What we know in University - and in other places

HOW DO  WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW IN UNIVERSITY - AND IN OTHER PLACES

How we know what we know? Are we interested to examine how we know what we know? Is the real basis of our knowledge actually an understanding on how our knowledge is developed? How would our knowledge change if we really started to think together - if we started to know together?

Let us focus on one concrete situation. Now we go in to University but this setting is certainly somewhat analogical everywhere - whenever any of us does something, how do we know what we do? Do we decide to do something or do we just do it? And in case we deliberately decide to do something special, how do we know what we choose to do?

Picture 1. How do you know what you know (blackboard in Agora building, University campus, Jyväskylä Finland)

The picture above is bit blurry, sorry about that, but it is an authenting representation of a new framework which saw it's daylight 22nd of May 2012. On that exceptionally beautiful morning I had a privilege to speak in our program, University in Change, which we have tailored for the leaders in University of Jyväskylä.

In that picture a person (marked with letter H) develops and lectures a course (L) in the University setting. The question here is that how she knows what she does? How she knows, if she has freedom to develop her course,  what should be the topic and substance of her course. And in any case she has more or less freedom to choose what that course includes - how she knows what that are the particular issues she will discuss during different sessions?

Part of the new framework,  "How do you know what you know", is the age of the person. Is she just graduated and for instance 25 years old, or is she 30 years old who is doing or is just done her PhD dissertation. Or is she 40 years old researcher or professor or in some other position or is she 50+ years old an even more experienced person in some position. May I ask you to pause here for a moment and reflect your own experiences and observations. What is your understanding how different people know what they know, and how experience change this setting. It is interesting topic to ponder, or what do you think? I will not elaborate this perspective of age and experience any further in this blog because I wish to focus here on connection between person and people around her. The nature of that connection is very important - it may be a mark of a living disciple

Hence, let us concentrate to the connection between a person H and the people around her, they are marked with letter P in the framework. My bold proposal here is that we have failed to appreciate how crucial this connection could be both in creating most important knowledge which we can use in our work and in giving the reason for whole idea of working together in any organization. I would even suggest that the well developed and truly working connection between a person and people around her could actually be a basis of an living discipline.

The concept "living discipline" is new one and thus deserves a short discussion. Living discipline means that key people (H and P together) are willing and able share with each other an understanding what is most important knowledge at the certain point of time. Certainly people will have different views, perspectives and understanding, but this is seen more as a beneficial source than a hindrance for an active dialogue and knowing together.

I would argue that we can even test whether some unit (department, faculty, etc.) could claim that it has achieved the level of a living discipline as a modus operandi. The test is simple. When a person H goes in the classroom to do her work L, does she share what happens in the classroom with people around her?

This sounds deceivingly easy and many would probably hasten to say that: sure I tell what happens; some would probably say: I talk about those events rarely, anectodically and with few people. This is, however, not quite the essence of my point here. The essence is following: are people  (H and P together) creating in active collaboration an understanding what should be discussed in the classroom today (today means here, often, continuously)?

In case H and P are thinking together and they are trying to understand together what is most crucial knowledge today, this will mean that they are deeply interested to know all the time what happens in any classroom where anyone of the group (H and P) is doing her work. The living discipline is tested every day, the living discipline develops everyday.

It is surprising to realize how little people seem to need each other in any organization, Universities included. For me the way how social media works and how people share experiences together has opened an angle to examine organizations and the way how organizations and in particular how people within organizations operate. In many cases there are already technologies in place which would, at least in principle, create a basis for thinking and knowing together, but these systems and technologies are often utilized rather scarcely.

Perhaps we have not really paused to think how absolutely crucial it is how we connect with each other. Hence I decided to write this blog and suggest the idea of a living discipline. What we are talking here would be a huge change. In living disciple the people in any giving setting would really be in a position of creating and constantly developing relevant knowledge together. They would not work in any kind of isolation, far from it, all the active connections with researchers world wide, all the connections and experiments with practical organizations and all the knowledge of existing doctrines would be seen as an elementary building block in creating a living discipline.

Let us develop ourselves in our ways of knowing together.

Share your wisdom - tranparency in organizations

Share your wisdom - transparency in organizations

The hottest topic in organizational development today is transparency. It means that can you really think together with your colleagues and coworkers. Are you really willing to think together, are the others willing to think with you - these are crucial questions. The tools, technologies and equipments are here (and already in use in some organizations), but how we decide to work together - that is the question.

The question of transparency and working and thinking together is pivotal in every organization - however organizations are different and these issues manifest themselves differently in every organization. In this blog I will focus on University. It is a very special organization and certainly also Universities are different but I do believe that a lot what I talk here is relevent in many organizations and in particular in many highly professional organization.

