emerging thematic patterning

Michael Shiel (in the final chapter of ‘Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations’) recommends leaders respond to meanings arising in group conversations. He explains, ‘leadership is particularly concerned with assisting a group to move purposefully into an unknown future, and … this is a creative act requiring the constant emergence of new meaning.’ Agreeing with Ralph Stacey, he writes ‘Leaders as powerful and skilful participants play a major role in the patterning that emerges, although they cannot know in advance what will emerge.’ He adds, ‘This is not an existing “unknown” awaiting discovery; it is an act of creation in the moment.’

Shiel also states ‘To the extent that an individual is experienced by a group as being skilled in drawing attention to what is emerging, he or she will be recognized as a leader.’ If one can accept Shiel’s proposals, leadership therefore involves: (1) being fully present as a participant in joint exploratory learning; (2) noticing and drawing attention to emerging meaning in group conversation; and (3) using appropriate gestures to influence the responses of others, thereby influencing the emerging pattern of knowing.

As a Christian leader I will continue to affirm known meanings that emerge as well as new meanings in new language that do not contradict known meanings.

coaching acorns

Mainstream coaching views you as an acorn and aims to unfold your enfolded potential. This is a good thing but is based on particular ideas about the undeveloped self. Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and other humanistic psychologists support such quests for development and maturity.

Andrew Lee (ch7, Complexity & the Experience of Leading Organizations, 2005) regards identity as socially created rather than as a seed waiting to be developed. This means our identity is formed more than discovered, and it changes when our relationships change. In coaching he therefore attributes transformation and change not so much to the use of coaching skills (developing the embedded potential of others) but to shifts in power demonstrated within coaching (co-creating within alternative, appropriate relationships).

If identity is socially created, I can expect to facilitate transformation and change within others by relating well within relationships. Rather than merely using my skills to release your potential, perhaps I can improve my behavior and co-create good things with you? Leadership (and coaching) is not as simple as one first thinks.

detached thinking & animal instincts

Traditionally, leaders are viewed as operating on a higher plane. While they must maintain a broad, long-term perspective, it is a myth that leaders are completely objective. Leaders are embedded in the groups they lead and cannot detach themselves from their automatic emotional responses.

However, it is critical that leaders learn 'detached thinking' which means inserting a pause between an event and our instinctive responses so we have time to think. John Tobin (ch4 of Complexity & the Experience of Leading Organizations) explains: 'The essence of intelligent behaviour is in delayed response to an encounter with an object in experience while choices among possible responses are being weighed.' (p.76)

As I learn to learn a youth movement it will be essential that I (1) pause before responding to events; (2) recognise I am part of the group I am leading; and (3) use mental distancing but remain emotionally connected and involved.

Tobin concludes, 'Through detached involvement, the leader is... able to attune him or herself emotionally with the other members of the group, without becoming overly caught up in impulsive responses, and thus facilitate group collaboration more effectively.' (pp.90-91)

the security of cult leadership

Cult leadership is fuelled by our needs and fantasies. We expect normal behaviour from our leaders and sometimes use rose-coloured glasses to view the leader's individual capacities. Currently, much of what is normal is viewed through the modern lense of performance management, psychodynamic forces and leader/organisation dualism. That is, normal leaders tend to focus on accountability, individual motivations and leadership that controls the system from outside.

A leader who acts abnormally will tend to increase anxiety and disappoint. According to Richard Williams (pp34-60 in 'Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations', edited by Griffin & Stacey, 2005), 'the deconstruction of the idea of knowing and solving on the part of the leader will engender great feelings of anxiety on the part of those for whom the leader is an object of safety and security in a world that is perceived to be turbulent with change and impregnated with threat.' (p59)

My view of leadership is a mixture of traditional/modern ideas about direction and emerging/postmodern ideas about interaction. I wonder how well I will balance my normal and abnormal leadership and how soon people's anxieties will become noticeable?

the experience of interaction

Tina, whom I have served under for several years recently warned me not to reduce my new job as National Director down to something I can control and measure. She bought me a book: 'Complexity and the Experience of Leading Organizations' (by Griffin and Stacey, 2005). It is about 'how organizational members cope with the unknown as they perpetually create futures together.'

The authors argue 'that organizations are not systems but the ongoing patterning of interactions between people.' Traditionally, 'leaders play a significant role in designing this system, specifying its purpose and inspiring others to act according to values that will achieve this purpose.' Complex Responsive Processes offers an alternative perspective.

The book recommends, 'one moves from thinking in terms of a spatial metaphor, as one does when one thinks that individuals interact to produce a system outside them at a higher level, to a temporal processes way of thinking, where the temporal processes are those of human relating.'

This book, which I have only begun to read, focuses my attention on 'ordinary, everyday processes of relating'. I wonder if I can survive without my traditional views of leadership?

let the games begin

"Learning to lead" describes my new life. Although I am yet to join YFC, my head is already on staff. Thoughts mingle with prayers from 4am as other people's problems become my problems. I hope my brain stretches to accommodate new responsibilities and complexity.