Rethinking leadership
In our quest to commercialise everything that glitters or politicise anything that sets us apart, we have allowed our collective view of leadership to evolve into a practice of us versus them; I lead, you follow. Instead of a creating a leadership value proposition that recognizes and embraces an adaptive, distributed contribution to the enterprise regardless of hierarchy, tenure or pay check, the concept of leadership has been given a singularly heroic position of power, influence, decision-making and delegation of authority. Given the pace and vastness of change and the diffusion of authority, influence and adaptability required to compete in the global marketplace, rethinking how we define and develop leadership not only necessitates individual examination, but also asks the practical question of how best to contextualise and harness a collective network of adaptive leadership as a vehicle for disrupting the status quo and leading transformation.
THE CHANGING REQUIREMENTS OF LEADERSHIP
Globally, as a result of economic uncertainty and instability, the transformation of organisations’ structure, systems and size through merger, acquisition, restructure and integration has significantly changed the scope, proximity and expectations of leadership. Power and influence are less likely to fall within the purview of a single entity as a practical matter. These characteristics are more likely to be distributed throughout an organically defined network of adaptive leadership based on the complexity of the problem, speed of decision-making required and driven by evidence and economies of scale.
In particular, the challenges afforded to leadership in changing and transforming systems are inherently acute, and often require less technical expertise and appreciably more adaptive leadership approaches. Researchers Ronald Heifetz and colleagues1 note that adaptive leadership seeks to thrive counter to the embedded systems of reference characterized by deeply held beliefs and values that have little relevance to the transformed system. Contrary to expert leaders given authority to manage the process, discomfort and conflict of change and transformation, adaptive leadership – as a distributive practice of mobilizing human capital from across the enterprise to confront challenges – is an organic and collective means of disrupting the status quo.
Within an enterprise, the complexity of organisation hierarchy, product order, process time and distance between R&D, sales and manufacturing, and technology designed to connect people, ideas and decisions in real time, is collapsing across multiple decision points at a tremendous pace. As authors Davis and Meyer2 predicted, the combination of speed, connectivity and intangibles, will be the “death of distance.”
Adding to an accelerated convergence of economic and organisation change and transformation, the mobility and flexibility of the workforce – including permanent, contingent, independent and remote human capital – dictates that organisations align thinkers alongside doers, and both much closer to the cold face of operations, service delivery and customer experience, as a means of providing hands-on leadership and change at the point of disruption. As a result, traditional leadership roles, reporting lines and delegation of authority fail to fit neatly inside the boundaryless reality of geographically disparate and virtual teams, and the demands of just-in-time leadership. Researcher Peter Gronn3 notes that globalisation and flexibility in the workplace pushes against hard and fast distinctions of leadership. The standard leadership blueprint no longer exists; people and organisations are inimitable and the leadership that frames their change and transformation journey is distinctively unique.
JUST-IN-TIME LEADERSHIP
At its pedestrian core, the basic rubric of leadership is viewed as a set of parallel relational constructs – transactional and transformational – that seeks to engage followers. Authors Burns and Sorenson4 note that transactional leaders approach followers as an opportunity to engage in an even exchange of one kind or another on the basis of exchanging one thing for another. The result of transactional leadership is likely to be fairly innocuous, but can have significant impact regardless of style, authenticity or values. On the other hand, transformational leaders approach followers with a much deeper value proposition – presenting themselves with an opportunity to understand and reflect upon motives, recognise and satisfy higher needs, and engage a holistic view of the person. The result of transformational leadership is a relationship of mutual benefit and incentive that transforms followers into leaders.
The ground breaking concept of just-in-time leadership is a temporary, pre-emptive deployment of a strategic human resource as a key decision point to lead change and transformation, identify opportunities for innovation and disrupt the status quo in real time. With the time-sensitive exchange and urgency of transactional leadership coupled with the deep relational focused engagement expectations of transformational leadership, the distinctive approach and purpose of just-in-time leadership in practice is three-fold. First, to temporarily insert an objective, unrelated subject matter experienced point of view into a business unit, function or department within a predetermined period of time. Second, to quickly observe and assess patterns of behaviour and team dynamics, interpret process data, and validate outcomes. Third and most importantly, to develop hypotheses that question and instigate the viability of change, transformation and disruption.
Similar to the intended purpose of the middle manager most famous in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s – a management practice used to engage and infuse an intermediary relationship between the operations of front-line workers and the leadership accountability of senior managers – just-in-time leadership re-establishes this once pivotal in between leadership framework to uncover change, transformation and disruptive opportunities. While middle managers have long since evolved into front-line leaders, just-in-time leadership expands the authority, responsibility and expectation of intermittent leadership to observe, improve and disrupt. As a temporary agent of change, just-in-time leadership offers a unique opportunity to inject an objective perspective, observe and validate evidence, and make the business case for change.
DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE
The success of change and transformation initiatives within organisations requires like-for-like development opportunities that stimulate tangible, measurable growth and development outcomes. At the same time, outcome focused development mitigates succession risk and adds to the experiential learning, bench strength and capability of the leadership pipeline. Theoretical and conceptual framework study and business case development are key attributes that underpin knowledge development. However, development that includes significant hands-on emersion from which to test and learn is more likely to produce practical, experiential gain that can be reapplied with increased effectiveness, efficiency and economies of scale. As illustrated in Measuring Return on Investment5, the value of development must be demonstrated through both commercial and development value. Notably, the most significant element of return on investment is the value of the outcome as a true measure of the return. Just-in-time leadership provides low risk, high return, hands-on development experience with the purpose of initiating change, transformation and disruptive outcomes.
Recalibrating the lens through which leadership is viewed and the unique circumstances and context it can be applied in, is critical to leading change, transformation and disruption. If we rethink traditional definitions of leadership that function outside the limitations of command and control, then we can begin to apply and experiment with new thinking of an adaptive and distributive leadership model across a boundaryless sphere of influence, and the development of immeasurable leadership value for the future.
Dr Wesley Payne McClendon is a global tranformation executive and thought leader, and executive director at McClendon Research Group, Inc (MRG). Wes can be reached by e-mail at wpm@nullmrg-inc.org, on Twitter @BLKDOC or #AskDrWes. Wes’ book, Strategy, People and Performance, is available in Australia at Amazon, Bookworld, HolisticPage, Booktopia and EmporiumBooks.
1. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World, Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky and Alexander Grashow
2. Blur: The speed of change in the connected economy. Davis and Meyer
3. Dead Center: Clinton-Gore Leadership and the Perils of Moderation, James Macgregor Burns and Georgia Jones Sorenson, 1999.
4. The future of distributed leadership. Gronn, Peter. Journal of Educational Administration; Armidale Vol. 46, Iss. 2. (2008): 141-158.
5. Measuring return on investment. McClendon, Wesley Payne. Training & Development, Vol. 44, No. 4, Aug 2017: 22-24.