk the talk and be considered hypocritical if one claimed to value something but neglected it in one's actions. I was content with that until I found some greater depth to this idea in the tetrahedral model.

In re-writing the descriptions of the features I repeatedly mixed up the ideas of leading others and leading oneself. There is a set of descriptions for each case and one day I will document both. Most recently I decided to adopt the convention that leadership is primarily about oneself and the effects one might have on others are secondary, arising only from effects one has on oneself. According to this convention the values lead and follow are about leading and following oneself but what does that mean?

A visualization is the imagined outcome by a leader of his/her creating structures to implement, improvising in order to innovate and realizing some objective through this innovation and implementation. This same visualization can be shared with others to provide them direction but that is secondary to providing direction for the visualizing leader.

In the metaphor of the tetrahedron, leadership is described by the total volume enclosed by all its features and that volume can be bounded by all four corners, all four faces or just one face and the opposing corner. The corner opposing 'visualization' is 'follow' and thus we have leadership when one who would follow adopts the visualization of one who would lead. If leader and follower are the same, following oneself means being true to one's own visualization.

Leadership is primarily about being intellectually honest or walking one's own internal talk. Although it may later be the same, this is not the talk that is shared with others but the talk one has with oneself prior to sharing it with others! In this way I have transformed my understanding of 'walking the talk' from acting congruently with already espoused values to acting congruently with values arising in the moment, espoused by oneself to oneself. No-one except the leader him/herself can observe whether their actions are consistent with their intuition, best judgment and conscience. Only I know if I am walking my talk!

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Innovation, Implement, Implementation, Leadership, Visualization

Interactive Leadership

2006-01-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the search terms that are used to find my business site, Strategies for Leadership and noticed "interactive leadership," which finds it because of the "interactive, leadership model" I have described. I don't want visitors to be disappointed so I will reward them with something on the subject here and learn in the process. Before I write my own perceptions/understandings I thought it best to check what's been blogged on the subject and although there's not a lot, it might prove interesting:

In " Interactive Leadership - Leaders Who Listen" Gerard Kelly (8/17/05) uses a computer analogy, "Listening is where leadership begins. In a time of transition and change, it is where leadership must linger for much longer than we are used to. In the terminology of Computer Science, an interactive programme is one in which the operator is in direct communication with the computer, receiving immediate responses to input data. This is contrasted with batch processing, in which the necessary data and instructions are prepared in advance and processed by the computer with little or no intervention from the operator. Interactive leaders, then, are those who not only impact their environment but are impacted by it; who are as much shaped by relationships as they are shapers of them; who respond not only to principle but to particularity. The heart of interactivity is listening, and looking and learning are its constant companions. Interactive leaders are those who examine and explore; who research and respond. To lead interactively is to be a lifelong learner."

In "If Women Ruled the World" Published Sunday, September 25, 2005 by Mercutio, written by TARA SHARAFUDEEN we have a gender distinction, "Men traditionally tend to be more "transactional", that is they view the job as a series of transactions with subordinates, exchanging rewards and punishments for service. They are more likely to use the force of their organizational position and formal authority. Women described themselves as more "transformational", getting subordinates to put the group above themselves for a greater goal. . . . . Judy Rosener who conducted the "International Women's Forum Survey of Men and Women Leaders", surveyed women who described themselves as transactional leaders and found them to have an interactive leadership style. They encouraged participation, information sharing, tried to energize and raise the self worth of subordinates. They believed that to give their best, people need to feel good about their job and themselves." (LATER NOTE: I have built on these ideas in Leadership and Gender.) (NOTE OF 9/23/06. I've come across this further information about Judith Rosner's work.)

In "Beyond the Hype: Do Blogs Provide a Platform for Leadership?" Edward Deevy (7/18/05), I unexpectedly found a blogging comparison, " Later, as a consultant to a number of client organizations I advocated the concept of "leadership by walking around." At that time I stressed the importance of INTERACTIVE leadership. My bias was that leaders needed to not merely tell people what to do but they also needed to listen. . . . For a number of years I have recommended that organizational leaders interact regularly with employees in meetings and conferences. . . . The development of the blogging platform just a few years ago now makes it possible for leaders to hold ongoing "conversations" with employees and customers. What's really noteworthy is that the new software makes genuine INTERACTIVE dialogue possible."

Risking oversimplification, we have interactive leadership defined in contrast to transactional leadership, the analogy of interactive processing contrasted with batch processing, the traditional gender distinctions and the identification of an interactive leadership opportunity in blogging. What I'm identifying is that different types of power are being exercised. Transactional leadership it is about the power of position and interactive leadership is about the power of relationships. Interaction encompasses a broad range of relationship content and style whereas transactions involve more specific and controlled relationships. I find both the transactional and interactive leadership styles implicit in the model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), transactional leadership being associated with the value "implement" and interactive leadership with "innovate."

Implementation is about accomplishing a targeted outcome by following a planned process, managing the transactions that will lead to a specific, repeatable objective. Examples of implementation include registering an automobile, constructing a building and shipping $1B worth of products. Many of the manufactured goods we acquire, hardware and software, are intended to make implementation easier, quicker, cheaper and more reliable, whether it is buying groceries or managing a corporation. Implementation is about managing resources of material, energy and information through a series of predefined transactions. Until recently, except for household resources, this has traditionally been a man's world, especially when it comes to competition for resources. Implementation is usually conducted within a hierarchy of positions, each higher level taking responsibility for more resources. What I'm describing is often called management and I am perceiving that transactional leadership may indeed be management in disguise. The ideas of "transactional" and "interactive" may usefully inform the much discussed difference between management and leadership.

In contrast to implementation, innovation is about doing something that has never been done before, at least in the environment in which it occurs. While innovators may implement predefined transactions to establish conditions for innovation like concentrating, avoiding distraction, bringing the appropriate resources together, setting goals and allocating time and money, they innovate in the absence of predefined transactions and outcomes. I believe innovators engage a process, in relationship with others and/or their muse or higher power, out of which innovations emerge. This has much in common with the traditionally feminine paradigm of participation, sharing and inclusion and could well be described as interactive leadership. I would not be surprised to discover that feminine qualities are conducive to innovation. Giving birth and nurturing our young, particularly, have to be right up there on any scale of innovation. However, I feel inadequately informed on what appears to be a very timely issue and would be interested in the results of any research that explores innovation along the gender dimension. (LATER NOTE. I accepted my own challenge in Leadership and Gender.)

Blogs would appear to support interactive leadership and thus innovation. A couple of months ago I quickly looked for CEO blogs that included leadership/management-employee interaction and found none. To the contrary I found a couple where employees vented to each other, in the absence of communications with leadership/management. I would also be interested in examples of interactive leadership in CEO blogs.

