Power Up Transforming Organizations through Shared Leadership By David L. Bradford and Allan R. Cohen Reviewed by Amit Shukla M. Amulya
PART ONE
THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLDS OF LEADERSHIP This chapter tells us that leaders should be able to build teams, get everyone to pull together, develop vision, inspire extra effort, seize opportunities and also encourage openness. Heroic Leadership: The old system of leadership or the heroic leadershi p assumes fundamental difference between responsibilities of leaders and sub -ordinates. Here, both the leaders and sub-ordinates contribute mutually to reinforce systems which cause and perpetuate leadership trap of control and passivity. The leader is responsible for achieving overall success, making critical decisions and coo rdinating the actions of staffs, while the subordinates are supposed to run their own areas, point out problems and follow the boss’. It is difficult to get people to commit to their roles as long as the leaders and followers subscribe to tr aditional beliefs about their roles. This leadership trap perpetuates until e ither the system breaks down entirely or someone recognizes the problem and does something to change the pattern. The symptoms of heroic leadership are as follows: ? Everyone expects the leader to assume responsibility ? Subordinates delegate tough problems upward ? Subordinates are concerned with their own territory, not the overall goals ? Team work and coordination are weak ? Leaders over-manage In heroic style, tensions and contradictions b lind the players in the leadership system. They see individual flaws but they fail to see the actual cause of pro blems. Limited perspective about the problem gives raise to limited solutions for the problem. Heroic leadership used to work when the conditions were more stable, when employees were less educated, and when they performed routine tasks that required little interdependence. In such conditions, the leader was the expert who could provide the needed coordination and control and subordinates stayed in their assigned roles and ignored other areas. In this system, too much is dependent on the leader’s skill and initiative and the leader is the canon of organizational thinking and is complete ly responsible for any outcomes.
The problem with this system is that years of training and conditioning have led both the leader and the subordinates to assume that accountability means that the manager also carries sole responsibility and thus should know everything, control everything and make the hard decisions. Heroic leadership in the present times: In the present days however the concept of heroism has cloaked itself in the language of empowerment, consensus and teams. Despite the illusion of consensus decision making, the team members only paly a consulting rule and in the end, the decision is determined by what the manager thinks is the best. Heroic Management typically takes on of the following two forms: ? Manager as technician where the technicians try to use the technical prowess that helped them reach the managerial ranks to stay on top of things, be it engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, info rmation systems, accounting or law. o They favour an overt form of control in which they monitor all decisions. o This approach works well when the leader is the most technically competent person in the unit. o However, the higher the person moves in the organization, harder it becomes to sustain the level of expertise as technology keeps changing at a rapid pace. Manager as conductor where the leaders go through the motions of su bordinate involvement, consulting with others before making decisions and often hold team meetings to get commitment and build team m orale. o This type of leader is less overt in control. o The leader often has a preconceived plan inducing the strategy and manipulation to implement it.
?
Post- Heroic Leadership: This system aims at releasing the potential power of everyone and team me mbers share responsibility for managing a unit. This leadership begins with both the leader and subordinates take on obligations together. Leaders shift away from the traditional notion of sole responsibility and control to induce greater acceptance of responsibility and initi ative by their subordinates. In turn, the subordinates not only remain responsible in their own areas, but a lso become working partners in things like spotting problem, initiating action, pushing colleagues to do what is necessary to accomplish the unit’s work i.e. sharing the responsibility for overall unit success.
