Leader, an onion analogy – part three

Leader, an onion analogy – part three

Let us move on with our arduous journey in sketching out “a whole picture” of a leader. It is hoped here that on its part this text shows that leadership is truly a complex, important and multilayered phenomenon.

Just as a reminder, let us mention the key elements or layers in our model. In our Onion model the leader herself/himself is seen the be the core of the model and the layers around him/her are: 1)gestures, 2) words, 3) action, 4)setting and 5) image.The part one of this blog outlined the Onion model and discussed about gestures layer, whereas the part two went deeper into the Onion analogy and discussed about layers two and three, ie. about words and action.

Hence we will now proceed to talk about layers: setting and image.



Fourth layer, setting, is perhaps the element in leadership which has been discussed rather little but which would certainly deserve close examination. Setting is the working environment where people around leader find themselves and certainly also a leader share the more or less similar setting as everybody else in any organization. Setting include things like work related rules, all practical work related arrangements, performance measurements and control and reward systems. These before mentioned elements of the setting are such things which could be described for all to see, for instance these things could explained in quality manual or in any other such document. However, setting is also action and human behaviour. For instance control systems outline general rules but often this desricption is rather thin portrayal of what happens when people meet and talk how control system should be applied in any everyday event, in particular if that event may include individuals who see things differently.

Thus setting is a very challenging element in many ways. Firstly, in different organizations settings are different and even in same organization settings change over time and sometimes very rapidly and unexpectedly. Probably we can assume that for instance a new leader always create a somewhat different setting.Secondly, also individuals see and interpret settings differently. Where someone sees a lot of room for creativity and individual autonomy the other thinks that s/he has to follow rules and guidelines.

Thirdly, all the actors within organization face an insurmountable task when they try to understand how setting is created. People wish to understand who has done what in the process of creating the setting. People are keen to understand which elements are created through actions and decisions of the previous leaders and what has been the role of existing leaders.

What is important here in this blog is the proposition that there are people in any organization who are interested to assess what has been a role of a incumbent leader in creating the setting where they work. It is proposed here that people are becoming more astute in delineating how the setting is created. Hence they in the future they are even more able to give credit to a leader which in their mind has created a setting in which they wish to work.

And finally let us proceed to the fifth layer - image. Our mission here was to examine what a leader truly is and how multilayered phenomena we are examining when we are talking about leader. In our examination we have gradually moved further away from a leader as a physical being (and we have also addressed the relevance of physical existence) and we have seen how a leader exist in different layers - gestures, words, action, setting - and now as a image. Image here is something what people carry in their mind. Whenever we meet any leader in any organization we form an image of that leader in our mind. Quite often people give to the leader a very prominent position and thus the image tends to be immensely important.

Thus to some extend we may propose that a leader is always everywhere, at least people carry the image of a leader with them. This is unavoidable. Hence the real question is what kind of an image people have in their mind, is it something positive which on its part brings meaning to the work and give courage to continue and develop new things or is it something different.

To sum up. The connection between leader and people around him/her is truly a multilayered and complex phenomena. These three blogs have been a very preliminary effort to outline what might be the whole picture of a leader. Certainly the impossibility of that task has been in our mind all the time - a whole picture is too much for any effort. Nevertheless we propose that perhaps the Onion model could valuable in showing something about the complexity relating to the phenomena leader and also our model takes a step or two in locating and naming elements which create a leader.

Sunny days and all the success for all leaders and for all people who have a privilege to work with leaders.

Leader, an onion analogy - part 2

Leader, an onion analogy – part two

Let us continue with our effort to sketch out “a whole picture” of a leader. As  I  humbly admitted in part one, this is not a theory, nor a framework, instead this is food for thought kind of a text. The question here is, what is a leader, what kind of elements are important when we talk about leader and what kind of phenomena can be connected to the word leader. This blog also takes up the question how other people around  a leader will perceive a leader and how sharp-witted they are in determining the effect of leader in their life.

Perhaps this blog might give to a leader new perspectives to reflect how wide and many sided her/his effect to others actually is. Also this text may make us to reflect how widely and cleverly people around a leader continuously examine how a leader operates. As we shall see a leader is experienced as a leader in many ways: it is important what a leader is, how s/he reacts to different things, what s/he says, how s/he says what s/he says and much more.