A quick google on "interactive leadership" showed many more web sites results than my Technorati blog search, so I may return to this subject. So far I have been reminded that it is because of their transactional nature that implementation activities are relatively easy to outsource and offshore which brings pressure for more innovation by domestic enterprises. The implementation component to every human activity insures that transactional leadership will always be a necessary skill but probably in proportionately less demand locally. This micro-study leads me to appreciate that a widespread call for innovation generates a demand for what some are calling "interactive leadership," explaining the appearance of this search term.

Technorati tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Innovation, Implement, Implementation, Transactional Leadership, Interactive Leadership

A New Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation)

2006-01-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

The underlying leadership model is unchanged but more accessible, with descriptions adjacent to images and faster movement between images. You can now directly access individual features of the model from this page.

As before, this model arose as an exercise in visioning and is a specific illustration of a generalized technique. The model integrates the value pairs, lead and follow, innovate and implement. This is important because most issues of business leadership can usually be traced to a polarization around one of these values to the exclusion of another or others. Elsewhere I make the case that the intentions to innovate and implement are only useful when co-existing as innovate-implement; both bring about quite different activities but activities that can only be sustained in coexistence. Similarly, neither are the intentions to lead and follow useful in isolation; it is lead-follow that gets the job done.

The model terms simply arise as the outcome of 'containing' the tensions between these four values. The descriptions of the model's features however, using these terms, continue to be a challenge.

You can enter the new Vision of Leadership at any one of these feature links:

Values or intentions: Lead, Follow, Innovate, Implement

Practices: Improvising, Conforming, Realizing, Responding, Respecting, Structuring

Outcomes: Visualization, Organization, Collaboration, Contribution

The Final Test of a Leader

2006-01-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

"The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on." - Walter Lippman.

From HeartQuotes

The Four Imperitives of Business Leadership

2005-12-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

In the model "A Vision of Leadership" (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), I named as values lead, follow, implement and innovate. I now recognize them as "super values" or imperatives. If anyone is leading a business or part of one or leading a project these are absolutely necessary.

Throughout I will use the word enterprise, to describe a business or project or any human undertaking.

Implement: This is what we must be done to meet the expectations of existing internal and external customers.
Innovate: This is what must be done to satisfy the (anticipated) expectations of returning or new internal and external customers.

If one implements and innovates it is possible to sustain an enterprise. The leadership practice that supports or is derived from the imperatives to implement and innovate is sustaining. Every action or decision a leader takes must stand up to the test, "does it sustain the enterprise?" Taking an organic analogy, does it sustain the life-force to the enterprise? Is it nourishing, nurturing, vitalizing?

Earlier I proposed realizing, making real . . . .

The other imperatives

Two Months of The Leader-Follower

2005-12-14T13:00:00.000-08:00

In thirty posts over two months I have described and illustrated "A Vision of Leadership," an original, interactive, multidimensional leadership model.

I'm not sure where to take this blog next but I am considering comparing other leadership models to this one, hopefully stimulating exchanges about what has and has not worked in our lives.

I'm taking a break now.

Happy Holidays!

Features of the Leadership Model

2005-12-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

This is the index to a series of posts about the fourteen features of the proposed model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation). I am still very much open to comments about the proposal and to modifying it as necessary.

The model is driven by two pairs of values that are often perceived as competing: lead and follow, implement and innovate. The index follows the order of posting. Each model feature is italicized in the post title.

INTRODUCTION

SIX LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

FOUR OUTCOMES OF LEADERSHIP

FOUR LEADERSHIP VALUES

CONCLUSIONS

Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Implement, Leadership Model

Using the Model Viewer

2005-12-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

Leadership has never been a simple subject. It is complex because many of the qualities that describe it are related in ways that are not always obvious. We found we could penetrate this complexity with a tetrahedral model. When you read a piece like the one below you may find it helpful to open A Vision of Leadership from the link on the right in a separate window. Select any aspect of leadership to open the viewer, close the large window and position the viewer alongside the blog. (Actually, you can keep it open for reference any time.) Manipulate the position of the tetrahedron to reveal relationships among the qualities of leadership that are not so easily described visually with two dimensional illustrations.

Note added 1/10/06.
Since this post I have found it preferable to eliminate popup windows. Now all windows are the same size and for greater clarity, the "viewer" is extended to include the description of the model feature that has been selected.

Which Apprentice Candidate Will Best Handle a Crisis?

2005-12-11T11:05:00.000-08:00

The interlude between two episodes of the final round provides an unusual opportunity to look at project leadership during a project before the competition's outcome is known. We don't really know how each team is doing according to whatever implementation plans they decided except that each leader now faces a crisis. Bad weather can shut down Randall's charity ball game and Rebecca has lost the star attraction to her charity comedy show. What we have seen are vignettes of project manager behavior and this is how some of those look through the lens of A Vision of Leadership.

Visualization. Each project leader has in his/her mind some visualization of the desired project outcome that is a basis for directing their staff. We did not see project managers sharing or developing their visualization with their team and instead they move straight into delegating responsibilities. This requires total trust by the following team members that the PM has all the wisdom, insight, experience and competence necessary formulate how the task will be best accomplished in all its aspects.

Follow is opposite visualization in the tetrahedral model. This means that if you don't share a leader's visualization, you cannot place your actions into the context visualized by the person you are following - you follow blindly. This is well illustrated by Mark who was quite disturbed that Randall wanted him at the gift store and not working with the ball game's color commentator and, again, when he was left on his own erecting important facilities and signs. Mark said nothing to Randall.

Respecting. What's really happening? Mark could explain to Randall how he was prioritizing his time but, apparently, he has insufficient respect for his own potential to lead Randall. Meanwhile Randall is not respecting Mark when he countermands his earlier direction without checking the impact upon Mark's activities and later, leaves Mark alone conducting a major task without checking with him about how he is doing. Together they are an ineffective organization and they do not collaborate.

Structuring. Structuring emerges from the desires to lead and to implement. In the case of Mark, Randall's structuring of his organization and even his structuring of his visualization of how things will come together are called into question.

Responding. The outcomes of collaboration and contribution require a leader to be responsive, a practice that supports their commitments to innovate and follow. Randall appeared non-responsive to the representative of his charity and the significance she gave to the message about the high incidence of pediatric AIDS. The same was true when the ball park's owner twice raised the issue of bad weather to Randall and later emphasized how he was an important stakeholder in the project. Randall's capacity to collaborate and contribute in this project are now in question.

