Researching
Leadership from a Systems Perspective:
Observations and Challenges
by
ERIC
B. DENT, Ph. D. A Paper Submitted to
Karin Klenke, Editor-in-Chief
The George Washington University
2136 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 301
Washington, DC 20052
edent@gwu.edu
202-496-8385
Journal of
Leadership and Leaders
ABSTRACT
Although systems scientists have railed against the classical leadership models for years, they continue to pervade academic textbooks and life in many organizations. This paper adds to that critique by suggesting that the nature of leadership is quite different in highly turbulent environments. In such settings, the context of management becomes more significant than the management functions. An extensive study was conducted in six major organizations in Bogota, Colombia. This paper uses that study as a backdrop from which to discuss some of the challenges of studying leadership systemically. Complications discussed include the difficulty of using language, oral or written, which is by definition linear. Secondly, people have been found to make the past much more linear than it occurred when they are thinking retrospectively. Finally, although we recommend that the leader him or herself must be involved in the research process, issues of subjectivity and reflexivity become more significant.
While conducting research, I am continually confronted with (and allow myself to be surprised by) the large gap that seems to exist between the practice of management and the state-of-the-art theory of management presented in academic journals. Many practicing leaders and managers have espoused theories and theories-in-use for their leadership which differ markedly from current leadership theories recognized by academics. Moreover, this gap is sometimes reinforced by universities which teach leadership models that are different from the ones their professors publish.
For example, every student of management has learned the classic definition of management. It is taught with slight variations, including the common acronym, POSDC, representing planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. This categorization is often attributed to Henri Fayol who in 1916 wrote General and Industrial Management.[1] POSDC is found in nearly every management text (Kreitner, 1992, p. 44) and continues to receive academic support (Carroll and Gillen, 1987). A typical textbook on management (Aldag and Stearns, 1991) is organized in the following parts:
Perhaps, with the addition of vision, the dominant mental model for management in the North America is represented by POSDC (Fondas, 1997). This model, however, includes a major assumption. It assumes that the activity of management is conducted in a stable, or relatively stable, environment. The assumption of relative stability is applicable in a decreasing number of managerial situations. Vaill (1989) has developed the metaphor of “permanent white water” (PWW) to connote an environment of continuous turbulent change. He quotes a participant at a seminar he led,
Most managers are taught to think of themselves as paddling their canoes on calm, still lakes ... They’re led to believe that they should be pretty much able to go where they want, when they want, using means that are under their control. Sure there will be temporary disruptions during changes of various sorts - periods when they’ll have to shoot the rapids in their canoes - but the disruptions will be temporary, and when things settle back down, they’ll be back in the calm, still lake mode. But it has been my experience ... that you never get out of the rapids! No sooner do you begin to digest one change than another one comes along to keep things unstuck. In fact, there are usually lots of changes going on at once. The feeling is one of continuous upset and chaos. (p. 2).
Permanent white water includes a subtle, but critical shift. Organizational theorists have traditionally assumed that stability is the norm and that change is the exception (Gergen, 1995). Many would readily agree that the norm of today is change. The metaphor of permanent white water, however, offers an even different perspective. Second-order change is the norm and first-order change is the exception.
One could argue that the POSDC definition critiqued here describes what management is, not how it is carried out. Our primary contention is that in the turbulent, dynamic organizational world of today, the focus for managers should be on the context of management rather than the managerial functions themselves. The functions are extremely generic. One could develop a list of functions performed by all knowledge workers - organizing, processing, conceptualizing, and so forth. It adds almost no value to define management[2] or leadership in these generic terms.
Gestalt theory provides a perspective on this difference by distinguishing between figure and ground. Planning and these other classical management functions may still be part of the ground, but meaningful management models need to describe the figure. The figure, however, is the messiness, turbulence, contingency, and surprise of the real managerial world. Dealing with the changing context, the second-order change, is the central issue of effective leadership today. Focusing on the managerial functions draws attention away from this critical issue.