In this system, passivity is not at all tolerated. Everyone is expected to seize opportunities, correct problems and hold others accountable for performance. This makes everyone a leader, responsible for initiating things laterally and upward and not just controlling those below. This system enlarges the psych ological ownership of everyone. Shared leadership does not eliminate the lea der’s role or deny hierarchy but encourages and builds a shared responsibility system. However this can be a little challenging as the subordinates being used to constrained roles will not believe that their full partnership is we lcomed. Though it takes time for all parties to develop confidence in their a ltered relationships, when responsibility is shared, not only does the perfo rmance of the overall unit improve, it makes subordinates more accountable for whatever they deliver. For shared responsibility to work, three main implementation elements are necessary: ? A setting in which shared responsibility can occur to make critical ma nagerial and strategic decisions together. The leaders and subordinates need to develop a strong and cohesive team where issues can be raised, debated and jointly resolved. Basic agreement about the purpose and direction of the unit which r equires developing the commitment to a tangible vision of what the unit does to make it special and significant. A dramatic increase in the extent to which team members influence each other and the leader, and are influenced in return such that the rel ationships between individuals are based on mutual influence rather than dominance or avoidance.
?
?
Under this leadership system, the subordinates have the following roles: ? ? ? ? Deliver on the subarea’s obligations and commitments Share relevant information accurately Initiate ideas, reactions, and suggestions about areas for which they are responsible Support their colleagues
The leaders have to engage in the following three activities: ? ? ? Develop a mature, cohesive shared-responsibility team through which direct reports share the management of the unit Articulate a tangible vision and gain commitment of the entire group Establish mutual influence for effective shared responsibility
The change from heroic leadership system to a shared leadership system is possible if the leader makes the first move in the process of change. However the doubt remains whether the subordinates will follow the leader in the change. They will surely follow if the following four conditions prevail: ? The leadership approach is situationally appropriate and shared leade rship is appropriate only when o Work tasks are highly interdependent o External change is rapid o Members have expertise the leader lacks o The goals of most of the team members are compatible with those of the leader ? ? ? Team members can meet challenges and are willing and able to acquire the skills necessary for the shared responsibility. The leader can resolve ambivalence by testing their ideas with peer s at the same or other companies. The leader has support from the boss for example, someone who is both supportive and willing to provide resources.
Thus, we can conclude that though the pay-offs of post-heroic leadership are high, so are the transaction costs like training the employees to adjust for this kind of system. Also, these costs are inevitably incurred before the partic ipants can tally the benefits. Thus the leaders and members must do what they can to reduce the ambivalence, keep focused on the benefits, and actively engage in the practice of the new leadership. A good guideline to kick-off this change is to begin the change process whe rever people are the most dissatisfied with the functioning of the system. Wherever the effort starts, the other areas should be addressed as needed and when something is blocking good work, it must be moved to the forefront. One of the most useful ways to begin the journey to shared leadership is to think of group development as proceeding through five predictable stages: ? ? ? ? ? Membership Sub-Grouping Conflict Individual differentiation Collaboration (or shared responsibility)
To understand the dynamics behind the five stages, it is important to keep in mind the issues that the groups face and the members’ experience. Each team has to: ? ? ? ? ? Establish norms of behaviour Determine the power and influence are to be exercised Decide what can be talked about directly Agree on how disagreements are to be handled Determine the roles and responsibilities of the leaders and members
1. Membership This stage deals with the joining up. Whether the group is newly formed or one making a transition to post-heroism, all members struggle to feel each other out and try to figure out what it is all going to be. 2. Subgrouping In this stage, people try and quickly form subgroups with those who seem similar in beliefs and goals. This stage has value in that the peer support of su bgroup allies results in more issues being put on the table, even if the degree of directness and openness in less than desirable. 3. Conflict In this stage, as the team deals with increasingly important business and pr ocedural issues, members naturally want to shape the outcome. People differ as to the best strategic direction, the optimal resource allocation or the futuredefining issues. Differences are not only inevitable but highly desirable. Wit hout it, teams develop excessive conformity or “group think” and fall prey to distortions of reality. Such differences must be thoroughly argued and r esolved if quality decisions are the goal. 4. Individual differentiation Once a team has successfully worked through a major dispute, discussions b ecome reasonable and snipping ends. Everyone has found an acceptable place in the team now. No one needs to hide behind a subgroup an y longer and can instead act as individuals. Members are trusted with their jobs, meetings are no longer time-wasters but occasions to get work done, and members look forward to meetings. At its worst, differentiation just allows everyone to pu rsue his or her subarea without conflict, but also without collaboration. At its best, differentiation allows each person to feel responsibility for an area, and to trust that others will do their parts.
