On Leadership
Chapter 2: A Leaderless Vision
Authors: Doug Breitbart & Fabián Szulanski
In the first chapter of the On Leadership series, we sought to unpack the prevalence of and attachment to the “leadership” construct in the prevailing industrial paradigm and world of work.
Here we seek to explore the dimensions and benefits of a “post-leadership” feasible future organizational paradigm, both for the organization-as-employer, and the employed, as individual human beings — awakened acknowledged, empowered, resourceful, and valued generative contributors to the best future manifestation of their organization in the world.
The contemplated change is an incremental improvement derived from the absence of leadership, not a magical discontinuous and utopian organizational transformation.
We believe the elimination of leadership affords space, potential, and opportunity for the emergence of a new and more experientially palatable culture and collaborative field.
A crucial question to ask is:
The foundational dimensions of such an organization would need to be rooted in such a way as to provide each individual with an internal orientation and consciousness that is aligned with others, in service to a co-created and collectively subscribed set of values, shared purpose, and individual and collectively subscribed agreements.
With this alignment by and between all those comprising the living organization, and co-creating its contribution to the world, the properties that would be energized across the organization would be flow, coherence, attunement, and adaptability to any emergent changing internal or external needs or circumstances.
The central tenet of such an organization is that each individual is imbued with full agency, self-empowerment, self-awareness, and the ability to contribute and be in service to a collectively defined purpose. As such, at any given moment in time, every aspect of the organization’s manifestation in, contribution to, and impact upon the world is the direct consequence of the aggregated individual intentions, decisions, and actions of those comprising the organization.
Within this frame, each individual serves as both sensor and effector neuron, within the larger living organism. By replacing channels of authority and decision-making, flowing top-down, with a leader-less neuronal mesh network of signal flows, generated by, and between the human beings within the organization; a decentralized, distributed means of adapting, co-creating, and manifesting new neuronal connections and exponentially faster responsiveness to immediate and emergent needs is enabled.
As a living system analog, what is experienced by one edge or part of the organism is shared, felt, and sensed by the whole; while simultaneously triggering only those related parts relevant to responding to the emergent need into action.
In the face of a challenge to one of the ants in the colony, all others respond to the signal of need. There is no delay in response, to check back up the ladder for decision-making nor approvals from some higher authority.
By awakening and acknowledging the agency of each and every employee to contribute and help, the intrinsic generative, creative, and innovative potential can be realized. Intrinsic to this awakening is recognition of the importance of inviting, recognizing, and appreciating each individual’s voice and contribution to the whole.
People are both self-motivated and self-energized to voluntarily engage in collaborative co-creation when they feel valued and appreciated as contributors to the collective endeavor. Without this reciprocal flow of experientially perceived positive emotional value, in the form of personal satisfaction and self-affirmation in working with others; the only energetic sources left to drive individual engagement are intimidation, coercion, or incentivization- all ingredients of the prevailing motivational paradigm- the dark arts rooted in fear and scarcity.
In this context, being in service to the whole is not simply to the team, or division, or organization; but ultimately to those the organization seeks to provide value, and the world.
For the purposes of the former “leaders”, it is necessary to examine the facets of their contribution, when the element of power, authority, and control is eliminated. If one were to put on network glasses, in most contexts leaders would be nodes, with vectors emanating out to other nodes in the network. Within a hierarchical model, these would be “below” them. In a flatter organization, these could be multi-dimensional.
The power and authority dynamics speak to how the flow of decisions and prescriptions control and direct the energetic flows by and between network nodes, and ultimately the connection and communication by and between all employees.
From the perspective of the “Industrial” paradigm, decision-making and action-authorization are unidirectional and source-constrained to the management constituency. Without this constituency, the Industrial organization would grind to a halt, waiting for instructions.
Elimination of this power dimension does not eliminate the presence of the people who formerly comprised the management constituency; and recognizing them as contributors and valuable network nodes.
The recontextualization of these people’s roles and value contributions is informed by what is needed by the greater network, on an emergent basis; and their being in service to supporting the energetic flows of communication and coordination by and between dynamic and fluid concentration of collaborators, as they emerge and subside across the network.
From a sensing and sensemaking standpoint, within a living-organism orientation, the intrinsic metamorphosis is from:
The proposed non-leadership new paradigm reflected by the column on the right is energized by present moment emergent need, in service to that which is being responded to or brought into manifestation by the organization, as a living organism, in service to value-centered creation and contribution.
With sensing and responding in real-time enabled in the transformed design, on an organization-wide basis, instantaneous responsiveness to emergent needs becomes possible.
Notwithstanding our invocation of network languaging above, organizations are not composed of nodes and links, but rather of the human beings who bring them to life every day, via investment of their time, energy, and commitment.
It is within this human beings’ experiential context that the most significant benefits are achieved and realized within a non-leadership paradigm. By removing the suppression of individual autonomy intrinsic to an industrial leadership paradigm; space and opportunity are created for each individual to reawaken to and reconnect with their own agency, value, and ability to realize their greatest generative and contributive potential.
The explicit benefit of such a human being-centered metamorphosis speaks directly to “employee engagement,” organizational culture, agility, development, and ultimately enterprise vitality and thrivability.
A transition from the prevailing paradigm to the projected new leaderless order is clearly no small feat. For many, we suspect it would seem virtually inconceivable to take away designated leaders who currently provide the sole source of orientation.
However, we firmly believe that this transformation speaks to the essential demands of the times we find ourselves in, and the challenges with which we are confronted. Withdrawal from “leadership” addiction and dependence is clearly necessary.
The current extractive and consumption-centered course is driving us towards a sixth global extinction, the signs of which are already appearing on the evening news. Without alacrity and proactive responsiveness to the speed and scale of change and emergent challenges, the prospects for our survival as a species are slim. A fundamental pivot based on values and regenerativity is necessary; a human being-centered orientation offers the greatest generative and creative potential; and the possibility for us to avoid our collective demise.
In the third and last installment of this series, we will explore “how” an organization can metamorphose from a Leadership paradigm to a Leaderless version of itself.