This paper briefly describes the theoretical base for an organizational context which can be characterized as permanent white water. It then reflects on a number of research challenges, using as a backdrop, an empirical study of the work of Vaill (1989, 1996) conducted in Bogota, Colombia. The dynamism of the organizational environment is magnified in Colombia, which has high rates of inflation, political instability, less reliable infrastructure, rapid urban population growth, and many destabilizing factors. The objective of the empirical effort was to explore the world of top executives and to document, if they exist, the white water events and general second-order changes faced by these senior executives.
The Validity of the Classical Functions
Henry Mintzberg (1973) was perhaps the first to gather substantial data suggesting that a manager’s work day is anything but calm. He discovered, for example, that over half of the managers’ activities lasted less than nine minutes and only 10% exceeded an hour. Kotter (1982) also discovered that general managers work primarily in short, disjointed segments of activity. These findings suggest that a managerial workday is hectic. As discussed below, franticness, however, is not enough to conclude that a manager’s work environment is permanent white water.
Carroll and Gillen (1987) contend that, in spite of the hectic workday of executives, “the classical functions still represent the most useful way of conceptualizing the manager’s job” (p. 48). However, studies such as Allen (1981), Carroll and Gillen (1987), and Hughes and Singler (1985) which support the POSDC model, essentially confirm the framework the research was conducted from in the first place. These studies are self-sealing in that they encourage participants to respond within the predetermined framework of the researchers.
Other theorists question the assumptions of POSDC from a different standpoint. Ackoff (1994), for example, questions the validity of planning. “Planning can be like a ritual rain dance performed at the end of the dry season: It can have no effect on the weather that follows, but it can make those who engage in it feel good and mistakenly think they are in control” (p. 125). Weick (1979) contends that we really only plan retrospectively, that it is our acting rather than our planning which is significant.
Of primary interest here, however, is the critique of POSDC from the viewpoint that it is only relevant in situations for which the environment is stable, or moderately changing, rather than turbulent. The work in modeling the turbulent context itself is further developed than work on models of leadership or management in turbulence. Perhaps the first such model was offered by Emery and Trist (1990: 1965) in their classic article, “The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments.” Emery and Trist describe four types of organizational behavior which leaders need to understand.
In terms of the discussion above, management models to date, such as POSDC, focus primarily on number 1 above, processes internal to the organization. Some would say that POSDC, then, is useful for most lower-level managers, because their focus is almost exclusively internal to the organization. However, organization in this situation, refers to any level of organization. Consequently, even a first-level manager is interacting with the environment (everything outside of her sub-organization) and needs to be concerned with confluences of dynamics in that environment.
Another connection with the Gestalt notion of figure and ground is that the processes internal to the organization are becoming generic and routine. The primary, and increasing, focus of management is on needing to understand and contend with number (4) above, the causal texture. Emery and Trist point out that management models which are appropriate for number (1) above, may be incommensurate with number (4), for example. Different models are required.
Emery and Trist (1990:1965) also offered what could be characterized as the first depiction of permanent white water. They describe “turbulent fields” which are “dynamic both in the interactions between the organization and the environment and in the interactions between dynamics in the environment. The backdrop of the organization, if you will, is itself moving.” (p. 242).
Another perspective on PWW is that it can be defined as "continuous second-order change." Even in 1965, theorists such as Emery and Trist (1990: 1965) felt that the increase in second-order change and complexity was so obvious that the point needed no further discussion (p. 236). Levy (1986) presented an excellent review of the literature on so-called second-order change. Levy documented 19 instances of separate definitions for what he refers to as second-order change. For example, first-order change can be defined as change within a given system which itself remains unchanged while second-order change would encompass changes to the system itself (Watzlawick, Weakland, & Fisch, 1974). The latter change has the following characteristics: multidimensional, qualitative, discontinuous, revolutionary, irreversible, seemingly irrational. In contrast, first-order change is: uni-(or few-)dimensional, quantitative, continuous, incremental, reversible, and logical (Levy, 1986).
Potential Spanish Metaphors for
"Permanent White Water"Turbulencia - alteration of clear and transpiring things which get dark due to a mixture (figuratively); confusion, disorder, perturbation (literally)
Raudal - abundance of water running fiercely and disorderly; rapids; abundance of things that converge rapidly and suddenly and splash together.
Torbellino - whirlwind (figuratively); convergence and abundance of things taking place at the same time (literally.)
