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.
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