Clearly this text builds on a notion of socially created reality. Hence, it is proposed that we have, at least to some extend, a role in that complex interaction where we create the reality where we live in. Here we focus on work related life and in that sphere of life a leader has a pivotal position in the reality creating process.

In part one we started from the core of an onion. We proposed a picture where  a leader stands in the middle and s/he is surrounded by five layers, a bit like an onion has layers. Thus in the core of our picture is a leader him-herself. Here we examined a question what entity enters in an any given setting when the leader comes in. Then we started to talk about the first layer, in a way one realm of phenomena where leadership appears. In our discussion this first layer of leadership was named as gestures - layer.


Now, in this part two we travel through next two layers and we shall see that all the time these layers are material for people around a leader examine how a leader on his/her part builds the reality where people live on during their workdays and beyond. As we all know working day is not a strictly limited number of hours but it is part of our life. Hence work is both done and experienced in many ways and in many places - for instance it may happen in the evening when one is enjoying his so called free time and is deeply focused on the episode of Bold and beautiful, some work related idea comes in the mind...

It is proposed here that our Onion model may help us to examine how leadership weaves itself as part of our experience of life.  Next we name the five layers in our Onion model and we propose that these layers are in logical order. The logic of the order is as following: the first layer is tightly connected to the physical being of a leader. The idea here is that when we proceed other layers of a leader these layers relate and they are originated by the leader but the connection to a leader can be rather remote, both in physical terms and in time. Sounds interesting?

Let us name the layers first and then talk them through. In our Onion model the leader herself/himself is the core and the layers around him/her are: 1)gestures, 2) words, 3) action, 4)setting and 5) image.The part one of this blog outlined the Onion model and discussed about gestures layer. This part two goes deeper into the Onion analogy and discusses about layers two and three, ie. about words and action.

Words are certainly important and a leader operates through words. In his excellent book Koestenbaum tells a story where executives of a car company challenge the educator in a seminar by saying: what is truly your real capability  because you only talk and  whereas we build cars. At this point the educator asked that could the participants show the wrenches and  screwdrivers what they use. As we can guess this episode demonstrated the importance of words in car manufacturing and in executives toolbox in general.

In fact it is most valuable to examine and to be aware how words as used in different situations and what kind of consequences different uses of word create. For instance so called speech act theory offer an interesting starting point here. In speech act theory the idea is to elaborate what is done with different kind of speech acts. This viewpoint helps us to appreciate that words are truly clever and powerful tools in the process where the experienced reality is created. Words may offer encouragement or words may discourage and cause many other consequences. Also speech act theory makes a point that exactly the same words may courage or discourage - a lot depends how words are said, in what situation, in what context and in what way.  This comes back to our point the people around a leader continuously interpret the evolving situation and they make their own judgement about how a leader in his/her part is weaving the cobweb where we live. The words of a leader are always mighty powerful, even when they lack the power (in that case the powerlessness is the interesting issues).



Speech acts.


Third layer, action, is tightly connected to the words layer and clearly all layers  are in  the interplay because people around a leader read all possible signs all the time in order to understand better what is happening, what is expected from them, and how they could on their part participate in the reality building process. Here the action layer reminds us that words, plans, strategy documents and all such  elements are often just a starting point in complex processes which may lead to changes in real life.

       

People around a leader are anxious to know whether a leader is consistent and persistent. And we can certainly be assured that people around a leader learn to read to situation quickly. They will watch closely whether a leader remembers or cares what what s/he has said, or what has been agreed. People also follow intensively what happens if action deviates from a plan,  or if uttered word vanish in a thin air.  People follow closely what is the typical action from the side of a leader after words are said and plans are made. This is clearly a vitally important layer because here a leader demonstrates concretely how s/he on her/his part is creating the reality which surrounds all the actors around.

Let us take a deep breath here - this is not an easy text. This blog - part two covered two layers of our Onion model and the next blog will explore the remaining layers. Meanwhile - all the good things in most intriguing moments in the world of leadership.

Leader - an onion analogy: part 1

What is a leader, what would be a whole picture? Yep, a bit too much for a single blog, but I try provide one intriguing perspective. Clearly this is not a theory, not even a framework, perhaps this text could be best viewed as a food for thought. If this blog inspires new ideas, thoughts and discussions, I would be most pleased. And I do promise that this is a new way to try to outline what is a leader.