Related phrases
(or Tensa) - calm water now, but it can't be trusted. Coriente subterranea - calm waters above, rough waters below.
En rio revuelto ganancia de pescadores - Fishermen thrive in a turbulent river
Introducing the notion of second-order change clarifies what permanent white water (PWW) is not. Some industries, for example, are thought to be more dynamic than others (for example, the world wide web software application industry compared with the steel industry). The former environments might be called "predictably crazy." Some industries, for example, will always be characterized by a boom and bust cycle which creates turbulence. However, those who succeed in such an industry have come to anticipate this cycle and accommodate it accordingly. Predictably crazy environments, as hectic, confusing, and fragmented as they may feel, do not represent permanent white water.
PWW is an environment in which "pulses" of craziness and absurdity occur, happenings that even the individuals living there never imagined. PWW is this relative turbulence, situations in which managers are constantly faced with issues they have never dealt with before. Moreover, anecdotal research suggests that the rate of change is also changing, adding even more to the turbulence (Vaill, 1996, pp. 14-15)!
Leadership/Management Models for Dynamic, Turbulent Contexts
If POSDC is not as effective in PWW, how should a leader manage? Executives have described management today as “one big broken play where we’re all making it up as we go along” and requiring the improvisational skill of street theater (Vaill, 1989, p. xvi). Recent authors have suggested that learning may be the critical skill required for successful leadership (Senge, 1990; Kolb, 1988; McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison, 1988).
Although most leadership theories and models assume a stable environment (see, for example, Dunbar, et al., 1996), there are examples of such which at least hold open the possibility of a turbulent context. We will briefly sketch here four different ways of describing leadership which do focus on the dynamic context. “The Science of ‘Muddling Through’” by Charles E. Lindblom was first published in 1959. Lindblom uses the term rational-comprehensive in a manner which is consistent with what we refer to here as POSDC. He notes that this method is impossible for complex problems (1980: 1959, p. 145) and not practiced by public administrators (p. 146). Lindblom offers that this type of approach is only possible in situations where values are agreed upon, reconcilable, and stable (p. 150).
As an alternative to the rational-comprehensive approach, Lindblom suggests a process of successive limited comparisons. This process features “starting from fundamentals anew each time, building on the past only as experience is embodied in a theory, and always prepared to start completely from the ground up” (1980: 1959, p. 147).
Fast-forward 25 years to the study published as Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (1985). Bennis and Nanus observed and interviewed 90 leaders, 60 of whom were CEOs (others included symphony conductors, coaches, and government leaders). From this work, Bennis and Nanus describe what they refer to as “transformative leadership” which for them best captures the leadership behaviors of these 90 leaders. They describe the transformative leader as one “who commits people to action, who converts followers into leaders, and who may convert leaders into agents of change” (p. 3).
An interesting finding from Bennis and Nanus is that leaders spend about 90 percent of their time on the “messiness of people problems” (p. 56). They suggest that the higher an individual rises in an organization, the greater the amount of time spent on “people problems.” Transformative leadership can be described in terms of four strategies: attention through vision, meaning through communication, trust through positioning, the deployment of self through (1) positive self-regard and (2) the Wallenda factor.
In 1988, McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison published The Lessons of Experience about research conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). This work approaches the topic from a different angle than the sources discussed thus far. From McCall, Lombardo, and Morrison we can gain insight into whether or not the environment of top leaders is relatively stable by reviewing the experiences they have had which they deemed to be critical to their success. The authors categorize the learning experiences as follows:
The details of these lists are beyond the scope of our discussion here. Needless to say, a review of these categories reveals a rich appreciation for a dynamic environment. Notice that the list does not look at all like POSDC, with the possible exception of setting and implementing agendas. A big part of this category, however, is the process of starting a new business or engaging in a turn-around situation.
A final perspective offered here is that of Drath and Palus (1994). Drath and Palus approach the concept of leadership very differently from the three examples above. They begin by noting that there is no commonly accepted definition for leadership. The Center for Creative Leadership collected a surprising number of definitions when they requested them of their staff and colleagues (preface). Drath and Palus observed that, although these definitions had widely varying emphases, they all assumed a single perspective, the traditional worldview of single-person-centered leadership (Dent, 1997) consisting of dominance and influence - “the leader acts in some way to change the behavior or attitudes of others called followers” (Drath and Palus, 1994, p. 1).
