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Complexity Leadership

Complexity Leadership. Academy of Management Professional Development Workshop August 4, 2007. Purpose. Catalyze the emergence of an empirical research agenda to develop complexity leadership ideas.

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Complexity Leadership

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  1. Complexity Leadership Academy of Management Professional Development Workshop August 4, 2007

  2. Purpose • Catalyze the emergence of an empirical research agenda to develop complexity leadership ideas. • Enable a rich, collaborative interaction network among scholars who are theorizing, experimenting and innovating in the complexity leadership area. • Innovate thru high quality research to be published in upcoming books & journal issues.

  3. What We Have Planned • Overview of Complexity Leadership • Deeper dive into key areas of interest • Leadership and non-linear dynamical systems • Emergence and leadership • Top-down versus bottom-up • Leadership as enabling & catalyzing interactions • Dynamic network analysis • Innovation and creativity as outcomes • Focus on specific research questions • Interactive sessions on research design

  4. Overview of Field • Began with Marion & Uhl-Bien (2001) LQ • Developments since then: • Special issue of LQ out now August, 2007 • Two Books in press by Uhl-Bien & Marion and Hazy, Goldstein & Lichtenstein • Special Issue of Emergence: Complexity and Organizations (E:CO) 8(4) December 2006 • Articles on complexity and leadership appearing in major journals (LQ, AMJ) • Two workshops held in 2005 on Complexity and Leadership • Wiki page and network of scholars

  5. What is Complexity Leadership? • Application of complexity science to principles to leadership • Complexity science developed in the physical sciences • New paradigm to think about leadership based in complex adaptive systems (rather than bureaucracy) • This paradigm well suited to the needs of the global, connectionist, knowledge era

  6. Basics of Complexity Theory Complex systems/ complex adaptive systems Interacting sets of autonomous agents or ideas Characteristics: • The time dimension: dynamical systems and attractors • Interactive, interdependent agents • Emergence of properties at higher levels • Evolutionary selection at multiple levels • Network structures • Innovation, learning & complexity

  7. Deeper dives into themes • Non-Linear dynamical systems Kevin • Emergence & leadership Jim • Bottom-up & top-down Mary • Enabling & catalyzing interactions Russ • Network dynamics Craig • Innovation & complexity leadership Gita

  8. Complexity Leadership Non-Linear Dynamical Systems Kevin Dooley

  9. Nonlinear dynamical systems • Nonlinear dynamical systems: Analytical concepts and empirical tools that model the temporal behavior of complex systems • Assumptions • Generative mechanisms drive system evolution • We can observe temporal patterns to identify the underlying generative mechanisms • Key concepts • Attractors, nonlinearity, bifurcations, chaos

  10. NDS - Insights • General insights • Types of attractors • Point, periodic, chaotic, and random • Type determined by # of factors & how they interact • Attractor type  predictability & sensitivity • Leadership insights • Limits to prediction • Attractors both stabilizing and constraining • Dynamical patterns exist and co-evolve across temporal scales

  11. NDS – Research Questions • Theoretical • How do different patterns of interaction create different types of attractors? • How can purely analytical formulations inform real-life social action? • What about randomness? • Methodological • How do we model evolving networks? • How do we study system dynamics across different time scales?

  12. Complexity Leadership Emergence & Leadership Jim Hazy

  13. Emergence & leadership: Definitions • Group or team leadership as organizing patterns & emergent social structures. • Agents choose between self-interest and cooperation • Cooperation can lead to coordinated behaviors in routines • Agents engage in “self-transcendent construction” toenable emergence as described above. • Agents are motivated be part of a larger whole • Some agents enable others to “construct” an emergent order • Four levels of emergence identified. Each may involve different leadership. • Networks, Groups, Hierarchy & Coordination

  14. Emergence & leadership: Insights • Networks • Leader/follower influence dyads & groupings • Leaders style impacts evolution of network structure • Groups • Bifurcation from self-interest to correlated action • Decomposed into modular forms with hardening boundaries • Styles and acts of leadership impact group stability • Hierarchy • Leader roles emerge and persist • Certain conditions imply formal leadership attractor dynamics and thus potentially hierarchy • Leaders recognizing self-organized patterns, both good and bad to monitor and maintain hierarchy • Coordination • Exploration versus exploitation tension • Centralized versus decentralized control tension

  15. Emergence & Leadership: Research Questions • What factors impact the strength and timing of collective bifurcation from self-interested to correlated action? • What factors influence recruitment and defection into and out of led-groups? • How do information flows impact leadership dynamics among, for example, formal, emergent and shared leadership?