Rebecca at least acknowledged that there would be no purple food for the VIPs at her comedy show. However, it was not obvious that she respected and responded to two other comments from her corporate sponsor. The first was when they explained they had no experience in supporting charitable fundraising (although one executive later replied to Toral's specific question about direct solicitations), and the second was when they questioned the adequacy of three bartenders serving 150 people.

Improvising. Each team faces a crisis that shatters their leader's original visualization of how their event will be constructed and conducted. The outcome of each event and each team's performance is now likely to be judged according to how well they improvise in these crises. The practice of improvisation derives its strength from commitments to lead and to innovate and supports the outcomes of visualization and collaboration.

I recall Rebecca dependably improvising under pressure but have no similar memory of Randall. To the contrary, it was Donald Trump who formulated a way for him to go to his grandmother's funeral while continuing the interview process. Rebecca continued the interview despite a broken ankle, she prepared and delivered a presentation at the last minute for her team when no-one else would, and she replaced ineffective actors with Randall and herself in her commercial. I expect her to at least consider standing in for Joe Piscapo as MC.

Responding, Improvising and Respecting are the three leadership practices that support collaboration. Collaboration is necessary in both teams for them to get through their respective crises and in the collaboration stakes Rebecca has an edge.

Respecting, Structuring and Improvising are practices that emerge from the commitment to lead. Weakness in these weakens the outcomes of Visualization, Organization and Collaboration and this is where Randall is vulnerable.

We get a clue about how this happened from the team-picking dinner when Rebecca "put on her game face" and assertively negotiated her members. Randall was unprepared for her competitive toughness and may have lost much of his earlier confidence. Unlike Falisha who was fired last week, Rebecca continues to demonstrate the "toughness" demanded by Donald Trump.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Organizational Development, Business, Work, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Respecting, Improvising, Structuring,Follow, Apprentice, Donald Trump

What more would be possible if . . . . .

2005-12-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

we were more intelligently adaptable about when to lead and follow?

as leaders, when one of our followers is ready to lead, we encourage that person to lead while we temporarily follow?

as followers, when we know we will receive support from our leaders and know we have something to contribute, we adopt a leadership role?

our institutions from families to schools to business to churches supported us in our development as leader-followers?

you and I and everyone accepted that we can choose to lead and choose to follow according to our innate and developing sense of what is appropriate?

you and I and everyone cultivated a sensibility to other's choices about whether they should lead or follow according to their perception of what is appropriate?

rather than stereotyping others as leaders or followers, we adopted the expectation that everyone can be either according to their perception of what would work best for them and others in a given situation?

If as a leader, you find yourself thinking there would be chaos if these circumstances arose, can you be certain that today you are really in control and there is no chaos? Surely, given the consequential increased participation and responsibility-taking, it is worth considering instead, how these conditions can be made viable.

Lessons from A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation)

2005-12-07T05:02:00.000-08:00

The proposed model had been completed and published to its web site a month or so before I started this blog. While an interactive web site provides a good opportunity for examining a three dimensional model, much of its meaning remains implied. I saw that a blog creates the opportunity for extended exploration and, of course, feedback.

Here's what I learned from describing A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) in twenty five posts over the last seven weeks.

The Model. The model appears (to me) to work logically. The labels given to the edges, faces and corners of the tetrahedron are congruent, each illuminating the meaning of the other in a variety of combinations.
The Values. The four values lead, follow, innovate and implement appear particularly strong and might even be all embracing for conducting productive workplace relationships. Isn't workplace leadership about just that, conducting productive relationships?
Individual and Collective Leadership. I have noticed from time to time and recorded it in my writing that these values and their associated practices are just as relevant to 'self-leadership' as to 'other-leadership'. Leadership comprises, simultaneously, aspects of the individual and collective.

The Leader-Follower. The leader-follower concept appears robust; we are naturally neither one nor the other although in extremes we may tend to predominantly lead or follow. Earlier I had proposed that the decision to follow is a leadership decision. Now I am comfortable in asserting that following is an essential aspect of leadership.

Implement-Innovate. I discovered similar strength in the implement-innovate value pair. It appears we often and optimally engage in both. Just as for the leader-follower, in extremes and out of habit or inclination we tend to prioritize one of implement and innovate over the other.

Lean Leadership. I was pleased to discover this might be a model for 'lean leadership,' in which leadership is diffused to those on the production floor in their management of continuous improvement processes.

Customers, Productivity and Sustainability. In the 'lean' context I became aware that a) implementation is about meeting the expectations of internal and external customers, b) innovation is about winning new or repeat customers and c) simultaneous/complementary innovation and implementation is necessary for productivity improvement and sustainability.

Leadership Practices. In an early post I wrote that all six identified leadership practices have equal weight. I should have written, 'appropriate weight.' In the best case I believe we exercise judgment and skill in adapting the emphasis of our practices to changing personal and situational needs. I do claim, however, that leadership is jeopardized by omitting or under or over emphasizing any of these practices.

Respecting. In the same post I also identified that respecting is the most fundamental practice because it permits us to work together.

Versatility. While respect may be the most fundamental of the six identified practices, it has become evident that implicit in the model there are two practices or maybe skills that are even more fundamental and really might be considered a single skill. If we accept the four values lead, follow, innovate and implement to comprise the driving forces of leadership it may be that making good decisions about when to lead or follow, and when to innovate or implement are essential skills. This suggests another very important leadership skill is flexibility, adaptability or versatility.

Commitment. Another leadership attribute that surfaced during this writing is commitment. I have written in terms of our values 'driving' our practices. However our values are only as useful as our commitment to them. So a better language might be that 'we commit to values which guide our practices.'

Implied Values. Summarizing, versatility and commitment are implied values in A Vision of Leadership. There appear to be relationships between versatility and innovation and commitment and implementation which suggest a direction for further consideration.

Other Leadership Models. I have begun wondering what the relationships between a Vision of Leadership and other, more established leadership models might be. I anticipate finding perspectives that can influence this independently derived model.

A Conscious Decision to Follow is an Act of Leadership

2005-12-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

The model "A Vision of Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation" proposes that follow is one of four fundamental leadership values and that to follow requires commitment to the three leadership practices of :

Conforming to the requirements of the organization and the needs that define a contribution.
Responding to sustain our collaboration with others and in our contribution to their needs.
Respecting the people in our organizations and collaborations.

Each practice represents a significant commitment to oneself and to another/others and any commitment that guides future action is an act of leadership.

