Systemic Leadership: Enriching the Meaning of Our Work

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Systemic Leadership Enriching the Meaning of
Our Work

• Dr. Kathleen E. Allen
• Dr. Cynthia Cherrey

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Assumptions of Multiple Levels of Impact

• Our students will impact the world in greater
  proportion than their numbers.
• We are here to impact the learning of students.
• Students learn in part by watching our behavior.
• Students learn from our institutions actions.
• If we are to influence our students capacity to
  contribute to the 21st century, we must also
  change our own and our institutions behavior.

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Leadership in the 21st Century

• Exists in
• A networked world
• A knowledge-based world
• These two shifts are influenced by the global
  economy, mass communications, and computer
  technology.

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Characteristics of Fragmented and Networked
Orientations
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Characteristics of Fragmented and Networked
Orientations
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The Spiral of Connectivity

• Connectivity creates dynamic movement within a
  system.
• This increases the level of complexity in the
  system.
• This requires learning on both individual and
  organizational levels.
• Generative learning becomes necessary for the
  organizations adaptability to its turbulent
  environment.

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Industrial and Knowledge Shifts

• Industrial era
• Primary resources are finite in nature labor,
  capital, natural resources
• Information is considered as discoverable
• Information flow and direction is controllable
  and therefore can be withheld
• Information is applied in a specific way
• Learning is sequential and task specific

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Industrial and Knowledge Shifts

• Knowledge era
• Knowledge is the first organizational resource
  that is infinite in nature. In fact it increased
  as it is shared.
• Accelerating amounts of information lead to
  overload and misinformation
• More ways of communicating facilitate information
  sharing.
• Systemic knowledge is needed.
• Ongoing learning and unlearning is needed.

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Leadership in the 21st Century

• The shift to a networked and knowledge-based
  world, requires four new ways of working.
• New ways of relating
• New ways of changing
• New ways of learning
• New ways of leading

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New Ways of Relating

• Increased value attached to relationships
• Seek diversity
• Cross boundaries
• Form relationships based on trust and integrity
• Meaning is found in the relationship between
  variables
• Interdependent solutions for interdependent
  problems
• Relational thinking

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New Ways of Relating

• Emotions are amplified in a network.
• Develop individual emotional intelligence
• Self awareness / mindfulness
• Managing personal emotions
• Develop group emotional intelligence
• Empathy / deep listening
• Social / group dynamics

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New Capacities - Relating

• Collaboration
• Self develop relationships based on trust,
  trustworthiness and authenticity
• Diversify perspectives
• Self thrive on diversity
• Emotional competence
• Self empathy and mindfulness
• Organizational facilitate organizational
  emotional competence

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New Ways of Influencing Change

• Networked systems change differently.
• Non-linear dynamics jumps and stalls
• Increased complexity
• Greater speed
• Dynamics of influencing change shift
• More organic
• Need to pace the system

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Images of Organic Change

• Wet sand resistance and force
• Birds on a wire fluctuations and change
• Yeast the need for active ingredients
• Greenhouses support and protection are
  sometimes needed at the beginning of change
• Gardening pruning, diversity, beauty, whole view

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Images of Organic Change

• Suspense novels dynamic tension resolution
• Beneficial viruses how change spreads through a
  networked system
• Weather systems sensitive dependence on initial
  conditions
• Traffic jams pacing the system

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New Capacities Influencing Change

• Active engagement
• Self a mind set of action
• Organizational purposeful influencing
• Collaboration
• Organizational cultivating collaborative
  relationships
• Profound change
• Self personal transformation
• Organizational organizational transformation

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New Ways of Learning

• Knowledge reinvested in the organization creates
  a competitive edge
• Individual and collective intelligence is needed
• Diversity of perspectives and experience is
  necessary
• New processes are needed to accelerate group
  learning
• Ongoing learning and unlearning is needed

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New Ways of Learning

• Requires the integration of concepts, capacities,
  and practice
• Cooperation becomes economically efficient
• Need to leverage intelligence not just
  participation

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New Capacities - Learning

• Continual learning
• Self integrate learning
• Organizational facilitating shared learning
• Diversify perspectives
• Organizational leveraging multiple perspectives
• Engage paradox
• Self embrace paradox
• Organizational optimizing tensions

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New Ways of Leading

• Seeing and understanding systems
• Overcoming system blindness
• Lead the whole not just the parts
• Initiate organic change
• Intentional collective nudging
• Influence the system where it will provide the
  most leverage
• Let the dynamics of the system amplify your
  influence

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New Ways of Leading

• Develop the capacity of others
• Personal side of competence
• Professional side of competence
• Leverage organizational learning
• Create new forms of organizational cohesion
• Core values, fractals, attractors, energy flow,
  vision

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New Capacities- Leading

• Meaning making
• Self develop the capacity of making meaning in
  your work
• Organizational foster communities of meaning
• Paradigm cognition
• Self understanding context
• Organizational pattern recognition

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New Capacities - Leading

• Systems cognition
• Self seeing connections
• Organizational apply system dynamics to
  leadership practice
• Sustainability
• Self personal balance
• Organizational stewardship over time

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Reframing Assumptions

• New ways of relating
• Never underestimate the interrelatedness that
  exists in a system
• Variables in the system mutually shape each other
• Networks facilitate the flow of emotions and
  information
• New role influence the organization to think and
  practice new ways of relating.

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Reframing Assumptions

• New Ways of Influencing Change
• Multiple people intentionally influencing in the
  same direction are needed to influence change.
• Non-linear logic is necessary to understand
  network dynamics
• Change can be triggered from anywhere
• New role influence change organically in the
  organization

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Reframing Assumptions

• New ways of learning
• What is important to know changes sometimes
  drastically
• We can never learn enough or unlearn enough
  therefore continual learning and unlearning is
  critical
• Learning is social it occurs in community with
  others
• New role introduce shared learning processes
  into organizational decision making and strategic
  planning

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Reframing Assumptions

• New ways of leading
• Leadership facilitates organizational processes
• Networked leadership pays attention to meaning
  and intangible forces of cohesion
• There are many agents of leadership dispersed
  through a networked organization
• New role develop capacities in self and others
  to lead systematically