Drath and Palus suggest that leadership be seen as a social, meaning-making process. Such a perspective assumes that people are constantly in motion, rather than being still and at rest. This shift requires different leadership capabilities including “the capacity to understand systems in general as mutually related and interacting and continually changing” (p. 23). In other words, the leadership environment is seen as permanent white water.
In an continually changing context, Drath and Palus argue that people need meaning, or frameworks within which their actions make sense. A leader focusing on meaning-making does not focus on POSDC, but on “identifying vision and mission, framing problems, setting goals, arguing and engaging in dialogue, theory-building and -testing, storytelling, and the making of contracts and agreements” (p. 10). An important assumption of POSDC is that leaders need to take charge and make things happen. Drath and Palus see this as an increasingly marginal role for leaders and managers (p. 22).
Although the four theories sketched here have the possibility of applying in a turbulent context, substantially more work needs to be done to have a better understanding of how leading in such an environment differs from leading in a less dynamic one.
Permanent White Water Model Development to Date
Previous attempts at data collection about the turbulence of the environment and the way executives lead in such an environment have failed to adequately capture the executive’s interpretation of the meaning of the complexity and turbulence of the environment. We now believe that story largely needs to be told by the person going through it. The researchers' role is to draw out the executive and to encourage him to present a complete picture. A cookbook approach to doing this does not yet exist. Researchers in this area are all learners as they go forward in these underconceptualized, underdeveloped areas.
Having the executive who is navigating the permanent white water be largely responsible for sharing his or her experience still presents methodological difficulties. For example, we have found that communicating by spoken language removes much of the turbulence actually experienced. For example, although people may switch topics or jump from thread to thread in a conversation, spoken language is by definition a linear process. In order for anyone to explain to someone else the experience of multiple changes in a turbulent field (Emery and Trist, 1990: 1965) she is required to present it linearly and to order it in some way. Language cannot convey the richness of an experience with multiple simultaneities.
The spoken word can be thought of as adding one layer of ordering to an experience. The written word is even more ordered than the spoken word, adding another layer. If an individual writes about the most turbulent experience in his life, the writing cannot convey the feelings of unpredictability, anxiety, riskiness, being overwhelmed, exhilaration, fragmentation, responsibility, and despair which many people encounter in continuous, second-order change.
A further complication has been well-discussed by Karl Weick (1979, 1985, 1995). Weick suggests that “when people look back at prior events once they know the outcomes of those events, they ‘see’ an orderliness and inevitability that suggests that the events unfolded in a rational manner” (1985, p. 112). Weick also notes that people know relatively little about how they got things done and that people “misremember the process of accomplishment” (1985, p. 132). Each of these concerns poses a challenge to documenting the experience of an individual in permanent white water.
Two quotations from Weick (1995) succinctly describe the challenge
The basic finding that investigators keep returning to is that people who know the outcome of a complex prior history of tangled, indeterminate events remember that history as being much more determinant, leading "inevitably" to the outcome they already knew. Furthermore, the nature of these determinant histories is reconstructed differently, depending on whether the outcomes are seen as good or bad. If the outcome is perceived to be bad, then antecedents are reconstructed to emphasize incorrect actions, flawed analyses, and inaccurate perceptions, even if such flaws were not influential or all that obvious at the time (p. 28).
The feeling of order, clarity, and rationality is an important goal of sensemaking, which means that once this feeling is achieved, further retrospective processing stops (p. 29).
The Colombian Research Effort[3]
The Nation of Colombia
When the 20th century began, Colombia was an agricultural, provincial, rural, and traditional nation. Industry began after 1925 with the production of cement and beer, and later steel. After 1950, Colombia began to undergo a rapid change in several dimensions: its population grew (by 1964 it was at 18 million, compared with 5 million in 1900.), the percentage of population residing in urban areas increased dramatically, literacy increased, industry advanced, and society came to experience the characteristics of an advanced industrial society: large organizations, bureaucracy, rationality, secularism, modernism, and urbanism as modes of life. Colombia is a nation that is completing its transition from a traditional, agricultural, rural order to a modern, industrial, urban order. In some respects, Colombia resembles the complexity of advanced industrial societies. Nonetheless, it is a nation where the past, the traditional mores and culture coexist with the culture in transition, and the modern, secular culture of the end of the 20th century.
