New Forms of Leadershipin decentralised organisations

Lee Bryant, E20 Summit, Frankfurt, Nov 2009

it is a myth that leadershipis less important in the

devolved (E2.0) organisation

E2.0, network-centric approachescan assist & support both old

& new forms of leadership

In biological systems, thebrain and body are equals- it is not a one-way street

Obama’s election demonstrated a powerful combination: the ‘power of we’ enhanced by strong vision and leadership

Leadership does not disappear in flat organisations:“The Tyranny of Structurelessness” (1970)

Even wikipedia has leadership ... and leadership issues

E20 and business social networking opens up new opportunities for traditional leadership strengths

the social web show us how tobuild new structures that have both

intimacy & scale, using trustednetworks to reduce friction

& co-ordination costs

Leading from the front: 1.5m followers

Being human in public creates trust

Intimacy at scale

IBM BlogCentral: 67k users, 16K blogsIBM Beehive: 53K members, 63K photosWikiCentral: 150k users, 1m views per dayMedia Library: 8m downloads(source: Adam Christensen, IBM January 22, 2009)

E2.0 requires new leadershipskills and management

competencies in additionto the old ones

Adhocracy: anyonecan organise today

Affinity vs Structure

Trust vs Control

Management vs Co-ordination

Collective intelligence: sometimes leadership isshared within a group

We need network-centric management

“Blatant integrity is present when people and organisations are

comfortable with being held up to scrutiny ... [&] welcome the opportunity

to cushion and overcome objections because they’re more interested in

creating a moment of truth with you than making an expedient sale.”

(Anne McCrossan)

three ways E20 impacts onleadership in companies today

1: identify & nurture future leaders...

Graduate onboarding, leadership programmes, business social networking

Leaders can break out of silos and hierarchies to encourage talent

2: enable leaders to havepresence & intimacy at scale

Social business tools enable leaders to communicate directly, in a human voice

Leaders want real-time, unmediated info about business performance

3: give everybody a chance to demonstrate community leadership

Leadership as supporting other people, synthesising, making links, making sense

showing vulnerability and being human:how much trust do you have in your network?

© 2009 Dachis Group

What does this mean fororganisational design and the‘business operating system’ ?

connections

collaboration

culture

content

[social business design]

Social Business Design archetypes (lenses)

connections

collaboration

culture

content

[social business design]

What is the role of leadership in this model? network-centric

management

creating a sharing culture

focus on data& signals for performance improvement

Helping filter for

relevance

Thank you for listening

http://www.headshift.com

Lee@headshift.com

I am lee@headshift.com and live at

http://www.headshift.com

Except where otherwise stated, photos courtesy of Flickr using Creative Commons license.Thanks to the following photographers:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dplanet/94442623/

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/notsogoodphotography/503637906/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/euan/2342134129/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thayer18/2473764858/

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications/2008/Mapping_Irans_Online_Public/

interactive_blogosphere_map

http://paperbackdreams.com/images/uploads/Future_Shock_1971.jpg

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/wili/2628869994/

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanatm/2081065914/

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http://lh6.ggpht.com/_uYeCdeWUudM/RquSSy_X2oI/AAAAAAAAADU/OuYTkaNKa3w/

flyover.jpg

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/52581560/sizes/l/

http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/1141/is5vb.jpg

http://waitingfornow.wordpress.com/2009/04/

http://www.motherjones.com/files/legacy/mojoblog/barack-obama-pointing-250x200.jpg