5. Collaboration Collaboration is achieved by making sure that t he most problematic issues are fully addresses, the potential for interdependence among team members is understood and leveraged, and the development of every member is seen as the responsibility of all. The central characteristic of this stage is fully shared responsibility, full commitment to the overall unit’s goals and to the success of its members. Members share management of the unit with the leader, making the decisions on critical issues by consensus. Though each member has a primary role, i mprovisation occurs as needed, with instant shifts back and forth between o ffence and defence.
PART TWO
THE THREE ELEMENTS OF POST HEROIC LEADERSHIP In a team whose members are each committed to the same vision and are fully collaborative, the members hold each other accountable for performance and confront those who are not carrying their weight. Teams are completely different from groups. While the main aim of a group is to run efficient meetings with the aid of strong leadership that focuses discussion, a team strives to create a collective product. Shared responsibility teams make the toughest decisions together, face up to difficult strategic problems, redesign work processes or the organization, d etermine team assignments and whenever nece ssary, confront the leader and each other on troublesome behaviour. High performance teams are the basic vehicle for moving to post -heroic leadership. If members are to share the responsibility for the management fun ctions of the overall team, they have to grapple with and resolve the core problems, and not just advise the leader. Sharing in management demands that members challenge and influence each other. When members take on typical leadership responsibilities such as coordination and control, the leade r can allow more discretion and autonomy. Building a team: Once a team is built, the mind-set of both the leader and the team members must change. The leader must be explicit about his or her intentions and also about his or her expectation from the team m embers which will also change their behaviour. The members must also stop thinking and acting as differe ntial subordinates who only offer opinions and they must begin behaving as committed junior partners.
The leader should involve the team members in resolving strategic issues through joint decision making. Team members cannot be moved to share r esponsibility for overall team success if they are not dealing with the key dec isions. Crises also help in making the implementation of post -heroic leadership possible because the centrality of critical tasks becomes apparent to everyone. External crises can be used to galvanize into a shared responsibility team. A lso, the leader’s commitment to change is more apparent and believable during a crisis. When a team tackles strategic issues, it must choose how to make these dec isions from the four alternative ways shown below: ? ? ? ? Autonomous, where the decision is made by the leader alone Delegated, where the decision, within the specified parameters, is made by an individual or a group Consultation, where the decision is made by the leader after advice from the team members Joint, where the decision is made by the members and the leader t ogether through true consensus The choice of the style of decision making depends on the following factors: ? ? ? ? Who has the expertise The readiness of the team or individual to adopt the unit’s goals The time available for discussion The commitment needed to carry out the decision
A decision can be made jointly when: ? ? ? ? ? The problem is complex No one person, including the leader, is clearly more expert than the co llective expertise of the group Members have the relevant information The team is working well together, uses sound decision making pr ocesses, and is aligned with overall goals The members are capable both of representing their own areas and co nsidering the overall unit needs
A mission is the objective description of the organization’s business, purpose or function and is really important for post -heroic leadership. Formulated well and used right, vision can be a driver of superior performance. When properly implemented, vision is far more than a slogan; it is a means to i n-
spire, coordinate and align people. When embedded in everyone’s consciou sness, vision provides a frame of reference fo r important decisions by team members that can be used for dealing with the unexpected and unanticipated. A tangible vision helps bring vision down to earth as a practical aid to dec ision making from the top of the organization to the bottom. There can be two forms of tangible vision: ? ? Task based, which refers to the work of the unit, the types of products, services, or technology that it wants to deliver better than others. Organization based, which is about how the unit will operate, especially in relation to its employees and customers.
