Monday, May 24, 2010
Tell us about your "leaderful" experiences
To launch this blog, I would like to ask for feedback of any kind regarding experiences of our readers in attempting any of the activities in the Fieldbook. What has worked, what hasn't? Did a particular moment stand out that led to a transformation in practice? Are the people or systems in question becoming more leaderful?
2 comments:
At a recent conference, I was asked why the leaderful fieldbook doesn’t focus more on individual development since isn’t that where leadership resides?
My response was that I believe leadership does not reside within the traits and heroics of individual people but rather in the everyday practice of people as they engage or more specifically improvise around the daily problems that confront them. If interpreted in this way, the members of the leadership group or entity can, by seeking to understand and reflect on their practice, reconstruct it in light of their reflections and on behalf of their mutual interests.
The questioner thereupon suggested that this was merely a systems approach and that leadership has longed accepted this component. Although I believe there is an appreciation for systems in leadership annals, the focus has largely been on viewing the system as a contingency of leadership which, again, has been viewed as an individual not as a mutual social phenomenon. So, individuals are thought to need to adjust their leadership based on such contingencies. If leadership is viewed as a practice, the contingencies are part and parcel of leadership in action, and we view them as core to any mutual change experience. We commit to working across multiple levels in our efforts to make our leadership what we desire. So, the Fieldbook addresses change at the interpersonal, team, organizational, and network levels as well as at the individual level.
Where Can We Find Leaderful Practices in Everyday Life?
I am nearly always questioned, when the subject of leaderful practice is brought up, where one can find instances of this form of leadership. My first response is that people in our culture are not exposed to it because, let’s face it, our media doesn’t typically pick up on those practices that are collaborative in nature. As a culture, we tend to be more fascinated with the individual and his/her heroics. So, the leaderful doesn’t get the coverage. But it’s there, almost daily, in the mundane actions of everyday people and events.
Sometimes we are aware of it more in what we are subtly told NOT to do – as in such depictions as the popular TV series, ‘the Office.’ But there are organizations that run this way – such as the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra or W.L. Gore, the maker of Gore-Tex.
Another good example is the company of the Foreword writer to my Leaderful Fieldbook, John Foster, who’s Head of Talent and Organization at the renowned design firm, IDEO. IDEO uses a shared collaborative approach, bringing people from various disciplines together in a collective process to confront and overcome intractable worldwide problems.
Another example is the spirit of Ubuntu that permeates South Africa, recent host of the 2010 (soccer) World Cup, the biggest sports event in the world. Although Ubuntu is a Zulu word and thus not only associated with South Africa, I understand that the preamble to the new South African constitution mentions it and that it comes up as a basis of their culture and means: “humanity to others,” or “I am what I am because of who we all are.” Thus, focusing on such values as the pooling of community resources and working together in harmony, it appears to me to embody leaderful practices. Interestingly, Ubuntu has also been adopted by the IT (information technology) world as a community developed operating system!
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