I use as a background my experence when I worked as a teacher and as an acting associate professor in Finnish Universities. A lot may have changed during the last years but I would imagine that my experience is still relevant for our purposes here when we examine the issue of transparency.


It is intriguing to realize how the emerging topic of transparency changes to way how you see your work. I remember how I experienced my everyday job as an acting associate professor. It was most interesting work but from the point of view of the transparency I would see the challenges and possibilities of that work rather differently now than how I saw them back then without this transparency framework and without these tools and equipments which we can nowadays use (eg. this blogging system is fabulous)




Could our opening motto here be something like:

the transparency on overhead projector does not cover the whole area of tranparency 

(this tries to be humorous quatation).




Let us take three viewpoints: 1) classroom, 2) organization and 3) network. What the work was like and what would be different when looked through the transparency framework. What follows is an extremely brief elaboration, food for thought kind of discussion.

1) Classroom

The professor went in the classroom and gave his lecture.The students listened (discussed and learned) and then proved their learninng through some exams. The modus operandi at that time, which nicely illuminates how things were seen back then, was that in case someone was absent from some session his friends could deliver him the material (copies and/or notes of the lecture) so that he could also succeed in the exam.

What could be new:

The perspective of transparency makes us think how closed any setting really is and how rapidly and widely the information could/should flow. Perhaps these questions may not appear at the first glance highly relevant for degree students but these are higly relevant issues for executive students. It is important how rapidly and widely the executives are able to share the relevant issues which are discussed in the classroom within their own organizations. We are actually witnessing a period where a transformation is just happening - what is examined in the classroom is almost simultaneously shared in those organizations and in those networks where the executives work.


Of course what we are witnessing here is not a passive delivery of classroom material to a wider audience. Instead, executives play a very active and highly challenging role here. They are transforming the classroom wisdom into wisdom which is relevant in their organization and they also decide to who and to whom that transformed wisdom must be delivered immediately. It is interesting to think what actually constitutes excellent student work nowadays in this world.

The above said should make us think that how we create settings where also the degree students could find as many uses as possible for the knowledge which they get in the classroom. Rewriting the old Las Vegas mantra we could say that what happens in classroon should not stay in the classroom (or in a hermetic setting: input during the lecture - output in the exam = success / mark of wisdom).

2) Organization

The University is professional organization where experts cover certain areas, someone is a marketing professor, the other is strategy professor and some exceptionally lucky fellow is an accounting professor and so on. In hospital someone is expert on some part of human body and other one knows the other part, etc. (By the way Mintzberg's discussion on organizational structures is magnificent work).

What could be new:

Here the perspective of tranparency proposes nothing less than a Copernican Revolution in particular when we examine how we might see the collaboration in the professional organization. In the old world the coordination between experts was accomplished roughly speaking so that everybody knew somehow what was everybody elses area of expertise (what he had studied in his salad days). So everybody did their share in serving customers (students) and some people tried to look after the big picture so that somehow the "whole" customer need was covered. From the perspective of the transparency what was lacking was a continuous dialogue between experts where experts would learn from each other all the time.

Here we are talking about a special attitude towards work where you would all the time think what should I share with my colleagues, what would be most relevant to them to know just now. At least in the past the setting which I encountered was not a living and continuously developing conversation between colleagues which would aim to help each other and the whole organization to achieve even higher level of customer service and expertice. There was excellent discussions but they were sporadic in nature. How these excellent discussions could become the modus operandi? We now have technologies and equipments for that.

3) Network

A scholar makes research and he publishes his work in seminars and through journals and other outlets.

What could be new:

Also here the transparency makes us to think that collaboration could be wider and more intensive than what was/is often the case. One might think that modern technologies would open excellent possibilities to gather goups of colleagues from all over the world to examine certain topics. This is something what certainly happes a lot already, but I would assume that there is still a lot of  new possibilities to share wisdom and to create wisdom in a shared way. We have to be ready to rethink continuously who is close and who could be close, no matter whether he works on the other side of the globe or in the same building. Whether someone is truly approachable may relate a lot on his attitude whereas the role and importance of the physical distance is on the decline.

This is a hot topic - how to become better in thinking together. Let us work with this issue together.

Sunny days,

Ari

Knowledge in Business

How Do We Know What We Know

What does the concept "paramount reality of everyday life" mean? Does this concept have anything to do with those matters which we handle in business and other real life organizations? Well, a too short answer would be that it is theoretical concept and we in practice can manage nicely without thinking these kind of issues and realities any further. This stance is certainly possible, but please bear with me for a while. I propose that it could be very valuable for all of us in every organization to pause to reflect and to examine how we know what we know.