However, there are six main barriers to implement a vision such as: ? ? ? ? ? ? Organizations still conform to the traditional conception of middle management Expressions of passion or emotion are discouraged Middle leaders lack influencing skills Vision is believed to require charisma It’s risky to commit to anything in times of rapid change Who will control the visionary
Hence to formulate a tangible vision that can make a difference, leaders must: ? ? ? ? Obtain high involvement of team memb ers from the beginning Connect the vision to the team’s tasks Seek compatibility with the wider organization’s vision, even if that v ision is not explicit Link the vision to the hopes and dreams of most individual team me mbers
Thus it can be concluded that a vision that is broadly accepted and understood within the organization gives leaders the confidence in subordinates that they need to loosen their grip. If they know that the team members share the same vision, leaders are more inclined to share decisio n-making power with them. This approach helps ensure that those with the most knowledge on issues co llaborate in the management process. Shared responsibility leadership also requires many changes in follower att itudes and behaviour and the challenge is to influence them to want to change. The interconnections among the post -heroic mind-set, tangible vision, the shared responsibility team and the mutual influence, all contribute to make the change from heroic leade rship to shared leadership possible.
PART 3
ESTABLISHING A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY SYSTEM The shared responsibility team is the vehicle for creating the fundamental conditions for mutuality and partnership in achieving better business dec isions. The first step in creating shared responsibility is to diagnose the situ ation objectively and one must view the organization as a system in which all parties of the problem are connected. One of the dilemmas leaders face when they want to create a new leadership system is the personal investment they must make. The leader will be watched closely for signs of low commitment, insincerity, or unwillingness to change in line with the new culture. Leadership ideas are meaningless if not tied to critical managerial decisi ons. Also, the costs and risks involved with the changes in relationships are just ified more often on the basis of team solidarity and good feelings. Champions of major change must: ? ? ? ? ? Anticipate resistance Be persistent and flexible Hold up an exciting vision of what will be possible when change is a ccomplished Identify clear pathways Align practices and policies with desired outcomes
Once an organization launches change, it is necessary to keep momentum g oing. Resolution of successively tougher issues is a p ractical approach to doing this and can advance the change quite rapidly. The challenge however is to change the entire system and this usually requires changing a lot of things and eats up a lot of time. Addressing Conflicts: Movement towards a shared responsibility system is bound to bump up against conflict. There will be disagreements about strategic direction, inte rpersonal tensions increase and these could either block movement toward co llaboration or release energy and al low change to move forward. The leader must recognize the value of conflict and set up processes that turn the energy toward productive purposes. Unless the organization can resolve differences, change will stall. Also management teams need to find ways to work through emerging conflicts and this allows for more open, direct discu ssion and enables the team to address increasingly more central issues.
Changing the leadership system in an executive team is hard work, but it helps immeasurable when people work through conflict and learn to pull together. The team must make tough decisions together and also extend the new beliefs and the new mode of operating throughout the organization. CONCLUSION Managers must remember that post-heroic leadership does not put leaders out of business; it just fundamentally changes their role. As members start to pick up more of the responsibility, the leader has more time and energy for long term strategy, implementation, alignment and renewal. When people work together and depend on one another for success as they create shared leadership, disagreements and disputes about task issues or work style are inevitable. As these arise, colleagues, direct reports, and the leader must be prepared to change their views, decisions or behav iour. To create a shared leadership system each person must be willing to state their views fully and be open to the influence of those who disagree with them. Team members must confront problematic behaviours early and directly, ot herwise, annoyance with someone’s behaviour takes the form of disdain and of attributions about that person’s malignant motives, incompetencies, or poor character. And once effective character becomes an issue, future interactions are likely to be adversarial. Thus, a change from heroic leadership to post-heroic leadership is vital for organizations to sustain in the long run. Shared leadership not only increases the company’s productivity, it also helps in bonding the employees together and helping them work better. Managers must put all the learning from this book to real -world issues and problems and make their team more productive. They must clearly define the roles of the leader and the members and help in making the system better.
