A633.9.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Polyarchy Reflections

The biggest takeaway from this course is that organizations are changing. As we evolve as a society, the organizations to which we belong also change. In Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS), the traditional structures of oligarchy leadership are breaking down and ployarchies are emerging (Obolensky, 2014). Reading these blogs, you have no doubt seen that theme over and over. However, most leadership structures still assume the structure of oligarchy. The Army is a perfect example of that. Though it is clear that we actually are now operating within complexity – where the “multiple agents involved are interconnected with feedback loops that affect each other in a complex network that is hard to predict” (p. 54-55) – our leadership structure has remained virtually unchanged since our establishment in 1775. (The date of our establishment makes us the oldest established still functioning organization in the United States.) I have been kind of scratching my head asking myself how we still make it work using outdated models of leadership which begs an excellent question – are old leadership models outdated and redundant? Do they still serve a purpose? The answer to that is - YES, traditional models of leadership still serve a purpose. Obolensky shares with us that what we have learned about Complex Adaptive Systems is not absolute. There is no cookie cutter approach to leadership. “It is not so much the truth it proposes that is important as the encouragement it can give to venture beyond a horizon, and to go further than one would normally feel comfortable…and when you corss that horizon you will be in a new place and see things differently and further than you have ever before” (p. 200). So the bottom line – the ultimate learning objective for this class was to understand that organizations are changing and it is often hard to see the difference between cause and effect. Minor differences – sometimes unnoticeable differences – can mean that what works today may not work tomorrow. What works in my organization may not work in yours. Therefore, there are times where a more traditional approach to leadership may still be beneficial. In a case such as the Army, that makes sense because we are heavily bound by rules and regulations (it would be the government without those regulations!) and there has to be a unified front in the battlespace. We can’t have a polyarchical approach to leadership and destroy our enemies in close combat are our creed calls us to do.

As I have probably mentioned in the past in my blogs, I am pretty close to retirement from the Army. Basically, I have until next summer to finish my degree then I will begin my transition from Army to civilian. I fully intend to participate in a program called FourBlock which is a veterans transition program where you learn networking skills and complete an internship (hopefully at Bloomberg or at the Stock Exchange, ::fingers crossed::). Upon completion of that, I will start a new career at the bottom. However, another thing that I have learned in this course is how to follow a bottom-up leadership approach where followership can actually encourage empowerment and can influence strategy (Obolensky, 2014). The bottom line, though, is that I will be flexible in my approaches to leadership to adjust to my environment. “The future of work is changing, and only those who adapt will survive” (Groth, 2012). One way to ensure adaptability is through application of the 70-20-10 model which, as Groth explains, means that we all devote 70% of our time on our core competencies, 20% on related projects, and 10% on learning new skills. It is in this small 10% where I think we can change the most. The 70-20-10 model is primarily used to describe the development of actual projects. For example, developing new products or software. However, this is where we can self-develop as well. It is where we dedicate 10% of our time to attending leadership seminars or just trying something different. Actually, I have seen this in practice already at work. I operate primarily the same way that I did a year ago. I can’t put an actual percentage on how exact I am to how I used to operate but 70% sounds about right. 20% has been something similar to what I have done but 10% is completely different. For example, I through schedules out the window entirely. That’s right – there is no work schedule in my office. That’s a pretty radical new approach but it seems to be working out pretty well as my team is performing better now that they have over the past 6 months.

I am very excited about what the future holds. I know I haven’t learned everything that there is to learn. Even if I had, due to chaos and complexity, it would still be different. What I do know is that I am going to tackle it head on. It’s time. Let’s go.

Groth, A. (2012, November 27). Everyone Should Use Google's Original '70-20-10 Model' To Map Out Their Career. Retrieved May 16, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-westaway-how-to-manage-your-career-2012-11

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.8.3.RB_LeeDarrell - How To Better Enable Leadership

I am very close to wrapping up another class. This is my next to last blog assignment for MSLD 633 – Strategic Leadership. This entire class has centered around leadership in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) (Obolensky, 2014). I peeked ahead to next week’s topic and have determined that both this week and next week combined make up the culmination blogs for the class. However, this week had me getting a little more “hands on”. For this blog, I had to (maybe saying that “I had the opportunity to” is a little more fitting) interview my Commander and my subordinates. The questions were specifically about how our organization can better enable leadership at all levels.