The paramount reality of everyday life means that it is typical for us to think that we see and understand how things are. Somehow things are self evident to us.  Certainly, we know that there are a lot of issues which we do not know and we are fully aware that there are all kind of matters which are totally out of our reach, eg. some technological issues and such matters. And yet, at the same time we seem to possess a very peculiar certainty - we know how things are, at least how the most relevant things are.


A way back in history philosopher Rene Descartes unraveled this puzzle mastefully. He pointed out that people always wanted more and more all kinds of things, there was, however, one thing what people tought that they had enough of that. Dare to quess what that was (is)? Yes, it was common sense. People were convinced that this part of life on their behalf was in good order.


Perhaps in that respect very little has changed. Have you, for instance, seen a person to buy a latest tabloid from a supermarket? There is no lack of certainty. He has seen, partly through his earlier readings, what is really happening in this world and what celebrities are doing and all that. He also seems to know without hesitation what kind of issues merit his attention. Yes, this is his free time and time to unwind, I grant that all. And being by myself a person who runs up and down different hills during free time I have very little gravitas to assess anyones's free time activities. Nevertheless, you may admit that we have some point here.


Just a few days ago I had pleasure to say few words to an esteemed eMBA delegation from Iceland. At some point in presentation I showed almost a similar picture as below: the end of the (typical)road. Could we claim that the eMBA studies are the end of a typical everyday attitude where we think without thinking what we think? Could it be that eMBA studies on their part give tools to decide to think what you think?




There are at leat two aspects of our thinking which we could reflect. Firstly, we could analyze how we build our tinking every day by focusing on certain issues and by leaving some other matters in the shadow. We could examine how we do that indivudually and how we construct our thinking in organizations. In very practical terms, what are the issues we talk (and even think) in our meetings? How people learn to know what is important in our organizations? How we, by ourselves,  have learned to think which issues are most important - are those issues still most crucial, do they merit to get our attention?

Secondly, we must value our thinking as most precious resourse. It is a resource which must be used very wisely. Here, David Rock and his fabulous book, Your Brain at Work, tells this message extremely powefully.

In sum, we may become much better in understanding how we know what we know. That understanding can be immensely valuable - also in practice.


***

This blog builds on phenomenolocal and ethnometodological thinking and I am most greatful to several authhors and thinkers who have explored the world from this perspective. For further reading please study thinkers like: Alfred Schutz and Harold Garfinkel.

Why it takes so long - organizations and the lacking agility

Organizations are extremely important. They are those institutions where we create things and services. It is vitally important how effective those organizations are. At the same time it is vitally important that those organizations offer excellent working conditions for us all. It feels somewhat awful to write something like this because when we think globally, the working conditions are certainly different in different places and at the same time there is room for improvement everywhere. To some extend it is almost surprising how little we as a human kind have been able to do in improving our living and working conditions throughout the history (and at the same time we are thankful for past generations of everything what they have created for us).


                                    


Could this somewhat slow progress of general development be explained partly so that we are not that clever in creating and running organizations which would provide results? Once again, there are extremely productive organizations but at the same time there seems to be organizations where "getting things done" take time - a lot of time sometimes.



In this blog the mountain gives a birth to a mouse, I have to admit that. This means that the opening paragraph hugs the world but what follows is something pretty defined, yet very important I think. What follows is an examination of something what I have sometimes encountered and which relate to the way how professional organizations operate. (Please note that a more explanation to the mountain-mouse expression is provided below).

It is always surprising to witness situations where almost everything seems to be ready  but then nothing happens. Quite often this "moment of petrifying" seems to take place just before to crucial moment, just before the phase where it would be possible to test whether the outlined and developed service/product would really work.

Here the term "really work" refers to that market reaction. What happens in the market defines whether the new service/product can succeed and develop. At some point organization must take this test and learn from their experience and make the necessary adjustments. Everybody knows this and yet - some times it really seems to take a lot of time before organizations take this crucial test and learn from it.

This phenomena of "why it takes so long" has made me to think following points:

The area of Agility

Organizations can not be agile and quick in everything. Metso makes world class paper machines, it can not start to make furniture very quickly (by the way this blog does not relate to Metso in any sense - the thoughts of this blog comes from working with totally different organizations than Metso). However, that Metso helps me to make this point succinctly, papermachines and furniture are different, clearly there are limits for reasonable agility. Having said that I take my comment back to some extend, it is a challenge to know what kind of an agility is most relevant for any particular organization. In fact, when we examine different organizations it may be the elementary strategic conundrum to define what are the areas where an organization should be quick in noticing new opportunities and creating new action. This question could be posed to any organization. What new opportunies could be relevant to Metso? What new opportunities are relevant and strategically important to an any organization which produces services to its customers.

