27 May Leadership, like structure, follows strategy.

I forgot to press “record” for our monthly OD Café on Wednesday. I wish I could share the recording with you – our colleagues on the call were amazing. The call explored our emerging Power and Resistance model. The model shows some promise, contrasting levels of leadership in the organisation (power) with levels of structural complexity in an organisation (resistance). We used the model to think about the kind of strategy training that different levels of leaders might find most useful.

Structural complexity is driven by a strategic response to the complexity of the external environment. Everyone on the call had an acronym for the various accelerations in the external environment that are driving the need for shorter strategy cycles and bigger strategic shifts. We live in a world variously described as VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous), BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-linear, Incomprehensible) and in a new one at least to me – TUNA (Turbulent, Uncertain, Novel, Ambiguous). I apologise if attributions should be given for the acronyms, but these were shared by the various discussion groups. What does that mean for leadership and leadership development? What does it mean for the kind of strategy training that leaders need?

Structure follows strategy – the organisational vehicle is designed for the terrain it must cover and the resources available to it as it tries to reach its destination. That is known to be true. What does it mean for the leader, the strategy, and the structure when the context is shifting, often and fast? How difficult is it to become a different leader for a different strategy? Is it necessary to become a different leader for a different strategy?

Leaders rise to the occasion – they emerge when needed by the circumstances. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man” is an old proverb that today could be re-written as “cometh the hour, cometh the leader”. This thought is often criticised as “waiting for superman” when the right answer is “we are the leaders we have been waiting for”. There is a fridge magnet for every situation!

What felt significant for us was the conclusion one of the discussion groups came to: “Leaders are struggling to redefine themselves in the context of new strategy”. Leadership is only leadership (in its purest sense) if a person (leader) is being followed (followership, organisational citizen) toward a destination (strategy). There is a direct connection between the leader and the strategy. “Follow me to…”, “I will lead you to….”. Leadership is always contextual, and the context is most primally the direction (where we are going), the followers (who is on the journey), and the conditions we will face (the terrain).

We had colleagues from small, mobile organisations as well as large, monumental organisations. Everyone reported that change is coming thick-and-fast – at all levels of the organisation. The plan today is not the plan next week and wasn’t the plan two weeks ago. Traditional approaches to grand strategy, taught as doctrine in most strategy programs to any level of leader, don’t seem to have useful answers anymore. If I knew I could lead plan A, who do I need to be now that plan A is changed to plan C, my team is still on plan B, and I believe plan D will be coming which may not look anything like any of the previous plans. The blue sky of strategy quickly becomes the muddy trenches of execution, and if I was trained to lead on dry land then am I the right person to lead the muddy trudge? And if structure follows strategy, and strategy is this buffeted, then what structure copes?

I think there is something of a clue in the DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) discussion. I suspect that until things settle down, we cannot easily predict who the right leader is for a given situation. We might need to relax our understanding of leader-as-fixed-individual (the boss, appointed and anointed) and open to the possibility that every time the context shifts, we need to recast our net for the right leader. I am not sure what that means for the positional authority that is necessarily tied to structural responsibility (who ensures compliance, who keeps risk in tolerable ranges)? How will we train leaders and managers for a world that will not stand still, and will not tomorrow ask the same questions of organisational leaders that were asked yesterday? Must we separate the bureaucracy from the leadership, and stop trying to conflate them?

Talk to us about the power and resistance model, and what it means for leadership development. Now, more than ever, leadership development needs to be in-company, cohort based, and very good at awakening agency from the most silent corners of the organisation with maturity in leadership emergence. Letting go of leadership may be as important as accepting the leadership mantle. I lead today, you lead tomorrow, and we treat this as a leadership relay rather than a solo voyage. Strategy is a team sport, and leadership needs to become one.