I spoke with my Company Commander, Captain Brent Whitehead, first. I have only been assigned to the Bronx Recruiting Company for six weeks so I don’t know him as well as I knew my previous Commander but I can tell you this – CPT Whitehead is willing to bend over backward to help so he had no issue with allocating a little bit of time this week for me to come and see him. I took him to lunch on Tuesday at some Dominican restaurant where we had quite the experience (not a single person there spoke English and we don’t speak Spanish) but we had a wonderful conversation. I didn’t prepare a list of questions for him. I just wanted it to be a free-flowing exchange. CPT Whitehead graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and then he joined the Army to repay his student loans. Because job placement in the Officer Corps is based on the needs of the Army, he didn’t go into a branch where he would use his technical expertise but instead was placed in an Army Intelligence position. A unique thing about that branch that I learned on Tuesday was that intelligence officers do not move into command billets. Being in recruiting gave him a unique opportunity that his peers will never have – the ability to lead Soldiers. He has only been here a few months so the conversation was mutually beneficial. I just asked him how he thought he could better able the Center Leaders to actually lead. He confessed to me that he gave me a lot more latitude than other Center Leaders because I seemed confident and I rarely ask permission. I tend to just run my own center. This felt like kind of a pat on the back and was reassuring to me because it means that I am somewhere between Level IV and Level V Followership (Obolensky, 2014). However, I don’t know where my peers are. Many of them I have never even met face to face but only have spoken with them on conference calls. But CPT Whitehead did let me know that he would gladly give them the same freedom to operate as they pleased if they would do three things. First, if they would meet suspenses. (I seem to be the only one that has learned to put deadlines on a calendar and set reminders!) Second, if they seemed confident. Third, if they would bring results. We ended up shifting the conversation a little bit and began speaking specifically about what I have learned from this class about Complex Adaptive Systems. He asked what I thought could be done to better enable them and I countered that the Center Leaders have the official training already. We just need to be given the opportunity. I suggested brining in our Battalion Master Trainer for a few additional training sessions and then to truly just let go and empower the Center Leaders. I did not know this until Tuesday but he has actually mandated working hours for the Company. He just let me set the hours for my center that I saw fit. I told him that I recommend immediately repealing his work hours policy and let each center run independently. I also recommended cutting out the daily conference call that seems to take nearly two hours. I suggested that, though this won’t help meet deadlines (perhaps the training can help with that), it will increase confidence and may surprisingly yield results. He is actually now taking this into serious consideration. (Also, I am going to let him borrow the book for the class. So far, I may not have learned the most from this class about leadership but I can for sure say that this class has produced the most immediate practical applications that I have been able to institute and they have yielded immediate results. As an example, punctuality is a big issue with me but I decided to let it go. I have a couple of people that are late every single day, usually by about half an hour. I have never once mentioned it and they seem to like that I don’t bug them about it so long as they are meeting their tasks.)

Of course, interviewing my superior was only half of this assignment. I also had to interview my subordinates. Again, I have only been here a few weeks but I asked in a morning meeting if they felt empowered and what I could do to empower them more. This has been a big issue with me and I have, mostly because I took over the center right as I was taking this class, been very clear that I want them to operate independently and just let me help with the science end of recruiting (ensuring that we are in the right place at the right time with the right message). First, they told me that they do feel very empowered now compared to the past. I get the feeling that they were micromanaged quite a bit before I came along. I am NOT taking credit for anything as it was the team that met their mission this month but for three months before I came, the center did not put a single applicant into the Army. This month was my first full month as Center Leader and we met our required monthly quota. They said that it was because they feel that they are finally allowed to just do their job. Before they were pulled all sorts of different ways. I asked what they thought made it easier and one of them said it was because they were given their tasks at the beginning of the week and told what to get done but not how to get it done. They are now free to do what they need to do how they want to do it so long as they get it done. I asked how I could empower them more and they joked that I could let them work from home. You know what? There may be some merit to that. I am actually considering giving them each one day per week to work remotely. There are certain things that have to happen in the office but, for the most part, we have what we need to work wherever we want.

I have learned a few things from these interviews. First, subordinates want to feel empowered. When they are, they take ownership and are therefore more likely to reach their goals. Second, even when others in the organization are not empowered, that doesn’t stop Level V Followership (Obolensky, 2014) from happening. Some aspects of empowerment are an individual choice. It can be stifled a little but, just like attitude, we are the ones that control it. I would like to encourage other Center Leaders in my Company to be bold and just take charge of their centers. I know one other Center Leader surely does but I know, for the most part, they seem so timid. I don’t understand why that is. Maybe they, like my current team, were micromanaged in the past but we have a new Commander that is willing to let us do what needs to be done.

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.7.4.RB - How Do Coaches Help?