Lets get started. The onion analogy means that there a many layers in a leader as the picture above suggests. Here I will outline five layers and discuss briefly about those layers, although this first blog focues on the core and on the first layer. I hope that the concept layer, becomes clear enough when this text proceeds. And odd enough, although the concept layer is an important one, it is not that important to try to define it, but please make your own judgement as the text unfolds. 

First the core of the "onion", a leader as such, please see the picture above. One of our top speakers, Timo Myllykangas, proposes that each one of us should ask a following question: when I enter to room, what comes in? In our onion analogy the core  is the person and what s/he brings to any situation by being who s/he is. This is a huge question as a such, what any of us bring to a situation before we do, say or act. What is the message what each of us deliver and how we do this delivering? And what if we are not pleased to the effect which we seem to cause, how we could change the situation? Or if we are very pleased to the effect which we seem to facilitate when we join to any setting how we keep up the good work (or whatever it is what we do what seem to cause positive effects).

That got a bit philosophical (which should be a good thing as such), but now it is time to start to explore the first layer. To give some idea of layers, they can be seen as phenomena (all kinds of acts) what a leader does, intionally or unintentianally. These acts effect to the way how a leader is perceived by others around him/her and these acts are vital in determing how the leadership works. Hence the first layer are the gestures of a leader. Through his/her gestures a leader send powerfull messages, for instance is s/he listening or not, is s/he interested or not, does s/he seem to support the issue or not. This may sound like a trivial issue and a trivial layer, but perhaps we should at least consider the meaning and the potential power of this layer. At least all individuals around a leader pay a close attention to these things - intentionally or unintentionally. And these things effect what happens next and what develops in that given situation.

Let us stop here for a while. Perhaps this could well be a first part of this blog:  A Leader - an onion analogy. In fact, I think that I will very closely look around in order to see what kind of gestures surfaces in people around me when they encounter this text. Pretty interesting. And this is particularly interesting, bacause in this internet era we all seem the closely connected and messages travel fastly from one place to another. All comments from everywhere most welcome.

Physics and mathematics in business economics

This is a short text where I mainly test this blog system. At the same time I try to say something about the title of this blog.

I have just heard magnificent radio program where famous scientist Brian Green was talking. His topic was mind blowing issue: multiverse, the idea that there might be several universes. Mr. Green said that mathematics is a tool which can be used to find new phenomena and with the help of mathematics it is possible to suggest new and most intriguing ideas, like the idea of the multiverse. Mr. Greene said that so far many (or at least some) very bold  mathematical calculations have proved to be right, so that what has been first located and deciphered with the help of mathematics have been found in reality. As an example, black hole is famously one such thing.

From the perspective of this blog the most interesting comment in that radio program was the idea that first mathematics locates somehting new and then physics tests whether those located new phenomena are really part of reality which we can measure. Thus there seems to be a system to produce ideas and then a system to test those ideas, both producing and testing are needed.

For me that producing and testing ideas was a powerful point when I started to think business and organizatonal life. Perhaps that form of life is not full of mathematics but it is full of new ideas, plans and propositions. As such those new ideas, plans and propositions can be seen as untested phenomena which must be put under test before we can convince ourselves that they can become of part of reality. And here comes the challenge, how willing and able we are to put our ideas, plans and propositions under test? Could it be be that sometimes in business and in organizational life the mathematics, the production of ideas is the place where we stop. Are there organizations and actors who operate "in the meeting business", ie for those actors presenting and discussing ideas in meetings is a pretty satisfactory result.

That is not, however, the place to stop. Instead also in business and in organizational life the reality test is at least as essential as in mathematics and physics, although it takes a different route than in natural sciences. One could claim that in business and organizational life the reality test of ideas, plans and propositions is vital because typically different actors and stakeholders choose their own way to interpret new ideas, plans and propositions . On the basis of their interpretation they choose how they act toward new ideas. Thus here we are not so much testing the idea as such put developing the idea together and we are actually producing new reality in joint effort with all those actors who are willing and capable in participating to this development.

Sunny days,
Ari