Complexity Leadership (excerpt)
An excerpt I wrote on Complexity Leadership Theories (2009)
Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT)
Complexity leadership theory (CLT) provides a framework for understanding that certain actions in social networks will have “nonlinear influence” on future interactions within the network (Lichtenstein, Uhl-Bien, Marion, Seers, Orton and Schreiber, 2006, p. 7). CLT draws on ideas of shared leadership (Pearce & Conger, 2003) collective leadership (Weick & Roberts, 1993), distributed leadership (Gronn, 2002), relational leadership (Drath, 2001) and, adaptive leadership theories (Linsky & Heifetz, 2002). Lichtenstein et al. (2006) present an approach to complexity leadership theory that views leadership as a “complex dynamic process that emerges in the interactive ‘spaces between’ people and ideas” (p. 2). In this view, leadership is a kind of transcendent dynamic that is the “product of interaction, tension and exchange rules” that governs changes in perception and understanding (p. 2). Leadership is a dynamic that transcends the capabilities of individuals alone; it is the product of interaction, tension, and exchange rules governing changes in perceptions and understanding.
A Whole Systems View
Lichtenstein et al. (2006) suggest that complexity leadership theory presupposes a whole systems view that requires a focus on the following:
1. Expanding the locus of leadership from the isolated, role based actions of individuals to the innovative, contextual interactions that occur across an entire social system.
2. Extending current theory and practice by focusing on micro-strategic leadership actions across all organizational levels and across organizational boundaries.
3. Increasing the relevance and accuracy of leadership theory by exploring how leadership outcomes are based on complex interactions, rather than “independent” variables.
4. Highlighting the relational foundations of change in emerging organizational fields through the idea that leadership occurs in the “spaces between” agents.
5. Providing a new and rich foundation for explaining the constructive process of collective action as well as the influential “behaviours of collective actors.
6. Connecting to innovative methodologies that can enrich our understanding of how leadership gets enacted and received in complex environments. (pp. 2 – 3)
Marion and Uhl-Bien (2001) distinguish between macro- and micro-leadership within the context of CLT (p. 391). CLT suggests that macro-leadership is about providing linkages to emerging structures within and among organizations. The focus of leadership at the macro-level should be on how to foster and streamline the emergence of “distributed intelligence”. Micro-leadership, on the other hand, involves shaping contexts that “enable productive, but largely unspecified, future states” (p. 391 emphasis added). CLT refutes deterministic understandings of leadership that would suggest leaders shape outcomes in linear cause and effect ways.
Complexity Leadership maintains a distributed and non-hierarchical view of leadership process. Relationships are not defined hierarchically but by interactions among “heterogeneous agents” within a complex adaptive system (p. 3). Complex adaptive systems are comprised of individuals and groups of individuals who share common interests, knowledge and goals because of their worldviews and shared history of interaction. Agents are interdependent, and influenced by internal and external pressures out of which “system-wide emergent learnings, capabilities, innovations and adaptability” are generated (p. 3).
Leadership is an Emergent Property of a Complex System
CLT views leadership as an endogenous emergent event or interactive dynamic rather than as residing within a person. From a CLT perspective, individuals or groups of individuals, regardless of position, can generate interactive dynamics of this sort. Positional leaders are not the direct source of change from a CLT perspective. Rather, their main function is to enable the conditions within which the process of leadership occurs. Lichtenstein et al. (2006) define adaptive leadership in CLT as “an interactive event in which knowledge, action preferences, and behaviors change, thereby provoking an organization to become adaptive” (p. 4). Accordingly, adaptive leadership is driven by the process of collective identity formation and through the introduction of tension, pressure or challenges to the knowledge base of the individuals or groups within the complex adaptive system (pp. 4-5).
Leadership, Learning, and Complexity
Schreiber and Carley (2006) suggest that the “context of the postmodern knowledge economy is characterized by uncertainty and turbulence” (p. 62). This dynamic context is driven by a dual reality of technological revolution and economic globalization. One of the realities for organizations functioning in this environment is the rapid and continuous change that characterizes internal and external organizational environments, and the need for organizations to respond in intelligent ways. Learning and the “need to turn large amounts of data into useable information (Schreiber & Carley, 2006, p. 62) have become critical factors in organizational survival. Intellectual assets are now the core competency of organizations rather than capital and labour assets, which were the core competencies of organizations in the industrial era.
Previous standard practices of leadership offer limited insight for dealing with the challenges of postmodern organizations: challenges such as adapting to rapid change and enabling faster learning. Schreiber and Carley (2006).
Accessing and utilizing the collective intelligence, fostering an adaptable and responsive social structure that can respond and connect and flexibly network human “capital”, moving away from engrained “heroic leader” paradigms to assumptions where the “responsibility for learning and reasoning about strategic change” is embraced by the whole organization are essential complexity leadership ideals (Schreiber & Carley, 2006, p. 62). Leaders must abandon “power over” ideas, as organizations need to be stimulated through the creation of conditions or cultures that simultaneously stimulate the development of human and social capital according to complexity leadership theorists (p. 62). The rise in organic or network forms of organization demonstrates that creative changes occur by way of the deep multiplicity of interactions among an organizations citizenry, often not by design. These interactions are what generate and release the collective intelligence both within and amongst an organizations network.
