In praise of the incomplete leader

From PLN

Notes on the Harvard Business Review article "In praise of the incomplete leader" provided by Leslie Dillon, originally in Leader's Digest February 2007.

The authors of this article believe that no one person can be all things to all people, and they've developed a framework of distributed leadership that consists of four capabilities:

Sensemaking: able to understand and map the context in which a company and its people operate. These leaders can quickly identify a situation's complexities and explain them to others.
Relating: able to build trusting relationships within and across organizations by inquiring, advocating, and connecting.
Visioning: able to create a compelling vision of the future. This is a "collaborative process that articulates what the members of an organization want to create."
Inventing: able to develop new ways to achieve that vision.

It's rare for any "single person be skilled in all four areas." Here's how incomplete leaders differ from incompetent leaders: "They understand what they’re good at and what they’re not and have good judgment about how they can work with others to build on their strengths and offset their limitations." It's critical that leaders find [and develop the ability in] others to "offset their limitations and complement their strengths. Those who don't will...find themselves at the helm of an unbalanced ship." [Emphasis added] Take the test!

You might want to wait for a really good day to look at these, but here are some signs to watch for.

Signs of weak sensemaking

You feel strongly that you are usually right and others are often wrong.
You feel your views describe reality correctly, but others’ views do not.
You find you are often blindsided by changes in your organization or industry.
When things change, you typically feel resentful. (That’s not the way it should be!)

Signs of weak relating

You blame others for failed projects.
You feel others are constantly letting you down or failing to live up to your expectations.
You find that many of your interactions at work are unpleasant, frustrating, or argumentative.
You find many of the people you work with untrustworthy.

Signs of weak visioning

You feel your work involves managing an endless series of crises.
You feel like you’re bouncing from pillar to post with no sense of larger purpose.
You often wonder, “Why are we doing this?” or “Does it really matter?”
You can’t remember the last time you talked to your family or a friend with excitement about your work.

Signs of weak inventing

Your organization’s vision seems abstract to you.
You have difficulty relating your organization’s vision to what you are doing today.
You notice dysfunctional gaps between your organization’s aspirations and the way work is organized.
You find that things tend to revert to business as usual.

(Deborah Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski, Peter M. Senge, "In praise of the incomplete leader", Harvard Business Review, February 2007)