TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP

Much of the literature regarding leadership seems to set different leadership approaches against one another. Command and control leadership is set against participative approaches, for example, as if one is better than the other. This is not a productive way to look at the art of leadership.

[At C-SOL, we lift up an organization's underlying patterns and processes-- making them visible, so that Leaders can learn to work with their organizations as living systems.]

OPERATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Operational leadership also focuses on the problems and issues facing the organization. While it often involves reorganization to accomplish the needed change, it is more likely to involve the people in the organization in the immediacy of the problem and gains success because of this. Pushed to the extreme, however, operational leadership can become the command and control (go and do it) leadership that is often criticized.

COMMAND AND CONTROL

Command and Control forms of leadership provide an intense focus on the organization’s problems, using re-engineering to solve the problems and imposing the changes on the people needing to get the work done. While attending to urgencies, this is usually accomplished with little input from the people themselves. Consequently, the change initiatives are often met with huge resistance. In many cases, desired results are not achieved, and re-engineering is done again. Incoherence continues to deepen within such organizations.

STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Strategic leadership focuses on the future and develops new principles and direction that are needed to move forward. For example, much of the Quality effort was seen as important strategic work for organizations. But in many cases, the work was imposed on the people without their true participation and the results were, therefore, disappointing. Where people have been involved and really understood the need for the new effort, these new initiatives have succeeded.

SELF-ORGANIZING LEADERSHIP

At C-SOL, we help leaders learn how to be effective leaders. The tree metaphor is helpful for thinking about leadership in organizations. Effective leaders know that, while they need to be centered in the self-organizing approach, that they also need to use operational and strategic approaches simultaneously and move among them as conditions change. Effective leadership can be described as a dance. It is a demanding dance—requiring a high level of consciousness on the part of both the leader and people throughout the organization.

We recognize that Leadership has three primary forms: 1) Operational Leadership (accomplishing operational tasks efficiently) 2) Strategic leadership (developing vision, mission and plans) and 3) Self-Organizing Leadership (improving organizational effectiveness). C-SOL emphasizes the third, much less common form, which, like the roots of the tree, when healthy and strong, makes the operational and strategic work of the organization far more efficient and effective.

Self-Organizing Leadership focuses on the creation and use of information, on the specific interactions among people and on the way they support the bigger organizational picture.  Self-Organizing Leadership adds significant value to your organization by making visible and accessible the knowledge that is already within the organization. Work patterns and processes are greatly improved because people co-create their future with you, releasing their energy creativity; resistance to change becomes a much smaller barrier.

The Work of Self-Organizing Leadership is to guide and support people in finding, recognizing, forming and reforming the inherent leadership capabilities that people within organizations and communities require today to thrive and become sustainable.

Note:  For detailed discussion about Self-Organizing Leadership, see "C-SOL Publications side-bar on this page"....then go to "Articles" and click on Self-Organizing Leadership - Pamphlet 3 - Discourse.

Or, to hear an audio discussion about Self-Organizing Leadership, see "C-SOL Publications side-bar" on this page"....then go to "In the Press" and click on the link to Self-Organizing Leadership audio presentation of Jan, 2003.

Or, for information on a CD/video on Self-Organizing Leadership Basics, please contact Dick Knowles at (716)731-2917.