In my last blog, I briefly described four leadership strategies to apply based on the levels of people focus and goal focus. If we were to look at these on a matrix, we visualize plots of action. There are three kinds of attractors (Obolensky, 2014): point attractors where actions gravitate to a particular point on a phase space diagram, period attractors where actions revolves around a part of the phase space diagram, and strange attractors where actions describe a pattern which doesn’t either gravitate to a point or revolve around anything specific. What does this all really mean? Basically…I don’t know. Ha! Okay, so I had to read my text three times to really understand it. Fortunately, that isn’t what this blog is about. It just is a small part of one of those attractors. This is the coaching attractor which is a pairing of the strategies of selling and involving. Of all of the attractors, though, this is the most demanding and requires the most skill (Obolensky, 2014). “Coaching is a good technique to bridge the divide, as well as move an individual towards level 5 followership (gets on with things without supervision and reports in a routine way)” (p. 179). The coaching attractor described here works with the GROW model which is a questioning technique that stands for Goal, Reality, Options, and Will. However, I don’t want to dig too deep into that here. This coaching as an attractor is more of a science than an art but I needed to bridge the gap between the actual profession of executive coaching and the science of complexity.

We are probably all at least familiar with executive/leader coaching. Just as a coach for a sports team will train, observe, critique, and correct a player’s action, so, too, will a leadership coach for the coachee. In fact, “[professional] coaching derives from the world of sport. The duties of the sports coach involve both helping the active person set goals for his own efforts and assisting him in the process of reaching those goals” (Nielson & Norreklit, 2009, p. 207). Interestingly, “ten years ago, most companies engaged a coach to help fix toxic behavior at the top. Today, most coaching is about developing the capabilities of high-potential performers” (Coutu, Kauffman, Charan, et al, 2009, p. 92). Toxicity is something with which I am all too familiar. Fortunately, it has been several years since I have had a toxic leader in my chain of command but there is no doubt that it only takes one person to absolutely destroy a team. Just as a team of beaten horses may still pull a cart, so, too, may a team still achieve their objectives with a toxic leader but at what cost? Toxic leaders just seem to steal the wind right out of your sails. I remember this one First Sergeant that I had that would make treated the Support Soldiers like absolute garbage. His approach to leadership was one of fear. He was quick to punish and impossible to please. Eventually he was relieved of his position and forced to retire but he left behind him a wake of destruction that even resulted in a suicide (which was confirmed to be closely linked with his toxicity, hence his forced retirement). I am not sure if a toxic leader would have that same power in the civilian world but it is possible. Leadership coaching was originally intended to stop behavior like that. You see, that First Sergeant was an incredible manager. He just destroyed his people. Today, though, the focus has shifted. Perhaps it is because society just doesn’t tolerate toxicity as it once did. However, once thing is clear and that is that “coaching as a business tool continues to gain legitimacy, but the fundamentals of the industry are still in flux” (p. 92).

Concerning coaching, our assignment for this blog is to consider the following statement:

To be an executive coach, it is necessary to know that clients are the first and best experts capable of solving their own problems and achieving their own ambitions; that is precisely the main reason why clients are motivated to call on a coach. When clients bring important issues to a coach, often they already made a complete inventory of their personal or professional issues and identified all possible (known) options. Clients have already tried working out their issues alone, and have not succeeded.   \.

I honestly do feel that this is true. The original intent of the profession of alleviating toxic behaviors is evidence to this. In today’s age of information exchange, it isn’t that difficult to find the right person with the right skills to fill a role. If someone doesn’t have what it takes, you can just use ZipRecruiter or Monster or a myriad of other sites and have 100 other people lined up for that position. However, the individual already filling the roll probably already possess the raw skills needed. The key is refinement. Today, most of that refinement probably hinges on leadership strategies for complex environments. “As the business environment becomes more complex, they will increasingly turn to coaches for help in understanding how to act” (Coutu, Kauffman, Charan, et al, 2009, p. 93). Coaches, then, should be experts in evaluating situations and advising their coachee on appropriate strategies. Also, “as coaching has become more common, any stigma attached to receiving it at the individual level has disappeared. Now, it is often considered a badge of honor” (p. 93). Leadership coaching costs between $200 and $3,000 per hour! The fact that an organization is willing to invest that amount into an individual is proof that they value the leader and would rather make the investment in refinement rather than replacement.

When I went to the Recruiter Center Leader Course, I was fortunate to receive my own one-on-one coaching session (which includes three months of follow ups). My leadership coach, Dr. Mack, was absolutely amazing. At first, I kind of blew the whole thing off but my instructor kept talking it up so I decided to just go into it with an open mind. My goodness, was it ever eye opening! She reviewed my personality test results from the previous three years and reviewed my performance reports. Then, by just sitting down with me for an hour, she was able to find two areas where I was misapplying interpersonal communication skills which hindered my ability to both sell and involve my team. The techniques that we discovered together in just an hour – techniques that may have taken years to discover on my own – made an immediate difference in the way that I interact with others and in the way that I direct. Would I recommend it? You bet I would!