doc_568379005.docx
PART ONE
THE OLD AND THE NEW WORLDS OF LEADERSHIP This chapter tells us that leaders should be able to build teams, get everyone to pull together, develop vision, inspire extra effort, seize opportunities and also encourage openness. Heroic Leadership: The old system of leadership or the heroic leadershi p assumes fundamental difference between responsibilities of leaders and sub -ordinates. Here, both the leaders and sub-ordinates contribute mutually to reinforce systems which cause and perpetuate leadership trap of control and passivity. The leader is responsible for achieving overall success, making critical decisions and coo rdinating the actions of staffs, while the subordinates are supposed to run their own areas, point out problems and follow the boss’. It is difficult to get people to commit to their roles as long as the leaders and followers subscribe to tr aditional beliefs about their roles. This leadership trap perpetuates until e ither the system breaks down entirely or someone recognizes the problem and does something to change the pattern. The symptoms of heroic leadership are as follows: ? Everyone expects the leader to assume responsibility ? Subordinates delegate tough problems upward ? Subordinates are concerned with their own territory, not the overall goals ? Team work and coordination are weak ? Leaders over-manage In heroic style, tensions and contradictions b lind the players in the leadership system. They see individual flaws but they fail to see the actual cause of pro blems. Limited perspective about the problem gives raise to limited solutions for the problem. Heroic leadership used to work when the conditions were more stable, when employees were less educated, and when they performed routine tasks that required little interdependence. In such conditions, the leader was the expert who could provide the needed coordination and control and subordinates stayed in their assigned roles and ignored other areas. In this system, too much is dependent on the leader’s skill and initiative and the leader is the canon of organizational thinking and is complete ly responsible for any outcomes.
The problem with this system is that years of training and conditioning have led both the leader and the subordinates to assume that accountability means that the manager also carries sole responsibility and thus should know everything, control everything and make the hard decisions. Heroic leadership in the present times: In the present days however the concept of heroism has cloaked itself in the language of empowerment, consensus and teams. Despite the illusion of consensus decision making, the team members only paly a consulting rule and in the end, the decision is determined by what the manager thinks is the best. Heroic Management typically takes on of the following two forms: ? Manager as technician where the technicians try to use the technical prowess that helped them reach the managerial ranks to stay on top of things, be it engineering, finance, sales, marketing, operations, info rmation systems, accounting or law. o They favour an overt form of control in which they monitor all decisions. o This approach works well when the leader is the most technically competent person in the unit. o However, the higher the person moves in the organization, harder it becomes to sustain the level of expertise as technology keeps changing at a rapid pace. Manager as conductor where the leaders go through the motions of su bordinate involvement, consulting with others before making decisions and often hold team meetings to get commitment and build team m orale. o This type of leader is less overt in control. o The leader often has a preconceived plan inducing the strategy and manipulation to implement it.
?
Post- Heroic Leadership: This system aims at releasing the potential power of everyone and team me mbers share responsibility for managing a unit. This leadership begins with both the leader and subordinates take on obligations together. Leaders shift away from the traditional notion of sole responsibility and control to induce greater acceptance of responsibility and initi ative by their subordinates. In turn, the subordinates not only remain responsible in their own areas, but a lso become working partners in things like spotting problem, initiating action, pushing colleagues to do what is necessary to accomplish the unit’s work i.e. sharing the responsibility for overall unit success.
