Circle of Leadership
The leader/follower charade consists of a vicious circle of a follower asking for advice, which shows low
skill to the leader. The leader then gets concerned about the follower, which
causes them to take a more hands on approach where this follower is concerned. By
doing this, the confidence of the follower is diminished, which causes the
follower to ask more questions and do less on their own. The cycle then repeats
itself (Obolensky, 2009).
When I read this chapter in the Obolensky’s Complex Adaptive
Leadership book, I was overwhelmed by the information. The reason I was
overwhelmed is because it was if someone has be secretly watching my office for
the past month and wrote down everything that was happening and then put it in
this book. Now, let me start off by clarifying that I would not ordinarily be a
low skill, level 3 follower, but with this particular job, this is a exactly
what I have “trained” to be. That diagram of Obolensky’s is exactly what
happened.
I was hired under the knowledge that I did not have any experience in
this particular field, but I had a background and a degree that they wanted. I
was told that there would be training, so experience was not necessary. However,
the training that I have received has been very little and happens when I can
find someone, anyone, with the extra time to show me how to do things, and I
have to be the one to ask for the training! With me not having any experience
in this particular job, I have no choice but to ask questions. They don’t want
me just doing it on my own and making mistakes either, which I would be
perfectly fine with since mistakes are
lessons learned, but apparently that system that is being used is still new and
not everyone is comfortable with it, so if I make mistakes, it means a lot more
work for someone else. So, my behavior now mimics the vicious cycle that
Obolensky illustrated.
It’s not just me though, I see everyone always asking for
conformation that the job they are doing is correct. The leadership makes it
feel as though if you make a mistake, any mistake, it’s catastrophic and unacceptable.
One might ask why I am still here, and
the answer is simply that it’s a foot in the door, a stepping stone to where I
really want to be.
If I could create a new circle that would promote strong
followership and better leadership at the lower levels, It would start off with
better training across the board. There seems to be a lack of training in every
department. Once the people were trained properly, I would let them do the job
they were just trained for without interference. High level and low level
leaders need to let them know that they WILL make mistakes and when they do,
they are there for guidance, not to give the answers to them, but to help guide
them in the right direction. Lots of positive feedback would need to happen as
well. Once the positive feedback happens, the level of confidence will increase
and they followers will do more on their own. The more they do on their own the
less mistakes will be made which will only increase their confidence more.
Leadership will continue with the positive feedback and then you will have
people who take initiatives to do things on their own without the fear that
they will be reprimanded for mistakes. The new cycle will also generate new
lower level leaders.
For example, the each department…environment, marketing,
communication, accounting, operations, and administrative all seem like
separate companies at this point because there is no uniformity for the organization
as a whole. I would have meetings once a week with every department together
instead of each department only meeting with their department and then only one
person reporting back to the leader.
We are supposed to be one big organization, but we act like
we all work for separate companies. The organization as a whole needs to get
out of the “us vs them” mind set and
starting simply thinking of every department as a “WE”.
Reference:
Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing
paradox and uncertainty. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Gower.
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