The future of leadership coaching is surely secure. As new markets develop, leaders will be younger and less experienced and will require coaches to guide them to optimal performance.

Coutu, D., Kauffman, C., Charan, R., Peterson, D. B., Maccoby, M., Scoular, P. A., & Grant, A. M. (2009). What Can Coaches Do for You?. Harvard Business Review, 87(1), 91-97.

Nielsen, A. E., & Norreklit, H. (2009). A discourse analysis of the disciplinary power of management coaching. Society and Business Review, 4(3), 202. doi:10.1108/17465680910994209

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.

A633.7.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Leader Follower Relationship

As we continue to progress in this course about Complex Adaptive Leadership, I continue to be genuinely surprised by how relevant this material is to my professional life right now (and to my personal life). I have found purpose in all of my studies up to this point – from using storytelling to influencing teams to recognizing relationships between cause and effect in leadership to assembling high performance teams – but this particular class seems to have the most relevance to my current life situation. Though it is possible that I just feel that way because this is the class that I am currently taking so it is fresh on my mind, I honestly don’t think that any of the other classes have opened my eyes quite as much as this one.

Right now, I am looking inward and doing some self-observation to see how I best relate with my followers. Management and leadership, though often thought to be different, actually can be encompassed within the same individual. Many organizations today actually split those roles but that may not be the most efficient approach if you have a properly conditioned leader. Leadership can be broken down into two main categories – people focused and goal focuses strategies and behaviors (Obolensky, 2014). A people focus means that the need exists to develop the members of the team (skill and will) as well as the actual relationships. This is where we often see the realm of leadership. A goal focus means that “there is a need or opportunity to make a difference to the achievement of the goal through other people” (p. 170). This can be done through providing guidance and training. We often see this as management but, as just mentioned, both the people focus and goal focus fall under the overarching umbrella of leadership. Depending on the level of need, leaders can best determine their approach/style of leadership for a given situation. Obolensky gives the following four strategies: tell (low people, high goal), sell (high people, high goal), involve (high people, low goal), and devolve (low people, low goal).

At the beginning of one of the chapters that we read this week was a little quiz. Based on a set of hypothetical questions, the intent was to determine in which realm (which style) I felt the most comfortable operating. Some of these questions would say something to similar to “A new system is online and a motivated team member is concerned that he won’t know how to use it to be productive. What do you do?” The answer choices would include “do nothing”, “tell him that he has to find a way”, “ask for his ideas”, or “tell him how wonderful it is”. (You get the idea.) My results had me telling (directing) 18.75% of the time, selling (trying to encourage “buy in”) 18.75% of the time, involving (collaborating with) 43.75% of the time, and devolving (observing and ready to act if needed but allowing the situation to just develop) 18.75% of the time. Those results are pretty clear – I like to involve my team members. Primarily, “this is used either when the leader does not know or chooses to hold back to allow others to develop a solution” (Obolensky, 2014, p. 172). At the onset, this may sound wonderful. After all, don’t we want leaders that encourage the team to share inputs? The problem is that this strategy is best applied when there is low will and high skill. The team that I have right now has high will but is a little lacking in skill. The best strategy may often be to tell. My issue is that I don’t feel comfortable operating there. I absolutely must learn to step out of my own comfort zone based on the needs of my team.

You know, back to what I first said – this class has been more eye-opening to me than any class in the program that I have taken up to this point. Since I began this class, I have constantly been seeing reflections of the concepts in my own life, especially in my new role at work. (Well, not a new role but an old role on a new team with the but with the training to back it up now). I am now six weeks in and every single week have found something to apply to make me just a little bit more effective as a leader. My working environment, I have discovered, absolutely is a complex adaptive system. I see over and over, though, old leadership (remember, we are lumping management under the umbrella of leadership now) strategies being applied over and over. The biggest blunder that I see from my own leaders is a constant insertion of direction when it isn’t needed. Also, we get on these long conference calls where we hear the same thing over and over about how we have to get after our mission and how it is so critical and so on and so forth. It is being sold to us but selling is best applied when there is low will and low skill. What I noticed today, though – when you apply the inappropriate approach as is being done on those conference calls, you may actually pull the team in that direction. What I mean by that is this. Selling is used when there is low will and low skill. The other Center Leaders and I had the will but lacked the skill (well, they did. I am awesome so I have the skills to pay the bills.). By applying that approach, though, the team has moved to fit it. Now there is low will to match the low skill so now I guess it is the appropriate approach. But remember what I said about what I was doing. I tend to gravitate toward involving my team when perhaps I should be applying other strategies. Am I going to pull them in the wrong direction?

Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: embracing paradox and uncertainty (2nd ed.). Farnham: Gower.