iIn an issue of the Industrial and Organizational Psychology journal in 2012, Francis Yammarino and other authors summarized the evolving area of collectivistic leadership. Collectivistic leadership occurs in situations where the emphasis is on “we”, not on someone leading others to produce results per se.  This is increasingly common in flexible, more organic organizational structures in dynamic environments.

Collectivistic leadership is often seen in teams. Different team members assume different leadership roles. Leadership is shared. The success of members in these roles becomes team outcomes. In other words, the team moves and changes like an amoeba as team members find their strengths and weaknesses. Across all members though are shared mental models, shared knowledge. Members stay on the same page.

Yammarino and colleagues see leadership within networks by necessity as having a “we” focus.  Leaders emerge in social networks, such as organizations, but their effectiveness depends on positions in networks external to their organizations, engaging others.  In other words, the dynamic environment requires the leader to be involved in important ways beyond the traditional position. These external relationships affect innovation, growth, even survival. The focus is collectivistic because the leader brings people together internally and externally so they can create change.

This emphasis on social relationships is seen also in complexity leadership. This type of leadership is crucial to adapting and organizational learning in complex environments but is more informal. Leadership involves out of the informal interactions of different players in the network. Google comes to mind. One friend to another: “What do you think of this idea?” and a new product is born. Many virtual teams evolve informal leaders through their interactions.

Collectivistic leaders deliberately engage units or networks to provide the best information, often working outside the system. General Petraeus was not too concerned with rank and protocol. In Iraq and Afghanistan he developed and relied on his own sources across the country to be his eyes and ears. These sources were part of an informal network, a “we”, that influenced the conduct of operations.

Here’s a summary in words of the authors. Collectivistic leadership approaches are:

• not solely or primarily leader-centric
• not constrained by formal power and authority structure and relationships
• not limited to leader-to-follower interactions in small group or teams
• involve more than typical leader behaviors or team skills
• incorporate a variety of organizational and extra-organizational arrangements
• tend to be dynamic and non-linear in nature
• strive to be responsive to complex, rapidly changing and uncertain problems and environments.

Yammarino et al.’s review is intended for leadership scholars. It is comprehensive and engaging. But the larger contribution is for current leaders. Collectivistic leadership offers a different lens by which we select, train, appraise, and reward those who contribute to organizational leadership.

Reference:  Yammarino, F. J., Salsa, E., Serban, A., Shirreffs, K., & Shuffler, M. L. (2012). Collectivisitic leadership approaches: putting the “we” in leadership science and practice. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 5, 382-402. 

Image of Lars and Jens Rasmussen, May, 2009. Lars co-founded Google maps. Photo by Niall Kennedy. from https://www.flickr.com/photos/niallkennedy/3573459849/
Used with permission: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en

Thanksgiving. For many, memories and experiences of loved ones and family. But not for all. It is easy to project our expectations on to others. A  joy this year for the Ballards were the grandchildren enjoying the first snowfall of the Minnesota winter. 

But thankfulness deserves an ingrained place in our managerial cultures. Ed Locke in a classic review of job satisfaction decades ago found that one of most important sources of job satisfaction was simply feedback, especially positive feedback. In the course of our days and weeks, there will be times when we will be glad for the work of others, the contributions of others. In short, we will be thankful for our colleague, our direct report. Let them know. Let them know you appreciate their work, their contribution. It is great to be thankful of another. It is even better to let them know.

More from the files of the Dr. Juran "An Immigrant's Gift" Archival Project, research and dissemination of information from the interviews conducted about Joseph Juran for the PBS Special, An Immigrant's Gift.

From an interview with Steve Jobs, December 19, 1991, in Redwood City, California. 

Here Jobs talks about improving processes.

STEVE JOBS:  . . . I think the things that we've learned most from Dr. Juran are to look at everything as a repetitive process. And to instrument that process and find out how it's running and then start to take it apart and re-put it back together in ways that dramatically improve its effectiveness, in a very straight-forward way. 

And no magic, no pep rallies, just looking things directly in the eye, seeing them as repetitive processes, and then re-engineering them. I think most of the quality stuff, as I've understood it, is really a lot about re-engineering your repetitive processes -- to make them much, much more effective, combining them, eliminating some, strengthening others. 

My Take-Away:  

Steve Jobs and Joseph Juran were talking about improving quality and efficiency by taking a hard look at processes. More truth here than meets the eye. 

In my early years consulting in United States Air Force organizations, my teams flowed processes and analyzed. First, you had to know how the process is supposed to work. Second, you had to know how it was actually working. People will naturally move toward more efficient ways of accomplishing tasks. Unfortunately they can only do so much. There may be system-based activities in the process that limit efficiencies. By flowing a process, gathering data on each stage, and discussing with the employees involved, we always found ways to improve the process. 

