A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE USE OF THE WORD “LEADERSHIP” – PART 2

John Pickering, Ph.D., President

Commonwealth Center for High-Performance Organizations (CCHPO), Inc.

In an earlier blog here on the ICMA Center for Management Strategies website, we were discussing the use of the term “leadership.”  We’d laid out the argument that as people’s view of the “nature of work” changed from the subsistence farming/crafts model (I have to do everything – the leadership, management, and task/technical work) and I have to worry about whether the farm/shop is successful or I lose everything) to the industrial model (leadership, management, and task are separated by hierarchical level; top = the leadership, middle = management, first level = task).  Unfortunately, this view and the organizational systems which perpetuate this view have led to a largely disengaged workforce.  The Gallup survey organization found in 2010 that only 29% of American workers were engaged in/at their work, defined as: fully engaged employees work with passion, feel a profound connection to the organization, drive innovation, and move the organization forward.  That is to say, less than one in three workers is fully engaged at work in “average” organizations, compared to what Gallup defines as “world class” organizations where over two in three are fully engaged.

In our work with hundreds of federal, state, and local governments, we’ve found that the best are changing their view of “the nature of work.”  They are moving from “leadership-is-at-the-top,” to “leadership-is-at-all-levels” of the organization; similarly, “management” is not just in formal managers, but rather in every single person in the organization.  In this view, leadership and management are not positional, but are “functions” to be performed.  If a first level person is helping his/her unit/small business do the “work of leadership,” then they are a leader; if they aren’t helping with this work, then they are not fulfilling their new job responsibilities.  Rather than the traditional industrial mindset of work …:

 organizations are moving to a view that we’ve called The Networked Talent Model (NTM) ©:

We believe that the Networked Talent Model needs to be the goal of organizations seeing higher performance.  This model assumes that work today is mostly done by teams/networks of employees, each of whom needs to demonstrate simultaneously Leadership, Management, Task/Technical, and  Team skills.  Each team/network member needs to understand the direction and message of the organization and contribute to its success through collaboration and joint efforts to achieve the organization’s goals.

We’ll explore these four competency sets (Leadership, Management, Task/Technical, and Team/Networking Skills) further in future blogs……