Meanwhile the other three practices, realizing, improvising and structuring support visualization at the base of the tetrahedron when follow is at the top. Even while we are following we value lead, implement and innovate, and thus sustain and achieve the visualization we are following, whether it be our own or another's. This is how we avoid following blindly which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with leadership.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Realizing, Conforming, Responding, Respecting, Structuring, Improvising, Follow, Organizational Development

Apprentice, Collaborate or Lose

2005-12-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

Those who watched last night's Apprentice witnessed clear examples of the importance of knowing when to lead and when to follow.

Ala and Alicia confused leading with winning and following with losing. Their only chance was to have the best project result but neither was prepared to let go of her need for personal success. Each was unable to integrate the other's contributions into a shared concept. There was no collaboration and it showed in their work product.

In contrast Rebecca, as project leader, originally required actors for their commercial. When it became clear this was not working, she acknowledged so to Randall and sought his contribution to the solution. In their taxi at the beginning of their project they had agreed to push each other to be effective. This opened the door to flexible leadership and collaboration.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Collaboration, Contribution, Organizational Development, Apprentice

Lead While Staying Grounded!

2005-11-30T08:26:00.000-08:00

After twelve earlier posts describing aspects of "A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation)," you might expect one with this title to bring it all together. Of course it does not. It takes all fourteen aspects of A Vision of Leadership together to describe leadership. This post addresses our intention to lead or the value we place in leading.

A Vision of Leadership proposes that lead is one of four fundamental leadership values and that lead uniquely drives the three leadership practices of :

Structuring our visualization of what we want and the organization to accomplish it.
Respecting the people in our organizations and collaborations.
Improvising our visualization of what we want and in the collaborations that refresh our direction.

If we overprioritize our need to lead those three practices will dominate the other three, responding, conforming and realizing and, relatively, diminish the outcome contribution which forms the base of the tetrahedron when lead is at the top.

But what are we leading for? It is always because we want to make a contribution ourselves and/or we want the contributions of others to bring about our visualization. If we want to make and support contributions, even while leading we must value follow, innovate and implement and continue responding, conforming and realizing. These values and practices comprise the ground on which we are privileged to lead.

(As I re-read this I recognized Markus of The Apprentice! This gentleman's attempts to lead were totally ungrounded in the necessity to make his own contribution or to support others as they made theirs.)

Technorati Tags: The Apprentice, Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Organizational Development, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Realizing, Conforming, Responding, Respecting, Structuring, Improvising, Lead

Implementation Energized by Collaboration

2005-11-28T08:30:00.000-08:00

The proposal "A Vision of Leadership" (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) demonstrates that implement is one of four fundamental leadership values and that it drives the three leadership practices of :

Structuring our visualization of what we want and the organization to accomplish it.
Conforming to the requirements of the organization and the needs that define a contribution.
Realizing our visualization of what we want and our contribution to accomplish it.

When we over focus on implementation those three practices tend to dominate and the other practices, respecting, responding and improvising can sometimes be allowed to take a back seat. We may not see much need for collaboration when we're busy implementing. However, it was through collaboration (the base of the tetrahedron when implement is at the top) that we improved or developed a process to implement and when a new or improved process is needed, collaboration is required again. In a culture of learning and continuous improvement, in a lean culture, collaboration never takes a back seat - it energizes implementation.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Realizing, Conforming, Responding, Respecting, Structuring, Improvising, Implement, Organizational Development

Leadership Models

2005-11-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

Do you actively apply a leadership model as a leader, know anyone who does or have experience in an organization that follows/followed a specific model? As I near the end of this description of A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) I am considering how I might continue this blog. I consciously developed this model independently of other models - I did not want it to be derivative. However, I know there are plenty of alternatives, some of which have probably served people well and might usefully inform this proposal. I am very interested to hear of any experiences either as comments to this post or (perhaps for confidentiality) by e-mail.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Lean, Model, Leadership Model, Organizational Development,

Innovation Occurs on a Foundation of Organization

2005-11-21T08:48:00.000-08:00

The model A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) proposes that innovate is one of four fundamental leadership values and drives the three leadership practices of :

Improvising in our visualization of what we want and in our collaboration with those who help us.
Responding to sustain our collaboration with others and in our contribution to their needs.
Realizing our visualization of what we want and making that real in our contribution.

This is innovate, as a corner of the tetrahedral model, viewed from above.

These three practices are indispensable for innovation but not enough to sustain an enterprise. We need to make and deliver products and services as well as create them and must not omit organization, the base of the tetrahedron when innovate is on top. We must continue respecting, structuring and conforming.

I just heard Gordon Moore explain to Charlie Rose how with separate R&D and production facilities at Fairchild the labs produced more innovations than the production facilities required and the transfer of innovation from laboratory to production was usually inefficient. At Intel, therefore, he ensured that R&D is carried out on production lines!

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Lean, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Realizing, Conforming, Responding, Respecting, Structuring, Improvising, Innovate, Fairchild, Gordon Moore, Intel

Lean Leadership

2005-11-17T08:48:00.000-08:00

In his post, "Book Review: Creating a Lean Culture," Mark Graban of the Lean Manufacturing Blog says:

"A friend gave me a copy of a book he recommended: Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, by David Mann. "Based on a first look, I am very impressed with the book. It focuses on creating a "lean management" culture that must work hand in hand with the "lean manufacturing" tools. Many of realize that using the "lean tools" is not enough, that you need a dramatic change in management habits and behaviors to sustain lean and truly reach your potential. Chapter 3 is particularly noteworthy, "Standard Work for Leaders." This is one of the few books, maybe other than Andy & Me and The Toyota Way series, that addresses this critical aspect of lean. Visiting NUMMI, they certainly emphasized that the behaviors of the team leaders and all management was critical to their success. A few excerpts and key points (his words in bold and my paraphrasing and thoughts in italics).

"On this journey you learn to impose on yourself [as a leader] the same kind of disciplined adherence to process you now expect of operators in following their standard work." Mann also points out that, while operators might be following standard work 100% of the time, a supervisor might only be following standard work 80% of the day. As you go higher up in the organization, there's a reduction in how much of their day is standardized.

Mann emphasizes a hierarchy of audits and checks, where production status might be checked several times an hour by team leaders, checked by supervisors four or more times a shift, and by value stream managers (or plant managers) once or twice a shift. Each level above is auditing to make sure that the level below them is following THEIR standard work.

"The second benefit is that leader standard work quickly allows an organization to raise the game of the existing leadership staff, or highlight those unable to make the transition." Basically, if a leader can't follow their own standard work, and that's been documented, it makes it easier to see who isn't process focused and who might need replacing. Not all leaders can make the transition to a lean world.

According to Mann, the "Four Principal Elements of Lean Management" are: 1 Leader standard work , 2 Visual controls , 3 Daily accountability process, and , 4 Leadership discipline"

While the language of Mark's post is different from what I use in the model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), I am wondering if there may be some important parallels and I welcome feedback from lean enterprise practitioners.