The purpose of the empirical effort was to study Colombian[4] managers within their work settings. The theoretical basis for the study was the work of Dr. Peter B. Vaill and others on the turbulent, or "permanent white water" (PWW) environment of organizational life. The study primarily included interview data resulting from questions which were generated from extensive observation of work events.
White Water Events
To distinguish between events which are merely hectic, and those which represent second-order change, white water events are defined to be surprising, novel, “messy,” costly, and recurring (Vaill, 1996). White water events are not “supposed” to happen. It isn’t that they are beyond the realm of possibility. It is more that these events are not in anyone’s organizational plans and, for the most part, must be dealt with in an ad hoc, “by the seat of the pants” fashion.
White water events are also messy or ill-structured. They don’t tend to fall into anyone’s job description or organizational mission. They often occur between the “cracks” of an organization chart. Such events are also costly or obtrusive. In other words, a leader cannot easily “make them go away.” These events consume disproportionate amounts of an organization’s time. Finally, white water events cannot just be solved. They are recurring in the sense that although any given leak can be repaired in the dyke, no amount of planning and effort can prevent another leak in an unexpected spot. The fragility of so many tightly coupled interlocking systems is such that unexpected surprises will recur as these systems change in different ways and at different rates. The reader is referred to Vaill (1996) for examples and a more detailed discussion of white water conditions.
Interviews
A challenge with the interview questions was not just documenting the nature of the executive's work, but the nature of the executive's work in PWW. One particular barrier has prevented the study of executives in PWW thus far. The executive is "translating" to the interviewer what it is like to work in PWW. Several undesirable things can happen in this translation. For example, an executive may not want to appear "out of control" or "not knowing," so he may describe situations in such a way that he doesn't expose when he's outside his comfort zone. The interviewers had to ensure that they gained the confidence of the executives to limit the facade between them, and secondly, be aware that in order to discuss an experience, an executive will retrospectively structure it in his mind more ordered than it was experienced. This difficulty is compounded by an enormous challenge - “interviewees don’t know how to talk about [their dynamic, turbulent context or their actions in it] and interviewers don’t know how to listen for it.”[5]
Methodology
In English, there is a long list of idioms such as "fly by the seat of your pants, winging it, shooting from the hip, doing it off the cuff" which capture the sense of an executive working in a manner for which no "cookbook" or procedures manual can help. The purpose of the data collection was to somehow capture and describe the environment, and where possible, these ill-defined activities of the top executives. Interview questions were formulated as necessary to provide explanation to any observations below that needed elaboration.
Even though there are fewer bullets listed under Interviews than Observations below, the interviews were the more important source of information because they informed all of the observations made. The researchers used the interviews to understand "why" things observed happened the way they did. When possible, the researchers tried to get the executive to spend a few minutes "debriefing" any long observation such as a meeting or a telephone call. The interviewer then discovered how prepared the executive felt, how messy the situation under discussion was, and so forth. The researcher also obtained confirmation of observations such as, "When she asked you your opinion on project X, you look surprised to get such a question."
Five CEOs in Santafe de Bogota were recruited to participate in this research. These CEOs, all men, work in industrial manufacturing, higher education, consumer retail, healthcare, and the computer industries. Each CEO was considered to be an outstanding performer based on both anecdotal information as well as financial performance. Two Colombian researchers were engaged to work full-time for a period of about seven months on the research, which included training, interviews, observations, and analysis of data. Colombian researchers were selected so that there would not be cultural differences between the researcher and the CEOs. The researchers spent about 100 hours of contact time with each CEO over a 16-week period (approximately one day per week).
The author served a variety of roles in conducting this research. He designed and developed the methodology for the study. He oriented and trained as many as six Colombian researchers in Vaill’s theories and the research methodology for the study. He provided an orientation to each of the CEOs about the nature of the research, the methodology of interviews and observation, and the guarantee of anonymity. The author also made periodic trips to Colombia to monitor the study and provide ongoing training and assistance.
