Embedded Leadership

Pattie Thomas, Ph.D.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the monumental rescue and clean up efforts that have become necessary in her path, a number of people have been asking a lot of questions about leadership. Setting aside political wrangling for the moment, there is no disputing that the crisis that has befallen our nation requires good leadership.

Never has it been more important to understand exactly what "good leadership" means. And more importantly, what good leadership does.

Answers to this important question abound. Leadership is the ability to inspire and influence, says one source. Another concentrates on communication and the ability to understand and listen to those one would have follow. Still another discusses service, describing a servant leader whose example brings about changes for the good in the lives of those around them.

Like the way most of us approach art, we don't really know what leadership is, but we know what we like.

These answers can satisfy our desire to define leadership, but such answers rarely offer much for those of us who wish to learn how to be a good leader. Yes, good leadership can be learned.

Learning how to be a leader begins with recognizing something that most people take for granted. Our lives are not lived alone. We are not islands of individuality capable of moving our worlds singularly. No matter who we are, what we do, where we go, what we think or what we say, our actions are influenced by and provide influence for other people.

This is so basic that it is often ignored. Most people like to think of themselves as being in control of their own destinies. This value in our society runs deep. But hundreds of times each day, we are reminded of the extent to which we are not in control. We pay hundreds of dollars each year pursuing self-improvement, stress-reduction, re-organization strategies and extensive technologies in the name of gaining control over our lives, our families, our businesses and our destinies.

When we think of leadership, we often think of control. We never quite succeed however. We never quite get away from the influences that are generated by our spouses, our children, our neighbors, our vendors, our customers, our business partners, our governments and our competitors.

What are we to do? Must we simply wring our hands and give up? How can we lead when someone, somewhere is going to "mess it up" by making a decision or by doing something that works at cross-purposes to our intentions? If we build our kingdoms and someone else's will could simply knock them down like castles in the sand, then what is the use? If we can't be in control, why bother?

In order to lead, we must take into account what other people do. That seems obvious, but it is often the forgotten key to developing the kinds of personal and professional lives we desire.

We must let go of control in order to gain influence.

Leadership is not about control. It is about influence.

The first step to letting go of control is to rethink how we see ourselves in relationship to others. Traditionally, leaders have been viewed as being "on top" and their actions as "coming from above." Most organization charts and organizational models rely upon a hierarchal view of leadership. This formal structure looks good on paper, but in the last 30 years those who study how organizations work have discovered what every secretary knew since secretaries were invented - the organization chart frequently does not represent reality. The "boss" is usually not in charge. An informal system of gatekeepers and an emergence of charismatic folk often have more influence on the outcomes of an organization than person occupying the box at the top of the chart.

Organizational experts have looked for other models to account for these informal systems. It is fashionable lately to speak of "leading from the center," envisioning a system of feedback loops that allow savvy organizational leaders to understand the informal systems in their organization and gain sensitivity to their importance in accomplishing the goals of the organization.

Advocates of this approach concentrate on key concepts like "collaboration," "network," "relationships" and "stakeholders." These concepts strike a closer chord with the reality of how the actions of other people can affect our lives. However, the concept of being in the center of this web still evokes a sense of control.

As stated earlier, leadership is not about control. It is about influence.

We must let go of control in order to gain influence.

So if we are not "on top" and we are not "in the center" then where do we stand to move our worlds?

Georgia had an entrepreneurial spirit. Her contacts, her longstanding service to her clients and her broad knowledge of her field were great assets that attracted a financial backer and silent partner. From the outside looking in, Georgia could not help but succeed. She had the "right stuff."

But Georgia did not have much experience in running a business on a daily basis. She knew little of setting up shop. She envisioned a glossy view of a beautiful work setting with happy, productive employees. But she had little experience with supervising others.

So accounting, setting up a filing system, organizing the computer network and phone bank, hiring good workers, putting together an office policy, planning and dealing with all the paperwork these activities generated overwhelmed Georgia and made her feel out of control. She was determined to be a success, however, so she went about trying to learn all these aspects of her business. She took classes, read books, stayed late at night in the office and generally burned herself out making sure that she knew everything she could about her business and its daily operations.

