Leadership
BFNow Self-Study Module 5 - Exploration 3
[This is part of BFNow Self-Study Module 5: Collaboration. For more about the overall Self-Study program, please look at About BFNow Self-Study and BFNow Self-Study Orientation.]
If you haven’t done so already, let me encourage you to pause, relax and release, perhaps with a big stretch or three deep breaths.
The goal of this lesson is for you to explore the territory of leadership for and within groups of collaborators.
Leadership
Leadership is a big territory and one that is colored by our experience with Empire Era approaches. I expect the approach will change in the Planetary Era, but I expect we will still have a territory that we will call leadership.
The perspective I’d like to share has four parts
Leadership = helping a group move forward
There are many useful types of leadership
The leadership needs of a group are likely to evolve over time
Leadership is a role that is often shared and can move around in the group
Leadership = helping a group move forward
Planetary Era leadership serves the group. In order to work towards a common goal, groups need to develop shared understandings and coordinate their activities. Occasionally, a group is able to do this in a way that seems almost telepathic, but most of the time, for most groups, it helps to have a more explicit focus and process. Having someone serve as a focal point in that process, facilitating and articulating, is usually helpful to enable the group to move toward its goal efficiently.
There are many useful types of leadership
As a territory, leadership has no simple definition. Rather, it is a composite of many different ways that someone can help a group move forward. Here are some leadership functions. As usual, this “map” is partial, selective and provisional.
Visionary Leadership – Developing a vision that others in the group support
Articulator/Spokesperson Leadership – Giving voice to the “sense of the group”
Facilitative Leadership – Assisting a group with its process and making sure everyone in the group has the tools and resources they need to do their work.
Keep-The-Faith Leadership – Providing encouragement and steady focus when the group has not yet accomplished tangible results as it works toward its vision – while the group is “between the lightning (of inspiration) and the thunder (of results).” This is an important kind of leadership that requires a lot of patience and faith in the vision.
Coaching Leadership – Drawing out the best in each group member and helping them to grow.
Operational Leadership – Once there is a clear vision and plan, helping the group execute the plan.
Relational Leadership – Building and strengthening relationships in the group and between the group and others.
Problem-Solving Leadership – Coming up with solutions to problems that the group is facing.
Horizon-Scanning Leadership – Identifying both challenges and opportunities that are not yet important to the group but could be, either by choice or necessity.
Supporting leadership in others – Encouraging others to play a role in helping the group move forward and being a good supporter – and as appropriate, follower – of their leadership.
Notice that executive decision-making for the group in not central to most of these functions.
Feel free to add to this list. I’ll be interested to hear your additions.
The leadership needs of a group are likely to evolve over time
As you look over the above list of functions, it is easy to imagine that the amount of time and energy devoted to each leadership function is likely to change over time. Here’s a schematic graph to illustrate that progression (with only some functions included to simplify the graph).
The details will depend on the group but some kind of evolution is to be expected. Mapping leadership as this kind of dynamic composite is so helpful in going beyond conventional categorical ideas about leadership.
Leadership is a role that is often shared and can move around in the group
If you look in real groups at the multi-functional role of leadership, you will often see that many people in the group provide these functions regardless of whether they are acknowledged as “leaders” or not. By starting with leadership as a territory characterized by many functions, we have the mind-set flexibility to support these diverse contributions. It may be that some people in the group supply a higher proportion of leadership and are recognized in the group as leaders. That’s ok as long as it doesn’t rigidify into a categorical sense that only people who are considered “leaders” can provide leadership. If that happens, the group and everyone in it lose out on the contributions everyone can make.
The mix of who provides what type of leadership is likely to change over time. It’s common for people to be better at some leadership functions than others. The evolution of the leadership mix is made easier by
an attitude of servant leadership, leadership for the good of the group
treating leadership as a composite territory rather than a category
using visuals, like the graph above, to support that perspective.
Experientials
Start these in the morning, carry them through the day and add reflections to your journal at the end of the day.
Make a list in your journal of the kinds of leadership functions you have provided in groups you have been part of. It could be kinds from this exploration or something else.
Are there leadership functions that feel like growing edges for you? How might you support your growth in those directions?
Think of the groups you have been part of that have handled flexible, distributed leadership particularly well. What enabled their success? How might they have been even better?
As with preceding days, if you are currently part of a collaborative group and the others in the group are open to this, share this exploration with them and use it as a starting point for consciously exploring how leadership functions in your group.
If you have questions or comments, please post them here.
Thanks,
Robert
[Link back to the Module 5: Collaboration Overview page.]