What caught my attention was the description of operators performing 100% standard work, a supervisor 80% standard work and that percentage being reduced progressively at higher levels in the organization. Standard work appears to be very similar to what I have called Implementation - work accomplished according to some pre-determined process or plan. Non-standard work sounds similar to what I have called Innovation - it is new, normally created in response to a new need and not done before by that person or in that process or situation. I am delighted to discover that there is a formalized body of practice that specifically acknowledges standard and non-standard work in the context of leadership.

The model suggests that everyone, whether leading or following is involved in a mixture of innovation and implementation. Earlier I have offered that the most important leadership skill may be about deciding when to lead and when to follow. Now I recognize there is another skill having similar importance, that is bringing to bear the mix of innovation and implementation most appropriate to the circumstances*. At the extremes, there is no point in inventing a new process if the present one is most effective and conversely, when a process is ineffective it is inappropriate to continue implementing it without innovating a solution. This, surely, is true wherever one is in a hierarchy.

While less familiar with lean manufacturing, I recall the quality circle approach, imported from Toyota in the early 80's to create the environment in which production line workers take full responsibility for their output, i.e. take a leadership role in refining their work process as well as following by implementing it. Conversely, of course, no experienced manager spends all his time dreaming up the next big thing and forgetting to supervise the day-to-day components of the business that serve (follow) the immediate needs of his/her stakeholders. Each is a leader and follower and each is striving to reach an appropriate balance between "standard" and "non-standard work."

Thank you Mark. Your post leads me to consider whether the kind of leadership I am describing is lean leadership.

* I recognize these skills I identify are a direct consequence of building a model based upon the four values, lead, follow, innovate and implement. In my experience of leadership I have observed these as fundamental. Now is it becoming clear that the model shows how making decisions about which of these values are important in a given situation are important leadership practices, implicit in the model and in addition to those described in other posts. In terms of the geometry of the model, this tetrahedron need not be symmetrical or static and its proportions can represent the emphasis given to specific values according to the circumstances, i.e. it is a situational model. This is a subject worth exploring in future posts.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Implement, Innovate, Lean, Business, Leader, Follower, Manager, Work, Organizational Development

Donald Trump and a Vision of Leadership

2005-11-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

In The Apprentice, Donald Trump presents a rare opportunity for many people to observe the same business leader at work. Yes, I know it's 'only a show' but I find at least a couple of reasons to believe we see him lead at least similarly to how he would usually. The first is that I doubt Mr. Trump would permit the producer to have him do something incongruent with his values or usual behavior. The second is that if this isn't the real Donald, the winner is in for a heck of a surprise.

This post is about the model, using Mr. Trump as I see him in the show to illustrate the leadership practices and outcomes proposed in the Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).

It is important at this point to recall that the model suggests categories of leadership practices and does not narrowly define the specifics. By avoiding the prejudices that flow from stereotyping and with recognition that the strongest leaders are often those least expected to be, all types of personalities and styles are included. The model's only boundaries are that leadership embraces the four values, lead, follow, innovate and implement.

Visualization

STRUCTURING: Donald explains the interview process to select the most capable apprentice and each week he describes a new project for the candidates. He says what he expects to be implemented and the consequences of success and failure.

IMPROVISING: I have seen improvising with respect to his vision only in executive session when there is an occasional remark to George or Carolyn about the kind of people he likes to hire.

REALIZING: This televised, competitive, executive hiring process is very innovative and there is an expressed necessity to implement it according to a concise plan.

Organization

STRUCTURING: The events he directs occur on time with everyone ready for action. This is most evident in the board room where additionally he conducts his meetings with authority.

CONFORMING: The success of the show depends upon Mr. Trump's apparent comfort working under the constraints of lights, cameras, shooting schedule and a director's guidance.

RESPECTING: While he exercises a firm hand in the board room he gives a fair hearing to anyone who needs to speak, listening attentively.

Collaboration

RESPECTING: Donald has agreed to occasional and unusual proposals from loosing project managers about their team members' participation. I recall two, there may be more.

IMPROVISING: In the boardroom when the tension is high around a candidate's personal situation or a team's performance, Donald will enter into a short and powerful dialog, often expressing strong empathy or despair.

RESPONDING: He uses information gathered on and off camera about the team's performance to guide review meetings, particularly with the loosing team. If a candidate makes a good case in the boardroom Donald acknowledges that.

Contribution

RESPONDING, REALIZING, CONFORMING: By participating in The Apprentice, Donald contributes to many people, including candidates, TV production staff, a TV channel's management, advertisers, viewers and, presumably, stockholders. In order to do so he must, to some degree, be responding to, conforming to and realizing their needs.

I hope to have illustrated each of the six leadership practices and by association, each of the four leadership outcomes that together comprise this description of leadership. It appears to me that during the The Apprentice, Donald Trump demonstrates to a greater or lesser degree all aspects of the model. I welcome any comments or other examples from the show that further test and clarify the proposed model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Collaboration, Organization, Visualization, Contribution, Donald Trump, Apprentice, Realizing, Conforming, Responding, Respecting, Structuring, Improvising, Lead, Follow, Innovate, Implement, Organizational Development

Collaboration for Innovation

2005-11-14T08:21:00.000-08:00

Earlier, I described organization as being relatively static in order to implement an established process. When the value implement is replaced by innovate, the dynamics of collaboration emerge. A participant follows by responding and leads by improvising. Respect for the values lead and follow permits them to coexist.

In a collaboration, often with tacit understanding, the lead is accorded to whoever is able to make the best improvised contribution at any given time. Other collaborators follow by responding to this lead until its consequences are complete and the group is ready to be led by another act of improvisation. Until an effective process is learned, the reality is more chaotic than this description suggests. Then, with organization in concert with the collaboration, we are able to implement and innovate, which is a condition for a sustainable enterprise that creates new products and services even while delivering existing products and services.

A similar process occurs when an individual wants to innovate. There is a switching of thought and action back and forth between improvising and responding. I acquire a new thought or perform a new action and then respond to it by accepting it as a contribution and following through, or rejecting it for another improvisation. In a similar way a designer seeking solutions, experiments with alternatives until one is found that s/he can apply.

As the model is structured, all the leadership practices carry equal weight. However, respecting could be the most fundamental because it guides us with respect to when to lead and when to follow.

(This post is part of a series presenting a model of leadership for comments. The image is of one side of a tetrahedral model that can be viewed interactively in A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation). This is the fourth of the sides I am calling outcomes. The four corners, the values of leadership, will complete this series of posts.)

