Leading
from the Middle
by Seth Kahan and Raj Chawla
Top-down
command-and-control leadership is not enough to get results in
today’s workplace.There are three reasons:
1. Increasing levels of
economic, political, and social complexity
2. Equal access to information at all levels in organizations
3.More sophisticated and empowered customers and stakeholders
Things move fast. Stakes are
high. Agility, speed, and responsiveness make
for success.New, more flexible, and relational models of leadership are
emerging. Leading from
the Middle is one of these. It demonstrates
leadership from all points inside the organization: influencing up,
down, and
across the organizational flow chart.
Leading up provides
guidance and direction to supervisors and superiors.
Leading down
directs and realizes a vision with subordinates. Leading across
co-creates, integrates and coordinates effectively across boundaries. Leading from the middle
does all of these simultaneously.
Leading
from the middle results from a new way of looking at the world
–
where instead of a top, there is a web of interdependencies.
New skills are required to get
results in this world. Three critical skill sets
improve your ability to lead from the middle:
1. Enrolling
others effectively
2. Generating
peer accountability - moving away from mandate
3.Surfacing
and holding adaptive struggles so new solutions emerge
1. Enrolling others
requires skill to generate the conversations that
focus on shared success, new possibilities, and action.You enroll others
by working together to identify a future everyone is committed to.
2. Generating peer accountability
creates shared responsibility –
moving
away from telling people what to do and toward getting them involved.
With
strong peer accountability, success moves from individual focus
(“I will achieve
my goals come hell or high water”) to a team focus
(“I am part of a larger
effort and will do what I can to see that we meet our
objectives”). Peer accountability shifts motivation from
compliance and toward authentic accountability; i.e., from doing things
“because the boss wants them done” to
“because I have
a commitment to my peers.”
3. Surfacing and holding adaptive
struggles requires identifying and
making visible the differences of values, habits, and beliefs that
create tension, pulling them together to generate solutions. This
includes the ability to reframe struggles so they are experienced as
the divergent forces necessary to birth
new solutions. This gives meaning to struggle: rather than being a
conflict, it becomes the birthing ground for solutions.
One of the most effective ways
to build these skills is to assemble a group
of people from a cross-section of the organization that will embrace
the
issues at hand. This group systematically practices these skills,
developing solutions that lead to greater positive outcomes.Then,
success spreads
throughout the system generating a step-change in all directions.
__________________
Raj Chawla is a
colleague and organizational consultant with 14 years
experience working with leaders and multi-disciplinary groups to develop
new ways of thinking and being to generate better futures. His clients
include The World Bank Group, NASA, NeighborWorks of America, CHF
International, Choice Hotels, US Agency for International Development,
EDS, and SunTrust Bank. Contact Raj at rajcis@verizon.net
Copyright
2007 Seth
Kahan and Raj Chawla. Reprint with attribution allowed.
I
hope you enjoyed this article in the Visionary Leadership
series.Send me an
email to receive future issues as they are released: Seth@SethKahan.com