At one point in my career I led a project to study manpower requirements at hospitals throughout the Air Force. It was a multimillion dollar project. I was given 60 teams worldwide to get the job done and three years to complete the study. There was a manual describing the process to follow. I did a PERT analysis of the process. I found one required link where, if given Pentagon approval, we could do something differently. If it worked, we could save a lot of money, do the job in 1.5 years and with only 20 teams. We got approval. Our approach worked. We had created a new way of doing these types of projects by changing one step. This way became the model used in future Air Force manpower studies and saved millions. It began by simply asking, are all these steps really necessary?

Image from Acaben at http://www.flickr.com/photos/35034346178@N01/541326656
Free to share under the following license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

I attended a forum at our college a few days ago. Our college is committed to ethical leadership development. The forum was a moderated discussion among  Better Business Bureau members and Torch Award recipients. The BBB Torch awards promote ethical conduct in organizations and honor  "local businesses and public charities for their outstanding commitment to fair, honest and ethical marketplace practices." A Q & A session from students and faculty concluded the session.

This session was unlike any discussion or reading about business ethics I have ever experienced. I attended to support our college's initiative. I came unprepared. No pad. No pen. No laptop. I now regret. (Lesson learned.) What I encountered were three professionals detailing experience after experience describing how ethical business is good business. No rose-colored glasses here but down in the trenches, here's what happened, here's what we lost, here's what we gained. In each case an ethics audit resulted in changed policies, procedures, or training.  It was simply the best discussion on the practical side of workplace ethics I have ever heard.

I continue to think about that session. I wonder about large companies who may appoint an officer whose title includes "Ethics", such as VP for Ethics and Compliance. Is this like "quality" was in many organizations in the 1980s and 1990s?  We appoint someone to a position, we can point to the position, there may be some initiatives, but the culture is not affected. 

Small businesses are different. They must live out the real meaning of customer value. They have to know the benefits derived from their products or services and the sacrifices of the customer in buying, using, or disposing. Most importantly, they have to have a genuine relationship with their customers. The bedrock of that relationship for every (or at least most) successful small businesses is trust. The exchange is one of fairness. Call it a good reputation. Ethical conduct is more than an interesting conversation over your favorite beverage. Ethical conduct is in the trenches, all employees, from back office to front line. Ethical conduct is fundamental, sound business practice.


Image. From left to right: Michael Dawson, VP for Marketing & Public Relations, Cincinnati BBB; Jeff Daniher, Co-Founder, Ritter Daniher Financial Advisory, LLC; Liz Carter, Executive Director, Society of St. Vincent de Paul; Greg Hyland, President, Cooper Electric, Board Member, BBB. Image by J. Ballard. Permission granted to use image from participants.

Urban Meyer is head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes football team. He has been a winner everywhere he has coached, leading the University of Florida to two national BCS football championships. In an article in the Dayton Daily News Meyer talked about how to win football games:  "Talent will get you about seven or eight wins. Discipline pushes it to nine wins, maybe. Then when you get leadership, that's when magic starts happening."

Urban Meyer's philosophy for winning football games applies to organizations. It starts with talent. The best companies invest in finding the best talent. Want a job at Google? Be prepared for a challenging experience. If you want to be build or retool your organization, start with a realistic look at the skills, knowledge, and abilities your organization has or will need. Then take a good look at your recruitment and selection methods. Are you attracting talent? Can you reward and keep talent?

Discipline takes several forms. First is training. Learning your discipline or way of doing business. Many employees learn mainly by trial-and-error on the job. Does your organization need more training? Better training? Do the training activities match job requirements? Is the training sufficient to have a measurable impact? The quality of training can significantly shape outcomes.

Discipline also refers to understanding and executing policies, procedures, tasks, and taking responsibility -- getting the job done the way it needs to be done. Henri Fayol ((1841-1925), who gave us the first comprehensive theory of management, wrote about discipline resulting from different agreements concerning activities, applications, and energies that varied among organizations. He wrote that "discipline is absolutely essential for the smooth running of business and that without discipline no enterprise could prosper." What did Fayol think were the best means to good discipline? Good leaders at all levels, clarity and fairness in agreements, and enforcing sanctions judiciously.   

I especially like Urban Meyer's phrase, "when you get leadership, that's when magic starts happening." I do not know Urban Meyer but my guess is that he uses the term leadership like Fayol, leaders at all levels. Organizations can easily confuse leader development with leadership development (see Day, 2000). Leader development focuses more on the individual, trying to develop skills and competencies to lead. On the other hand, leadership development seeks to grow leadership throughout an organization developing relationships among leaders, understanding followership, to insure leaders are on the same page, not at cross-purposes. And when this happens, magic happens. 

Talent, discipline, leadership. I think Urban Meyer nailed the essential ingredients to greatness. 

Reference: Day, D. V. 2000. Leadership development: A review in context. Leadership Quarterly, 11: 581–613.

Image courtesy of the Ohio State Athletic Department. Used with permission.