It is important the every organization has an insightful and deepening understanding what it should be able to see and which are the areas where it needs to be quick and agile. What is the strategic area of agility?



                                  

Human side of Agility in organizations

It is always somewhat superficial to talk about organizations, we should always look deeper and try to understand how people think and act in any given situation. People create organizations, sometimes we are clever in creating organizational procedures and rules which make our organizations astoundingly effective, sometimes we play a role in creating organizations where things do not get done fast and effectively. (This sounds odd, how is this possible? It should not be in realm of possibility but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise - a closer examination of this phenomenon is needed in the future).

Hence it is always important to delineate whether people working in any organization are really interested and equipped to locate new opportunities? Do they have that kind of a mindset and is the organization around them such that it will support opportunity finding mode of working? Is that kind of an activity really encouraged in an organization,  or is it more a public statement? Does it really make sense to try something new? How the colleagues react when someone proposes something new?

Creating something new is rarely just a matter of individual insight, it is also a matter of shared interpretation where people create an understanding what the insight actually is and what it would mean to us to our organization. Hence, it is vitally important how the key people around "the event of insight" create room and support for new insight to develop and perhaps turn into action.

In Sum

The development and management work which aims to make organizations quicker and more agile is a worthy effort. It is of course a business issue but it also affects to the living conditions for all of us. I have a hunch that new technologies which are able improved connectivity between people will provide new ways to proceed and develop. Let us create organizations where it does not take that long to produce valuable services for people.


(An explanation to the mountain-mouse expression: When I started as Phd student many years ago, my professor once commented that in one of my research proposals a mountain gave a birth to a mouse - apparently what I promised to study was something huge, but the possibe results were not at the same level. That comment was pertinent, it was given so cleverly that it only motivated to move on and develop the proposal and to find some balance between promise and result).


                            
 

empty papers - what is strategy work

Empty papers in organization - what is strategy work?

Have you ever been in a meeting where you would talk about empty papers with your highly esteemed colleagues? Please do not deny this as such implausible scenario too easily. Let us image the setting where people sit around the table and they all have pile of empty papers on front of them. Let us envision further that they all are willing to present excellent comments concerning those papers. The comments are presented, debated even, but the papers remain empty. And perhaps the papers are taken to a next meeting where this happens again.







Well, I admit the above mentioned may have happened rather rarely in any organization. But let us change our approach a little bit. Have you ever been in a meeting where you talk about papers which probably will not change anything in your working life? And if you pause to think could it be that in that same meeting the papers under discussion will not change anything on the working life of anyone discussing about those papers. Have you experienced something like this? (Please tick the right option: never, sometimes, quite often, often, almost every time, always)

One question. Why do you talk about empty papers with your colleaques in different meetings? Is there a some force in play which make you to do it, or is there some special personal temptation that you crave to do it? Let us dig a bit deeper.

Do you think that it is really work to talk about papers which are not connected to anything in this world? Probably it can be called as work and even rather demanding work, but probably it is not that effective or productive to debate about empty papers. And yet, I would claim that to some extend empty papers are under discussion in many organizations and in numerous meetings all the time.






What I am proposing here is that meetings should not be about empty papers but about real issues. This appears obvious but it may not be so in real life and in real life meetings. Why this is the case is a very comlex issue and in order to be ready to answer to that question we really should go very deep in examining those forces which are in place in any organization and also to the ways how people see their work. That analysis escapes the limits of a single blog. However, I propose here something which might on its part make your organization and your meetings better. Could this blog on its part be a road sign, which helps you to find a way to meetings where the role of empty papers is as minimal as possible?

I suggest that in every meeting you should start the meeting with an open discussion and you would make it as certain as possible that all the participants woul feel as free as possible to voice their own opinions. Here I propose some questions which might help to develop your organization and your meetings. Perpaps you might actually to use the questions to some extend but of course the goal should be that gradually the culture in your organization whould become such where empty paper meetings would take as little time as possible.

The questions which could guide the discussion could be for instance following:

What are we doing

Why are we talking about these papers, what we wish to do with them? Do really see some relevant real life connections and consequences? What do we see, what is most important? What our discussion on the basis of those papers really mean in practice?