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Collaboration, Innovate, Lead, Follow, Responding, Improvising, Respecting, Organizational Development

Contribution - The Essence of Following.

2005-11-11T08:20:00.000-08:00

[This post continues a series that presents a model of leadership for comments. The image below is one side of a tetrahedral realization of the model that can be viewed interactively and somewhat nonlinearly in A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).]

This facet of leadership corresponds to the earlier one on visualization but from the perspective of a follower. As before, the practice of realizing is necessary to innovate and implement. But if it is important to follow, ones relationship to innovation and implementation change.

When a leader is structuring a process or organization in order to implement a plan, a follower is conforming, adapting thoughts and actions to the process or organization. Similarly a leader will be improvising thoughts and actions in order to innovate, and a follower is responding to the outcome of the improvisation. Lastly, a leader will have a visualization what is necessary in order to implement or improvise and a follower will make a contribution to that implementation or improvisation that is consistent with the leader's visualization.

When it is important to follow, implement and innovate this is accomplished by responding, conforming and realizing and results in a contribution. In the static, hierarchical organization designed for implementation, the contribution of a follower is made in the context of his/her leader's communicated visualization of what is needed. This is repeated down the 'chain of command' each person adopting first a follower role to become aware of someone else's visualization and then adopting the leader role, sharing possibly just a part of this vision with the next follower. In this way each person is necessarily a leader-follower.

Of course, the static hierarchical organization is not the only operational form and the next post will consider the leader-follower's behavior in another context.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Contribution, Implement, Lead, Follow, Responding, Conforming, Realizing, Organizational Development

Interlude and Thanks

2005-11-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

Thank you Random Thoughts From a CTO for being the first to link to this blog. Thanks also to Be Excellent, Business Innovation 2005, Career Niche, Deep Fun, Fast Company, and Xplane for recognizing my web site A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) which provides an interactive version of the model I am describing in these posts.

Innovation vs Implementation

2005-11-09T15:33:00.000-08:00

This title given by Fortune Magazine's Business Innovation Insider, about the Visualization facet of the model got me thinking. I left the following comment.

"The more I work with the model, A Vison of Leadership, the more I am intrigued by this relationship between innovation and implementation. It appears that implementation is about meeting (internal and external) customers' expectations and innovation is about winning new/repeat customers. It also appears that simultaneous/complementary innovation and implementation is about productivity improvement and therefore necessary for sustainability. Certainly, managing the mix of innovation is a significant aspect of leadership whether it is that exercised by a senior manager or that of a front-line worker."

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Innovate, Implement, Visualization,Organizational Development

Organization for Implementation

2005-11-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

leader-followerThis post continues a series that presents a model of leadership for comments. The image below is one side of a tetrahedral realization of the model that can be viewed interactively and somewhat nonlinearly in A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).

Organization is one of four key facets in this description of leadership. It is the process that permits people to lead and follow as they implement what has been visualized. The intentions to lead and implement are fulfilled by structuring (e.g. focusing and ordering) energies of thought and action. The intentions to follow and implement are fulfilled by conforming thoughts and actions to already identified requirements. Lastly, respecting the values lead and follow permits the versatility of roles that is necessary to implement, i.e. to lead in what you do while following within another's framework.

An organization chart describes a static organization that manages power, usually expressed in an enterprise as managing cost. The chart is meaningful to the extent the organization it represents effectively contributes to implementation. The structuring, conforming and respecting implied by the chart are leadership practices that bring about and maintain the distribution of power in the organization.

Organization is also about oneself. I can lead by making a decision and, respecting that decision, follow through. In order to implement I structure my thoughts and actions, while conforming to personal constraints and those in my environment. As an aspect of leadership, organization has interwoven internal and external components.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Organization, Implement, Lead, Follow, Structuring, Conforming, Respecting, Organizational Development

Visualization - The First Face of Leadership

2005-11-07T09:30:00.000-08:00

If one's intention is to lead, whether to implement or innovate, some visualization of an outcome is necessary. Visualization is a tool for leaders. It may be a guide for one's own action and by sharing it with others, become part of their guidance too. This is 'the vision thing' we like to hear or see from those we have chosen to follow.

When we're in the moment there's no, 'OK, let's check the vision thing' because a powerful vision will have taken up residence in our minds and be contributing to the action. A good illustration is the off-court practice of basketball players re-running a mental movie of sinking the ball from a challenging position and when they find themselves in that position they 'just do it.'

We fulfill our intention to lead and implement by structuring. We demonstrate the values of leading and innovation by improvising and the values of innovation and improvisation by realizing. Our visualization is the outcome of these three practices, structuring, improvising, realizing. Structuring - 'This is the situation on the court, there is the basket.' Improvising - 'I'm dodging her on the left, faking a pass to my team-mate and then tipping it in.' Realizing - 'It is happening/I am doing it!'

Looking for a complementary voice on this subject, I found this at dan taarin: meaningful chunks

why does visualization work?

Visualization aids cognition not because of some mystical superiority of pictures over other forms of thought and communication, but rather because visualization helps the user by making the world outside the mind a resource for thought in fairly specific ways .... visualization amplifies cognition by (1) increasing the memory and processing resources available to the users, (2) reducing search for information, (3) using visual representations to enhance the detection of patterns, (4) enabling perceptual inference operations, (5) using perceptual attention mechanisms for monitoring, and (6) encoding information in a manipulable medium. (The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook)

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Work, Improvising, Innovate, Implement, Visualization, Lead, Structuring, Realizing, Organizational Development

The Six Practices Through Others' Eyes

2005-11-05T08:50:00.000-08:00

The Vaclav Havel quote about vision reminded me of the potential of another voice or two to deepen the ideas expressed here. These quotes reference the recently described leadership practices from "A Vision of Leadership:"

"Achievement results from work realizing ambition." - Adam Ant (from BrainyQuote)
"There is nothing respecting which a man may be so long unconscious as of the extent and strength of his prejudices." - Francis Jeffrey (from BrainyQuote)
"Oh, the miraculous energy that flows between two people who care enough to get beyond surfaces and games, who are willing to take the risks of being totally open, of listening, of responding with the whole heart. How much we can do for each other." - Alex Noble (from BrainyQuote)
"The thickness of the proposal required to win a multimillion-dollar contract is about one millimetre per million dollars. If all the proposals conforming to this standard were piled on top of each other at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, it would probably be a good idea." - Norman R. Augustine (from BrainyQuote)
"There is another aspect of teamwork that takes place in improvisation: different people take the lead at different times, in a manner contrary to the traditional hierarchical style of management. Consequently, each person must develop the ability to both lead and follow. In an improvising team, leadership "is conferred on the person who articulates the emerging consensus of the group at the proper moment" (O'Reilly, 1994, p. 40)." - "The Improvising Organization," Malcolm Webber.
"Phases of the creative process: Preparation-gathering impressions Incubation-letting go of certainties Immersion/Illumination-creative intervention/risk Revision-conscious structuring and editing of creative material." - Gail Sheehy (from ThinkExist)

Now I will draft the first of the of pyramid faces for Monday.