  16. Complexity Leadership Bottom-Up & Top-Down Mary Uhl-Bien

  17. Bottom-Up & Top-Down: Definitions • In complexity, order emerges from interacting agents and their interaction with the environment • Order is not imposed exogenously • Therefore, leadership is not only top-down, it is also bottom-up when interacting agents act as catalysts of bottom-up emergent structures & organizing patterns

  18. Bottom-Up & Top-Down: Insights • Lets us see different forms of leadership • not restricted to formal (managerial) roles • process that emerges informally & bottom-up • a complex interactive dynamic • embedded in context • Entanglement • this informal, emergent leadership interacts with administrative (managerial, bureaucratic) leadership in a manner we call entanglement

  19. Bottom-Up & Top-Down:Research Questions • Theoretical • How do we manage entanglement? How does top-down (i.e., hierarchical) leadership recognize and interact with bottom up leadership? • Methodological • If we take leadership out of a formal (managerial) role how do we identify what is leadership? • How do we capture the complex dynamics (e.g., context) that comprise leadership? • How do we measure bottom-up leadership?

  20. Complexity Leadership Enabling & Catalyzing Interactions Russ Marion

  21. Enabling & Catalyzing Interactions:Definitions • Enabling Actions: Fosters conditions in which complex dynamics can emerge • Examples • Foster Interaction • Fosters Interdependencies • Creates adaptive tension • Generates adaptive rules • Embraces heterogeneity • Enabling is a dynamic (i.e., mechanism) rather than an event

  22. Enabling & Catalyzing Interactions:Issues • Catalyst: agents, behaviors, ideas whose actions speed complex dynamics or foster elaboration • Catalysts are both products of complex interactions and productive of complex interactions

  23. Enabling & Catalyzing Interactions:Research Questions • Theoretical • How do leaders enable conditions that foster complex dynamics? • How do leaders enable catalysts? • Methodological • What are the (interactive) mechanisms by which ideational and structural elaborations are catalyzed? • What enabling dynamics foster emergent outcomes (e.g., learning, creativity, adaptability)?

  24. Complexity Leadership Network Dynamics Craig Schreiber

  25. Network Leadership Dynamics: Definitions

  26. Network Dynamics: Insights • Leadership in process • Several forms of leadership (Catalysts) • Creating interactions and interdependencies - Cognitive Demand • Enhancing knowledge flows – Degree Centrality • Maintaining relational coupling – Boundary Spanner • Increasing the speed of learning – Closeness Centrality • Communicating new knowledge – Effective Network Size • Concurrent and complex leadership dynamic • Distinct leaders • Shared leadership within and between forms • Individual leaders can enact leadership within multiple forms

  27. Network Dynamics:Research Questions • What are the contextual conditions that lead to emergent and productive collective action? • How do the various leadership forms work together and how does this complex dynamic foster emergent outcomes? • What additional variables and metrics are needed?

  28. Complexity Leadership Innovation & Complexity Leadership Gita Surie

  29. Innovation & ComplexityLeadership • Conceptual model of innovation based on interactions and complexity leadership • Interactions are basic unit in complex system dynamics • Specific interaction patterns can help to nurture innovation • ‘Generative’ leadership directs and manages interactions to maintain balance or ‘edge of chaos’

  30. Innovation & ComplexityLeadership • Enabling innovation requires: • Increasing interactions & introducing novelty • Managing complexity • Generative leaders nurture innovation by focusing on: • Manipulating rules of collaboration • Catalyzing the context • Changing the system-environment model

  31. Innovation and complexity leadership A model of generative leadership: Leveraging internal and external interactions Figure 3. Innovation dynamics leverage internal and external interactions to match predictive models to opportunities via rapid interaction and feedback

  32. Innovation and Complexity Leadership – Research Questions • Theoretical - How do interactions help to nurture innovation in complex systems? • What interaction patterns enable innovation? • What is the nature of leadership that enables innovation in complex systems? • Methodological • How do we model the emergence of innovation in complex systems? • How do we study complexity leadership?

  33. Complexity Leadership Research Questions Breakout

  34. Research Questions for Discussion • How do different patterns of interaction create different types of attractors? • What contextual conditions imply emergent and productive collective action? • How does top-down (i.e., hierarchical) leadership recognize and interact with bottom up patterns and leadership? • How do interactions help to nurture innovation in complex systems?

  35. What you can do to help • Ask your institutional libraries to purchase these new Complexity Leadership Books • Actively use these ideas in you research • If appropriate reference these works so people learn about them • Respond to the CFP on new book • Sign up for our mailing list and visit/join http://complexityleadership.wikispaces.com

  36. Complexity Leadership Thanks!

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