The one thing she forgot to do was the thing she knew how to do best. She never quite made it out of the office to visit all those great contacts that were her greatest asset. She forgot to sell her product. Needless to say, her business closed before the end of its first year forcing her not only to give up her entrepreneurial dreams but leaving her without the contacts she had so successfully built up. She not only left the business, she left the industry.

Georgia's desire to understand and control all aspects of her business fit the traditional model of leadership. What good business owner would not have a working knowledge of how her business is run? The traditional model would suggest that her problem was that she did not delegate well. She had an office manager and several part time workers answering the phones to take orders. She had access to an accountant, a computer technician and a tax manager. All she needed to do was turn those things over to those people, right?

The problem, of course, is that would leave her vulnerable. If any of those people turned out to not know what they were doing (and remember Georgia really wasn't sure about these things, so on what basis would she judge their competency?), then her business would fail. In the top-down model, even if she eventually delegated these things so she could get on the road and see her clients and sell her product, she would know something about what these delegates were doing.

Under the center model, Georgia would regard her employees, her clients, her venders and her service providers as collaborators and stakeholders in the business. She would envision these people as having a vested interest in the success of her company since their livelihoods were tied up in her success and she would trust that motivation as the basis for delegation. In a world where things happen rationally and logically, this would be a perfectly good approach. It is true that these stakeholders had a vested interest in the success of her enterprise. It is true that her success would be beneficial to each of them. To further their own success, they should care about her success.

What this approach does not take into account, however, is that all of these "stakeholders' have other agendas. They do not simply circle around Georgia. They have other obligations and goals. If some of these obligations and goals conflicted with what was good for Georgia's company, the stakeholders might choose to prioritize those other things over what was good for Georgia's company. Again, her business would fail.

No matter how you look at it, Georgia was not in control of her destiny. No matter how we slice it, Georgia needed other people in order to succeed and those other people had influence over her success. The key to Georgia's success lie in understanding what her relationships to those people were.

Rather than concentrating on specific business skills like accounting or office management, Georgia needed to develop attitudes (the want to), skills (the how to), knowledge (the where & when to) and a specific focus (the what & why to) that clarified her position not only in regards to her own personal and professional goals, but in regards to the overall organization she was building through her business and the context in which her business was ran.

Georgia needed to be responsible for those relationships.

Responsibility is not control. Responsibility is the "ability to respond."

Control suggests an action. Responsibility is a response, ideally a proactive response.

Responsibility is accomplished on a small scale between a small group of people (sometimes only two) and needs to be repeated over and over again as things develop.

Being proactive should involve having goals, having good plans and having a strong understanding of one's assets, including one's abilities, skills and motivations. But being proactive does not mean adhering to these goals, plans and assets without considering the world around us and the actions of other people. Being proactive requires a conscious effort to stay aware of the relationships affecting our daily lives and consciously responding to those relationships.

Georgia had several assets at her disposal, but her greatest was her extensive relationships with former clients who could have easily become clients of her new business. If, upon realizing, her shortcomings, she had understood her position in the enterprise (that of an excellent representative of her company's products and an excellent presenter of those products to potential clients), she would have realized that making that role a priority was the key to her success and to the organizations' success.

The remaining management questions would be answered through staying proactive with the people to whom she entrusted these other tasks. In addition, she could have developed key trusting relationships with a few people, whom she would then encourage to also stay proactive on behalf of the organization. Embedded leadership encourages others to emerge as leaders as well.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. It takes a great deal self-examination to accomplish this kind of embedded leadership. It is not the easier road to follow. But there are attitudes, skills and knowledge that can be learned and applied to make embedded leadership happen.

An embedded leader is one who sees their own responsibility to others and then provides proactive responses to the actions of others in order to accomplish something together with those others. It is a creative and exciting way to lead because together people weave more interesting tapestries than they do apart.

That is why developmental processes that do not account for organizational development will lead to unsatisfactory results. In order to achieve our goals, we must account for the goals of others within our worlds. We must see ourselves as embedded in our worlds rather than masters over them.

In order to lead, we must respond.