Sample predetermined questions included the following:
Observations
A primary purpose of the observations was to attempt to understand the turbulence of the work environment and the executive's interaction with that turbulence.
The researchers saw:
Although the findings of the empirical study have been reported elsewhere (Rivera, 1995), some conclusions are relevant here. The researchers were able to clearly identify white water events which had all of the characteristics of Vaill’s model. During the 100 hours of contact time, each CEO was faced with at least one white water event. The highest number of white water events a CEO faced during this time was eight. The lowest number was one. The three other CEOs faced four, four, and five white water events each. In the case of two organizations, during this single 16-week period, they were faced with a white water event which was more substantial than any issue the organization had faced in its history.
An example of a white water event was the issue of legislation which forced an accreditation process on the higher education institution. Accreditation of this type had never been done before. It forced each department and degree program to revisit its offerings, students served, levels of quality, budgets, and others. The event was ill-structured in that, different from ongoing accreditation processes in the United States, for example, in which every ongoing program attempts to maintain accreditation, the Colombian process required this university to make decisions about which programs to keep and which to discontinue, on a university-wide scale. The process was tremendously costly and obtrusive for the university, and it required changes to the entire system.
A second example of a white water event was when an explosion occurred at the industrial manufacturer. A few employees were filling a natural gas tank on a vehicle when it exploded. In addition to the immediate concerns of three severely burned employees, the organization was forced to reconsider the future of a business initiative in which they had already made a huge investment - the safety of the conversion of gasoline systems in vehicles, such as cars, to systems requiring natural gas.
An emergent finding was the CEOs’ management style in response to turbulence. We can report a wide variety of responses and styles. The observed energy level of the CEO and the observed display of intensity and emotion ranged widely among these successful CEOs. Also, there was no correlation between the level of absolute PWW of the organization and either of the CEOs behaviors above. In other words, a “crazy” work environment did not necessarily have an energetic, high-strung CEO (as is often supposed). We also observed wide variation in whether or not the CEOs have a plan for the day, and if they have, how easily they dispense with it. We were primarily struck by what an information nerve center each of the CEOs is. Each was constantly receiving and dispensing news, rumors, ideas, and plans and policies. A final striking observation is the number of people who were with the CEOs at any given point in time. Nearly always for four of the five CEOs, and often for the fifth, there were people in his office. Sometimes as many as five people, for five different reasons, would be in the CEO’s office competing for attention.
Next Steps
Although this research was important and helpful for understanding PWW and CEOs who thrive in it, a number of difficult challenges remain. For example, there still seem to be differences between what a CEO says and how he is observed. There seemed to be several occasions in which a CEO seemed to be “winging it,” yet the CEO in subsequent interviews would say that it was not the case. In North American culture, it isn’t acceptable for a CEO to say she is unsure of how to proceed, or she is making it up as she goes along. Experience in Colombia suggests that it is even less acceptable there. CEOs are expected to know the answer, have a plan, and not show any vulnerability.
Our work with these CEOs has also suggested another avenue of research. In each of the five cases, the CEOs intensity of behavior and feelings was higher in situations that were more turbulent. However, for some CEOs, the intensity was moderately higher; for others it was drastically higher. This observation leads us to hypothesize that a leader typology can be developed as a function of the level of turbulence and the leader’s intensity of behavior and feelings. Such a typology may have the appearance of Figure 1. A “Type 0" leader expresses much higher levels of intensity and energy as the work at hand becomes more turbulent. Conversely, a “Type 3" leader expresses only modestly higher levels of intensity and energy as the work at hand becomes more turbulent.
If leaders, and all employees for that matter, are working in highly turbulent environments, substantially more research needs to be conducted to understand these environments and the way in which people work in them. Much of the work in organizational behavior date has made the assumption that the workplace is relatively stable. If this assumption is not realistic, the implications of that body of work are called into question.
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358 The general orientation [of modernism] gave rise to contemporary beliefs that management is a process of planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling. Such beliefs continued to pervade organization science theories and practices.