Connection to my working life

How the papers under discussion are relevant to me and to the other in that meeting? Should the relevance be so high that whatever we are talking about really mean or at least could mean something concrete to all of us or at least to some of us? In case the topics under discussion will not change anything relevent in some foreseeable future should we really talk about those papers? What we are really talking about then if the connection to reality is very vague? Why we are doing that kind of talking? At least the answer to these questions should be raised on the table.

Road ahead

In sum. The more I work with and withing organizations, the more I see that organizations could be much more effective, more agile and clearly better in providing valuable results and outsomes to people in this world. Often improvements would not add the workload for the people in that organization, probably quite the opposite.

I am very convinced that we are all doing important work when we try to make our dear organizations better. Let keep us doing that.

P.s.
While writing this blog it occured to me that Charles Handy has written an excellent book: The Empty raincoat, which I read years ago. If my memory serves, in that book he examines the role of us as real persons in organizations and whether there is room for us as individuals in the work life. In my blog I am in a way pondering whether real issues are really present and under discussion in our organizations. Is there room for facts and real issues in our meetings?

Enjoying life - use of language - the Savo case

There is a very special area in our dear Finland where people speak a bit differently - that area is Savo. You can find that part of a country around Kuopio city. The very special way how Finnish language is used in Savo region has caused several interpretations among other Finns.

The two main interpretations have been: 1) When a person speaks the Savo language it is a hearers task to be very vigilant and decide what part of the speak can be trusted and what part should be left in doubt. 2) And more directly the suspicion towards Savo speakers has been expressed by saying that users of the Savo language should be approached with care because it may difficult to know what they really mean. Generally speaking it is clear that Finland is a so called low context country where words are considered crucial in communication, please see Edward T Hall.

In Finland people do respect highly different parts of the country and also different dialects are considered as a national richness and hence all dialects and also Savo language are actually cherished. And it is simply just great that this is the way how things are here in this country. Hence, also the comments what people direct towards the Savo speakers should be viewed from this perspective of appreciative respect and interest.

Nevertheless, I think that it is now time to join this discussion which revolves around Savo language. Hence, in this blog I propose an other interpretation concerning the real essence of Savo language. Surely, this text is just a short commentary, but it still purports to offer a somewhat new angle to our everyday discussion. I believe that in more general terms this blog briefly examines the use of language in everyday situations and how clever people are in using their own language and their own dialects in Finland and certainly around the Globe. Also this text may on its part demonstrate that the whole world is really a learning environment - have you ever visited a cafeteria without learning something new?

My interpretation here is based on new anectode which happened just a moment ago. I had a lucky opportunity to hear from a side how very advanced Savo speaker, a person who had already celebrated her 70th anniversary spoke in a phone with her friend. As such the discussion was very general in nature, it was about everyday topics so there was no secrets in that phone conversation. Hence I did not consider my role as an accidental hearer any way difficult.

However, structure of the discussion was simply enchanting and I think that I understood something new about the Savo language. The speaker was telling about her everyday matters and events, but this was not the main crux in that phone discussion.  What was most arresting was that the speaker kept throwing verbal knuckleballs all the time (I will say few words about knuckleballs at the end of this blog). When looked from the outside people may think that Savo language, and apparently other dialects as well,  are mainly about somewhat peculiar pronunciation and special speak which is peppered with unique words.  But in essence dialects are about something else. The essence seems to be a way of being together, where a special way of speaking creates unique connection between people. Also a key element in that special speaking seems to be a celebration of a clever use of language - the use of words, expressions and images which all the time challenge and invite the other to join to that very active and certainly energizing interaction.



I would tentatively propose that perhaps the rich and joyful use of Savo language could be viewed against the history, against those conditions of life which where present not so long ago. The living conditions also in Savo region have been challenging, sometimes even the rye bread may have been a scarcely available - to put it mildly. Thus people have endured a lot of grueling, hard work and a lot of all kids of challenges and real suffering. Could it be that a very rich use of language has been a way say to the other - please join me to this rich use of language, we are both living now in this moment and there is so much enjoyment in this moment and in this life.

Joyful and invigorating discussions in every dialect and every language!

P.s. And what comes to the knuckleball I am enormously thankful to wikipedia because there this concept is opened with a masterful wording:

A knuckleball (or knuckler for short) is a baseball pitch with an erratic, unpredictable motion. The pitch is thrown so as to minimize the spin of the ball in flight. This causes vortices over the stitched seams of the baseball during its trajectory, which in turn can cause the pitch to change direction—and even corkscrew—in mid-flight. This makes the pitch difficult for batters to hit, but also difficult for pitchers to control. The challenge also extends to the catcher, who must at least attempt to catch the pitch, and the umpire, who must determine whether the pitch was a strike or ball.

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.