In this system, passivity is not at all tolerated. Everyone is expected to seize opportunities, correct problems and hold others accountable for performance. This makes everyone a leader, responsible for initiating things laterally and upward and not just controlling those below. This system enlarges the psych ological ownership of everyone. Shared leadership does not eliminate the lea der’s role or deny hierarchy but encourages and builds a shared responsibility system. However this can be a little challenging as the subordinates being used to constrained roles will not believe that their full partnership is we lcomed. Though it takes time for all parties to develop confidence in their a ltered relationships, when responsibility is shared, not only does the perfo rmance of the overall unit improve, it makes subordinates more accountable for whatever they deliver. For shared responsibility to work, three main implementation elements are necessary: ? A setting in which shared responsibility can occur to make critical ma nagerial and strategic decisions together. The leaders and subordinates need to develop a strong and cohesive team where issues can be raised, debated and jointly resolved. Basic agreement about the purpose and direction of the unit which r equires developing the commitment to a tangible vision of what the unit does to make it special and significant. A dramatic increase in the extent to which team members influence each other and the leader, and are influenced in return such that the rel ationships between individuals are based on mutual influence rather than dominance or avoidance.
?
?
Under this leadership system, the subordinates have the following roles: ? ? ? ? Deliver on the subarea’s obligations and commitments Share relevant information accurately Initiate ideas, reactions, and suggestions about areas for which they are responsible Support their colleagues
The leaders have to engage in the following three activities: ? ? ? Develop a mature, cohesive shared-responsibility team through which direct reports share the management of the unit Articulate a tangible vision and gain commitment of the entire group Establish mutual influence for effective shared responsibility
The change from heroic leadership system to a shared leadership system is possible if the leader makes the first move in the process of change. However the doubt remains whether the subordinates will follow the leader in the change. They will surely follow if the following four conditions prevail: ? The leadership approach is situationally appropriate and shared leade rship is appropriate only when o Work tasks are highly interdependent o External change is rapid o Members have expertise the leader lacks o The goals of most of the team members are compatible with those of the leader ? ? ? Team members can meet challenges and are willing and able to acquire the skills necessary for the shared responsibility. The leader can resolve ambivalence by testing their ideas with peer s at the same or other companies. The leader has support from the boss for example, someone who is both supportive and willing to provide resources.
Thus, we can conclude that though the pay-offs of post-heroic leadership are high, so are the transaction costs like training the employees to adjust for this kind of system. Also, these costs are inevitably incurred before the partic ipants can tally the benefits. Thus the leaders and members must do what they can to reduce the ambivalence, keep focused on the benefits, and actively engage in the practice of the new leadership. A good guideline to kick-off this change is to begin the change process whe rever people are the most dissatisfied with the functioning of the system. Wherever the effort starts, the other areas should be addressed as needed and when something is blocking good work, it must be moved to the forefront. One of the most useful ways to begin the journey to shared leadership is to think of group development as proceeding through five predictable stages: ? ? ? ? ? Membership Sub-Grouping Conflict Individual differentiation Collaboration (or shared responsibility)
To understand the dynamics behind the five stages, it is important to keep in mind the issues that the groups face and the members’ experience. Each team has to: ? ? ? ? ? Establish norms of behaviour Determine the power and influence are to be exercised Decide what can be talked about directly Agree on how disagreements are to be handled Determine the roles and responsibilities of the leaders and members
1. Membership This stage deals with the joining up. Whether the group is newly formed or one making a transition to post-heroism, all members struggle to feel each other out and try to figure out what it is all going to be. 2. Subgrouping In this stage, people try and quickly form subgroups with those who seem similar in beliefs and goals. This stage has value in that the peer support of su bgroup allies results in more issues being put on the table, even if the degree of directness and openness in less than desirable. 3. Conflict In this stage, as the team deals with increasingly important business and pr ocedural issues, members naturally want to shape the outcome. People differ as to the best strategic direction, the optimal resource allocation or the futuredefining issues. Differences are not only inevitable but highly desirable. Wit hout it, teams develop excessive conformity or “group think” and fall prey to distortions of reality. Such differences must be thoroughly argued and r esolved if quality decisions are the goal. 4. Individual differentiation Once a team has successfully worked through a major dispute, discussions b ecome reasonable and snipping ends. Everyone has found an acceptable place in the team now. No one needs to hide behind a subgroup an y longer and can instead act as individuals. Members are trusted with their jobs, meetings are no longer time-wasters but occasions to get work done, and members look forward to meetings. At its worst, differentiation just allows everyone to pu rsue his or her subarea without conflict, but also without collaboration. At its best, differentiation allows each person to feel responsibility for an area, and to trust that others will do their parts.
