More for Less

The Complex Adaptive Leader

Nick Obolensky

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138063716
• eBook ISBN: 9781351663625
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Most leadership assumptions are based on a deterministic view of the world. If you do X you should get Y, process can be employed for most things, and more complicated problems can be analysed to enable better decisions. Whilst these approaches suit the Simple and the Complicated, they do not work so well for the Complex. The Complex needs a different approach the core of which is to enable the organisation being led to be agile and self-organising.

More for Less introduces a new paradigm for leadership, Leadership 4.0. Based on his previous book, Complex Adaptive Leadership, Nick Obolensky has created a simple and step by step approach to Leadership 4.0 whilst challenging and questioning the reader to be more effective and less busy.

This book is an essential tool for the busy leader and manager and will appeal to practitioners wishing to improve their leadership effectiveness. It will also appeal to students and researchers in the field of leadership.

CHAPTER 1

WHY leadership needs to change

You have probably heard of the “buzzword de jour” – VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous). This is seen as a problem – but it is what is (and, as you might come to see with a new mindset and understanding of the underlying science, it can be pretty amazingly cool). If you see VUCA as a problem – it is not. You are.

“Who me?” I hear you protest.

Yes you! Forgive the direct approach (but you are busy after all, so let’s not beat around the bush).

So why is this? Look at the graph in Figure 1.1 below. It shows the pace of change over 4,000 years (a relatively short period of time for us as a species) against the assumptions we have held about leadership.

Notice anything? As far as the pace of change is concerned, well, this amount of change in such a short period of time (for us as a species) could be termed anthropological shock. So, if you are stressed, overwhelmed, too busy etc. – relax – this has nothing to do with you, your organisation, your industry, your country – welcome to Planet Earth. What you need is simply another way of looking at things – change how you see the world and the world will change for you. By the end of this book hopefully you will have another, more helpful, perspective.

As for leadership – seems we are a bit stuck. At any one time in the Egyptian kingdom there was one pharaoh; at any one time in a Greek city one mayor; at any one time in the Roman empire there was one emperor (OK so Caligula had two – his horse – and initially there was a republic but you get the general gist); at any one time in a kingdom in Europe, one king . . . and today, how many CEOs does your organisation have? Probably just one. In other words, we have changed the CONTEXT of leadership far, far faster than we can possibly change our ASSUMPTION of what leadership is. And that assumption is still pretty much what we call Leadership 1.0 – leadership slides downhill.

Figure 1.1 Stuck assumptions

Figure 1.2 Leadership 1.0

The people at the top – we call them leaders. And those in the middle – we call them managers. Which gives a great debate on the difference between leaders and managers. And the rest? What do we call them? Lots of things, but the important ones HR calls “talent” (as the rest are clearly untalented?). And we can surround ourselves in the comforting blanket of talent pipelines, competency models etc. so we can “manage” leadership and the development of leaders. Nothing wrong. Been around a long time. And we have, after all, kept up with the times and changed our view of leadership 1.0. We have frequently redefined leadership: from the heroic “great man” leader of 170 years ago (à la Thomas Carlyle), to the decisive directive leader of 130 years ago (à la Frederick Taylor) to the transformational leader of 90 years ago (à la Mary Follet), built on and added with the transactional leader of 50 years ago (à la James Burns), to the servant leader of 40 years ago (à la Robert Greenleaf), to the empowering leader of 30 years ago (a la Julian Rappaport), to the restorative and resilient leader of 20 years ago (à la Seana Steffen), to the agile leader of 10 years ago (à la Iacocca and Witney) . . . to name but a few! However, it’s all still mostly Leadership 1.0. In fact, it is “leaders” (good ones) that have been redefined and not so much “leadership” (which assumes is done by leaders). Still relevant – but by far no means longer sufficient . . . This may explain why we are struggling with VUCA – we are applying an old 1.0 paradigm to new problems . . .

Figure 1.3 VUCA

Source: Magee (1998)

Figure 1.4 What we like might not be what we need?

VUCA first appeared in the military – not surprising given the asymmetric warfare we seem to be engaged in – but the term is gaining frequent use in business. And a whole plethora of consultants offer ways to overcome VUCA. Sadly, most of those who offer advice still have a 1.0 mindset based on the wrong science . . . but more of that later . . . meanwhile let’s get back to leadership.

Leadership has moved (for most) from the good old command and control days to a more “visionary” “transformational” leadership.

When things get messy, uncertain and unpredictable we like to look up and see clear knowledgeable leaders who we can trust, who have a clear vision with a bit of personality/charisma, who know the answers to the problems we face, who can hold power and exercise it in a positive way . . . this is certainly the leadership we like . . . the one we crave for in uncertain times . . . solid Leadership 1.0 . . . but is this what we need?

Here are some quotations, “weak signals”, that something might be up, showing traditional and popular views of Leadership 1.0 may be under increasing strain:

“Subordinates need to challenge in order to follow, and superiors must listen in order to lead” (Hirschhorn and Gilmore, 1992) – so is this bye bye trust –don’t trust them, challenge them?

“A charismatic visionary leader is absolutely not required for a visionary company, and in fact can be detrimental” (Collins and Porras, 1997) – bye bye charisma?

“Leading from Good to Great does not mean coming up with the answers” (Collins, 2001) – bye bye knowledgeable leaders with MBAs?

“The more power you give a single individual in the face of complexity and uncertainty, the more likely it is that bad decisions will be made” (Surowiecki, 2004) – bye bye powerful leaders?

“Complexity science shows how the typical focus on ‘heroic’ and charismatic leaders can result in a lack of innovation in modern organisations” (Hazy et al., 2007) – bye bye heroes and charisma (again)?

“The dominant view of leadership is that the leader has the vision and the rest is a sales problem. I think that notion of leadership is bankrupt” (Heifitz, 2013) – bye bye visionary leaders?

Now to be fair, these researchers were looking at big companies – if you are a small company with a visionary, entrepreneurial, trusted, heroic etc. leader . . . that’s OK. But soon may come the time, when the company grows, that leadership will need to move from 1.0 (however defined). But towards what?

Let’s see what is actually happening in big companies. They are moving from the traditional functionally divided, hierarchically sliced, to more matrixed organisations.

Interesting . . . organisations are becoming more complex to deal with a more complex world . . . so simplification is not the answer! Complexification is . . . which we explore later.

So now we need leadership not just going downwards, but also sideways and outwards. HR call this, with a 1.0 mindset, “Influencing without power”. We call it Leadership 2.0. And if you are in a matrix (a 2.0 reality) with a 1.0 mindset, you are going to struggle.

Figure 1.5 Moving to the matrix

Figure 1.6 Leadership 2.0

Such an organisation means information flows sideways as well – which increases the amount of information . . . and we struggle to keep on top of it all. We feel that if we want to deal with a VUCA world, we need to keep on top of things and know everything that’s going on . . . which is largely a complete waste of time as we will see later. For now look at the chart below in Figure 1.7.

It’s a little out of date – but you get the idea. Of 100% of knowledge in 1990, only 10% existed in 1900 (and that number would be now be naught-point-something-pretty-low % due to the internet). And yet the more we know, the more volatile things are. But “Correlation is not causation!” I hear you c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• More for Less
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Foreword: So What’s this all About?
• 1 Why Leadership Needs to Change
• 2 What New Science Can Help
• 3 What Principles Need to be in Place
• 4 How to Get it Done – an Overview
• 5 How to Get it Done – the Leadership Issues
• 6 How to Get it Done – the Followership Issues
• 7 How to Make the Change Happen
• 8 A Few Examples and Brief Stories
• 9 So What Now?
• Index