Interlude and Quote

2005-11-04T08:46:00.000-08:00

"Vision is not enough, it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs."

-Vaclav Havel

(Institute of HeartMath, Heart Quotes.)

Improvising - Lead and Innovate

2005-11-03T09:16:00.000-08:00

Improvising is what I do if it is important that I lead and innovate. If I want to take the initiative and create something new, I do something out of my routine and step into unknown territory. Neither visualization nor collaboration are possible without improvising. Appropriately the practice on the opposing edge of the terahedral model, the subject of the prior post, is conforming.

This post completes the six leadership practices. Next time I'll make a start on their outcomes.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Improvising, Innovate, Collaboration, Visualization, Lead, Organizational Development

Conforming - Follow and Implement

2005-11-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

If I follow you I am conforming my actions to those you want and if I implement according to some policy, I am conforming my actions to support that policy. When I want to follow while implementing something, conforming accomplishes that.

One outcome of my conforming is that I partially qualify to make a contribution to something - as you can see from earlier posts, I also need to be responding and realizing. Another outcome is that I partially qualify to be in an organization - again from other posts, I also need to be respecting and structuring.

Personally, conforming presents me with a challenge when I experience it as idealistic, for its own sake. However, when I experience the outcomes of organization and contribution that are supported by conforming, I recognize it to be a valuable practice.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Follow, Implement, Conforming, Contribution, Organization, Organizational Development

Responding - Follow and Innovate?

2005-10-31T08:40:00.000-08:00

Of course, a follower can't directly innovate but he/she certainly can support the process.

This is the fourth of six edges representing leadership practices, that together form the tetrahedral model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation). After discussing the remaining edges in the next two posts, I will describe the faces of the completed tetrahedron - the outcomes, and then take a detailed look at its corners - the values that drive leadership.

When someone else is leading the innovative process and I am following, I participate by responding and making a contribution and collaborating to bring about the innovation. This may not sound like leadership, but it is. As a follower, if I am not responding and being part of the process I am unable to take the lead when that becomes necessary or optimal. I have this opportunity because in this model, as in the title of this blog, I identify the single actor in leadership as the leader-follower.

Should leading be important to me, responding is the 'price of admission.' If I choose to be unresponsive, contribution and collaboration cease and all that remains is structuring (the opposite edge and discussed immediately prior to this). My structuring and leading may be timely, necessary and welcome. However, so long as I am following and the collaboration and contribution are warranted, responding is the leadership practice that keeps innovation going and keeps me engaged.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Responding, Follow, Innovate, Contribution, Coaboration, Organizational Development

Structuring - How Leaders Implement.

2005-10-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Previously I introduced the two pairs of leadership values, lead and follow, innovate and implement, each value being held in relationship to it's pair by a leadership practice. The tetrahedron connects every value so there are four more combinations of values, each driving a specific practice.

Structuring is the practice whereby a leader supports implementation. As a leader my role is to provide a structure for my actions and others'. Specific outcomes of structuring are my visualization of what I would like implemented and the organization I believe is necessary to do so. Alternatively, if I want to implement something, I lead by being clear about what I want and by assembling the resources to accomplish it.

In an email inquiry, Skip Angel asked how, as a leader, he would know if he had accomplished these things. We know when we have a visualization (possibly a plan) and an organization - their presence is binary and easily measured and we are unable to act on our values lead and implement without these outcomes. Additionally, our visualization and organization will be degraded unless all their components are active. They will be described here shortly and are already described in A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation). This suggests a check list would useful and that may be the best application of this Vision of Leadership. One might say it is a three dimensional check list identifying the systemic role of each item - each key element of leadership as expressed in this model.

Technorati Tags: Business, Management,Leadership, Structuring, Implement, Innovate, Visualization, Organization, Organizational Development

Realizing Drives Innovation and Implementation

2005-10-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

In the prior post I introduced respecting as a leadership practice that brought the values lead and follow together as powerfully interchangeable within the same person or within a relationship with one or many. My primary intention for this model is to include these two values that are often in tension, in a synergistic way.

For the names of the tetrahedron's other two corners I chose the values, Innovate and Implement, because of they are fundamental to any enterprise and because a tension usually exists between them as well. Innovate is about doing something previously unknown while implement is about doing something already known. These qualities go a long way to explain the cultures of engineering and production which, in spite of their differences must productively coexist. Realizing is a leadership practice common to both; something previously unknown is realized by innovation and something already known is realized by implementation.

That realizing and respecting are opposite each other in the model makes good sense. Respecting is a practice in the context of roles in a collaboration or organization, while realizing is a practice in the context of achieving results by visualization and contribution. I have some visualization of what this post is about and I am contributing from my understanding and both occur because I am in the process of realizing this post.

With no respecting, in the absence of collaboration and organization, roles are unlikely to be appropriate. With no realizing, in the absence of visualizing actions and contributing energies there are unlikely to be results. Realizing and respecting are necessary and complementary leadership practices.

[The image names an edge and two sides of the tetrahedral model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation)]

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Realizing, Innovation, Implementation, Contribution, Visualization, Organizational Development

Respect Empowers Follower and Leader

2005-10-26T14:29:00.000-07:00

Respecting was the idea that helped me understand the truth behind my contention, to the surprise of a colleague, that "the decision to follow is an act of leadership." It always appeared quite clear to me that, unless I am coerced, if I follow someone I do so because I respect them in one way or another. I suppose I always recognized that the reverse is also true but that exchange started an extensive inquiry leading to A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation) .

If as a leader I do not respect those who follow me they will become disinclined to do so. The same can be said at a personal level - unless I respect myself I will be stalled. For example, I would fail to lead and make no decisions and even if I did, I would fail to follow through. I confess that I have some evidence of both these phenomena in my own experience.

In this way respecting becomes possibly the most important leadership practice. It is mutual respect that permits us to lead or follow, whether in the fluidity of a collaboration or the relative stability of an organization. Collaboration and organization are only possible with respect. In both we show respect to those who lead and follow and we respect our own capacities to do the same.