5. Collaboration Collaboration is achieved by making sure that t he most problematic issues are fully addresses, the potential for interdependence among team members is understood and leveraged, and the development of every member is seen as the responsibility of all. The central characteristic of this stage is fully shared responsibility, full commitment to the overall unit’s goals and to the success of its members. Members share management of the unit with the leader, making the decisions on critical issues by consensus. Though each member has a primary role, i mprovisation occurs as needed, with instant shifts back and forth between o ffence and defence.
PART TWO
THE THREE ELEMENTS OF POST HEROIC LEADERSHIP In a team whose members are each committed to the same vision and are fully collaborative, the members hold each other accountable for performance and confront those who are not carrying their weight. Teams are completely different from groups. While the main aim of a group is to run efficient meetings with the aid of strong leadership that focuses discussion, a team strives to create a collective product. Shared responsibility teams make the toughest decisions together, face up to difficult strategic problems, redesign work processes or the organization, d etermine team assignments and whenever nece ssary, confront the leader and each other on troublesome behaviour. High performance teams are the basic vehicle for moving to post -heroic leadership. If members are to share the responsibility for the management fun ctions of the overall team, they have to grapple with and resolve the core problems, and not just advise the leader. Sharing in management demands that members challenge and influence each other. When members take on typical leadership responsibilities such as coordination and control, the leade r can allow more discretion and autonomy. Building a team: Once a team is built, the mind-set of both the leader and the team members must change. The leader must be explicit about his or her intentions and also about his or her expectation from the team m embers which will also change their behaviour. The members must also stop thinking and acting as differe ntial subordinates who only offer opinions and they must begin behaving as committed junior partners.
The leader should involve the team members in resolving strategic issues through joint decision making. Team members cannot be moved to share r esponsibility for overall team success if they are not dealing with the key dec isions. Crises also help in making the implementation of post -heroic leadership possible because the centrality of critical tasks becomes apparent to everyone. External crises can be used to galvanize into a shared responsibility team. A lso, the leader’s commitment to change is more apparent and believable during a crisis. When a team tackles strategic issues, it must choose how to make these dec isions from the four alternative ways shown below: ? ? ? ? Autonomous, where the decision is made by the leader alone Delegated, where the decision, within the specified parameters, is made by an individual or a group Consultation, where the decision is made by the leader after advice from the team members Joint, where the decision is made by the members and the leader t ogether through true consensus The choice of the style of decision making depends on the following factors: ? ? ? ? Who has the expertise The readiness of the team or individual to adopt the unit’s goals The time available for discussion The commitment needed to carry out the decision
A decision can be made jointly when: ? ? ? ? ? The problem is complex No one person, including the leader, is clearly more expert than the co llective expertise of the group Members have the relevant information The team is working well together, uses sound decision making pr ocesses, and is aligned with overall goals The members are capable both of representing their own areas and co nsidering the overall unit needs
A mission is the objective description of the organization’s business, purpose or function and is really important for post -heroic leadership. Formulated well and used right, vision can be a driver of superior performance. When properly implemented, vision is far more than a slogan; it is a means to i n-
spire, coordinate and align people. When embedded in everyone’s consciou sness, vision provides a frame of reference fo r important decisions by team members that can be used for dealing with the unexpected and unanticipated. A tangible vision helps bring vision down to earth as a practical aid to dec ision making from the top of the organization to the bottom. There can be two forms of tangible vision: ? ? Task based, which refers to the work of the unit, the types of products, services, or technology that it wants to deliver better than others. Organization based, which is about how the unit will operate, especially in relation to its employees and customers.
