In a very engaging and thought provoking post, Mike asks:
> One way of considering leaders in organisations is to see them as
> "attractors". That is, as attractive examples of "being" which help other
> independently intelligent beings to interpret what is occurring and to
> make choices which are nurturing of the whole.
> I submit that without these leaders performing this role - not necessarily
> the formal leaders - in a large organisation there will be continual
> reduction of effectiveness, aliveness and uniqueness (entropy) or there
> will be increasingly rigid rules (leading to the same result).
If only I had Mike's gift for effectively using the English language! He's
always clear and to the point.
What I'm interested in is a "leaderless organization." This does not imply
the absence of leadership; it does suggest, however, leadership is
something that is assumed by different people, at different stages of an
organizations history, that may have nothing at all to do with the formal
organizational structure.
A few months back I organized a "quality team," in my department which
really had nothing to do with quality per se. Instead it had to do with
exploration and experimentation. Each person was assigned one of three
possible roles:
1- Philosopher
2- Futurist
3- Integrator
The only qualification for the first two roles was the demonstrated
ability to think clearly and in-depth. The qualification for the third
role was that you were, as Mike would put it, an "attractor" that would
embody what we needed to do today to survive, and also show how a person
could adapt to changing conditions. The integrators role is to take the
ideas created by the first two, and integrate them into their worklife. To
be living examples of "being" an idea. They teach, not only by word, but
by becoming living examples. They are the leaders -- and by recognizing
them as "integrators" I formalized their leadership position. Looking back
on it I wish I had never formalized it. I should have had the sense to
know that I could just "talk" to them about ideas, and they'd accept and
integrate those that would increase that they felt had merit.
--Benjamin B. Compton bbcompton@aol.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>