This linking of the value lead and the value follow by the practice of respecting means that followership and leadership are implicit in each other (yin and yang) and the value follow must be an integral part of a leadership model. It means, additionally, that there is no such thing as a leader or a follower. Each of us is both, we are leader-followers as I proudly proclaim in the title of this blog.

(The image is of one edge and two sides of a tetrahedral model)

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Respecting, Lead, Follow, Collaboration, Organization, Organizational Development

A Vision of Leadership - A Heartfelt Vision

2005-10-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

This is a physical model - illumination on a screen or printing on a surface. It is a mental model - ideas expressed as words in relationship, the projections of my recalled experience and formulated beliefs. It is presently an abstraction, an intellectual model. It is a map and not the territory.

It is unlikely that I can consciously and simultaneously focus upon the four values, six practices and four outcomes which, as a matrix of human energy contain the 'totality' of leadership as described. It may be possible that this vision of leadership can convey the complexity of the task and allow me to feel wonder when I am lucky enough to experience another's leadership and feel humility when someone responds to our own. At some level I suspect I manifest these (incidentally) fourteen qualities more or less according to the degree I can get out of my own way. So perhaps its initial value lies in appreciating what parts of it make sense and of those parts that do not make sense, whether I need to change my interpretations or my experience.

As I get into explicating this vision, starting with my next post, those of you who come across this blog and go on to look at the model and find something of interest are invited to critique and comment, to contribute to shaping and refining the vision. Truth emerges from radical honesty in relationships. Is it just possible that a heartfelt vision actually becomes the territory?

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Vision

A Vision of Leadership - A Tetrahedral Model!

2005-10-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

Among the classic geometric solids, a tetrahedron has the unique qualities that each corner is connected to every other corner by an edge and that each face is connected to every other face, also by an edge. When a subject is unpacked by naming the corners, edges and faces in ways that comprehend these connections, we have a systemic, non-linear model unachievable with the more usual two-dimensional, drawn representations. I have used this process many times, applying it with clients as an envisioning or strategizing tool.

In the early days of working with tetrahedra, Prasad Kaipa and I had envisioned a clickable, rotatable, electronic image to replace the sometimes awkward 'unfolded' two dimensional representation but we never pursued it. Meanwhile, over some ten years, my research and consulting increasingly addressed leadership and I had sketched out many 'leadership pyramids.' Early this year I started an html design and with occasional spurts of effort progressed until I had something to upload this month. Unfortunately the model, A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), must reside elsewhere because text-oriented Blogger is unsuited to the image-linking aspect of the design. However, Blogger provides an ideal environment in which to air the model and receive feedback, which I invite.

(Later note. I apologize for the spelling error in the title. Unfortunately if I correct it the URL of this page changes and there are many references in this blog and external databases that will then be unable to connect to this original page.)

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Model

A Vision of Leadership - Origins and Acknowledgements

2005-10-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

I have had wonderful and supportive colleagues in my 'independent' consulting. Before I write about A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation), I want some of its roots to be known, particularly those who knowingly or not, made important contributions.

In the early nineties I had a collaboration with Prasad Kaipa. It comprised an exchange really. Prasad shared his thoughts about Eastern traditions and their relevance in the West and, as a student of learning, introduced me to the idea that learning really occurs when the teacher and student are willing to change roles. I saw that real communications begins only when barriers, e.g. organizational hierarchy, are displaced, even momentarily, by mutuality and openness. We emulated that in our conversations and ever since I have understood the free exchange of roles to be an essential component of the collaborative process.

With something of a marketing background and a penchant for diagramming and other visualization, I helped Prasad identify and develop a vehicle to augment his communication of complex topics. He had already used a tetrahedron illustration in an article and we discovered a way to add a third layer of conceptual relationships in the tetrahedron that would unravel complex subjects even further. Next we developed a method of inexpensively transforming the resulting two dimensional model into three dimensions. Prasad went on to use this communications approach in programs at Ford and Boeing among others. I used it with clients to define, refine and clarify strategies and personally, as a 'lens' through which to examine whatever interested me. A recurring subject was leadership and I still have on my hard drive many 'leadership pyramids,' each advancing my understanding a little but none approached general usefulness until the most recent.

In a later collaboration with Russ Volckmann and Galen Griswold, leaving pyramids behind and framing it quite differently, we worked on a leadership model (detailed by Russ in The Leadership Opportunity) intended to be the theoretical foundation of a coaching program. During one of our conversations I expressed the idea that a decision to follow is an act of leadership. The strong resistance this idea received told me it contained something important and it took another three years to understand the idea's implications and then test them with clients.

Lastly, throughout the periods described and since, I have been in occasional and rewarding conversations with Bernie Dekoven a.k.a Major Fun, Junkmaster et al. We provide mutual support for our creative endeavors. His innovative technography process inspired my use of the computer and net as collaborative tools and his fascination with game design brought important and lighthearted feedback and encouragement for the interactive visuals I use in a variety of ways.

The next post will be more directly about A Vision of Leadership (now Leadership for Collaboration and Innovation).

Missing, a Follower.

2005-10-21T22:44:00.000-07:00

We are blessed with many, many definitions and models of leadership but have we generally become victims of our history and permitted it to intrude into many of these, sanctioning the omission of a follower?

Our models suffer from a linguistic awkwardness because the word leadership focuses our attention on leading and it has only been in recent years that the word 'followership' has been given the legitimacy provided by inclusion in a few dictionaries. Then there is the awkwardness arising because these models tend to deny the reality of our experience that everyone in association with others and particularly in a formal organization is both a leader and a follower. So, if as a culture, we have not acknowledged the evidence of our own experience and reinforced our denial with supporting language, it is no wonder that there is mystery and confusion around leadership.

My strong suspicion is that our tribal roots still pervade our un/consciousness. In a world that assumes scarcity and where competition prevails, leading has historically been associated with winning and following with loosing and of course no-one wants to be a looser. This goes a long way to explain the early chaos around the hurricane Katrina emergency and the 'team' struggles in The Apprentice, let alone the corporate scandals of recent years. Behavior that is repeated despite its obvious ill effects is generally called an addiction. This is not to say that all our leadership models support addictive behavior but some may, surely unintentionally, enable it.

The good news is that Warren Bennis describes followership, Jim Collins identifies the humility component of leaders of 'great' corporations and Beck and Cowan describe the green and purple memes of open system consciousness, just as examples. Then, fortunately, there are the many practitioners of a 'new' leadership who together are shifting the cultural center of gravity with behaviors that comprehend a leadership that is about something more than being in front.

P.S. Less than 24 hours after posting this I discovered Dee Hock's comprehensive article, Leader-Follower. I came to this via Joi Ito's piece, Open Source Leadership.