However, there are six main barriers to implement a vision such as: ? ? ? ? ? ? Organizations still conform to the traditional conception of middle management Expressions of passion or emotion are discouraged Middle leaders lack influencing skills Vision is believed to require charisma It’s risky to commit to anything in times of rapid change Who will control the visionary
Hence to formulate a tangible vision that can make a difference, leaders must: ? ? ? ? Obtain high involvement of team memb ers from the beginning Connect the vision to the team’s tasks Seek compatibility with the wider organization’s vision, even if that v ision is not explicit Link the vision to the hopes and dreams of most individual team me mbers
Thus it can be concluded that a vision that is broadly accepted and understood within the organization gives leaders the confidence in subordinates that they need to loosen their grip. If they know that the team members share the same vision, leaders are more inclined to share decisio n-making power with them. This approach helps ensure that those with the most knowledge on issues co llaborate in the management process. Shared responsibility leadership also requires many changes in follower att itudes and behaviour and the challenge is to influence them to want to change. The interconnections among the post -heroic mind-set, tangible vision, the shared responsibility team and the mutual influence, all contribute to make the change from heroic leade rship to shared leadership possible.
PART 3
ESTABLISHING A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY SYSTEM The shared responsibility team is the vehicle for creating the fundamental conditions for mutuality and partnership in achieving better business dec isions. The first step in creating shared responsibility is to diagnose the situ ation objectively and one must view the organization as a system in which all parties of the problem are connected. One of the dilemmas leaders face when they want to create a new leadership system is the personal investment they must make. The leader will be watched closely for signs of low commitment, insincerity, or unwillingness to change in line with the new culture. Leadership ideas are meaningless if not tied to critical managerial decisi ons. Also, the costs and risks involved with the changes in relationships are just ified more often on the basis of team solidarity and good feelings. Champions of major change must: ? ? ? ? ? Anticipate resistance Be persistent and flexible Hold up an exciting vision of what will be possible when change is a ccomplished Identify clear pathways Align practices and policies with desired outcomes
Once an organization launches change, it is necessary to keep momentum g oing. Resolution of successively tougher issues is a p ractical approach to doing this and can advance the change quite rapidly. The challenge however is to change the entire system and this usually requires changing a lot of things and eats up a lot of time. Addressing Conflicts: Movement towards a shared responsibility system is bound to bump up against conflict. There will be disagreements about strategic direction, inte rpersonal tensions increase and these could either block movement toward co llaboration or release energy and al low change to move forward. The leader must recognize the value of conflict and set up processes that turn the energy toward productive purposes. Unless the organization can resolve differences, change will stall. Also management teams need to find ways to work through emerging conflicts and this allows for more open, direct discu ssion and enables the team to address increasingly more central issues.
Changing the leadership system in an executive team is hard work, but it helps immeasurable when people work through conflict and learn to pull together. The team must make tough decisions together and also extend the new beliefs and the new mode of operating throughout the organization. CONCLUSION Managers must remember that post-heroic leadership does not put leaders out of business; it just fundamentally changes their role. As members start to pick up more of the responsibility, the leader has more time and energy for long term strategy, implementation, alignment and renewal. When people work together and depend on one another for success as they create shared leadership, disagreements and disputes about task issues or work style are inevitable. As these arise, colleagues, direct reports, and the leader must be prepared to change their views, decisions or behav iour. To create a shared leadership system each person must be willing to state their views fully and be open to the influence of those who disagree with them. Team members must confront problematic behaviours early and directly, ot herwise, annoyance with someone’s behaviour takes the form of disdain and of attributions about that person’s malignant motives, incompetencies, or poor character. And once effective character becomes an issue, future interactions are likely to be adversarial. Thus, a change from heroic leadership to post-heroic leadership is vital for organizations to sustain in the long run. Shared leadership not only increases the company’s productivity, it also helps in bonding the employees together and helping them work better. Managers must put all the learning from this book to real -world issues and problems and make their team more productive. They must clearly define the roles of the leader and the members and help in making the system better.
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