Re-wilding leadership: seven threads

Rich Watkins

July 6, 2023

Just got back from two days with Dave Snowden (of Cynefin fame) looking at how we conceive of and develop leadership in complexity. Starting with the name: Re-Wilding Leadership. I was drawn to the idea that we need to un-tame leadership - I think we all see that leadership discourse can be... how to say... banal? boring? Our narrow definitions and presuppositions can contain and constrain what is possible. And we see how this tamed leadership doesn't do well in contact with our complex terrain - leaders are often startled and lacking a sense of clarity and freedom to act. Re-wilding leadership is also about un-complicating leadership by allowing more space. I love the idea of bringing back more agency and aliveness - this is why I say my work is reinvigorating how we work together. I wont try and summarise all lessons or even capture the elegant academic language - but here are seven threads that I drew out from the conversations. I want to pull on these in my own practice and in the orgs I support - and offer them back to you. What resonates?

1. Leadership isn’t primarily located in individuals but groups and systems - If you know my work you'll know this is my hymn sheet: we can move things forwards at the level of endeavour with more ease than at the level of the individual. But I like this "ASHEN" way of distinguishing the channels through which leadership occurs. How can we ensure there are useful leadership Artefacts (tools, processes) and leadership Heuristics (rules of thumb, ways of doing things) - as well as Skills, Experiences and (of course) Natural talent. I can start asking (as an example) which Artefacts support the human dynamics of The Let's Go Model. For illustration: Belief (strategic plan) Structure (project methodology) Involvement (stakeholder map) Progress (decision making process) and Care (sharing practices).

2. Leadership is weaker the more it’s isolated at the top - and stronger when it reaches through the organisation. An idea I liked was about developing a “dispersed human sensor network” that you can send questions/problems to, get early signals/perspective from, and delegate authority/decisions to. There are ways of doing this that are more complicated but also very simple hacks that individual leaders can implement.

3. Leadership isn’t a binary assessment of good/bad but a wide variety of ways of showing up in interactions. So let’s rethink the game-able generalised assessment metrics. It's possible to get input about our leadership that helps us shape our interactions (more of x, less of y) but doesn’t presuppose one version of what good looks like or define us as a particular abstract typology. Has got me thinking about a meaningful Let’s Go metric.

4. Leadership isn’t about breaking silos but connecting them. Silos are useful (for efficiency, order, measurement) but we also know they are restrictive. An answer is to construct an informal network of connections across/between - especially in remote work you can’t expect this to just happen so you need to stimulate it. Importantly: we connect by doing something meaningful together not by "connecting". An example from the course is purposeful cross-functional triads (or "entangled trios") who are given important questions/problems - and defined autonomy/freedom. We reap both the explicit content of ideas and the informal connections of the process. Keep switching trios to build more connective tissue - eg across the "sides" of a merger or division. And these can also be your sensor network.

5. Leaders shouldn’t think of their task as judging the correctness of ideas instead their task is judging coherence of ideas. Think about it: who can claim to be correct all the time in complexity without all the information? Often novel idea appear incorrect. But not "every idea is a good idea" - some are incoherent. So not “will this work?” but “could this work?” - not approval but veto. Then running small safe-to-fail experiments with coherent ideas (even/especially those that contradict each other). You’ll see that all these are entangled: you could use your trios here too.

6. Leaders don’t develop new traits by hearing about them or being able to talk about them - but we can create conditions in which good traits are more likely to emerge. Note: many different good traits will emerge depending on the situations but also the context and the individuals - we don't engineer pre-defined traits but monitor what emerges. So leadership development could be conceived as setting up processes and contexts in which our natural development tendency happens - after all, we already know that experience is the best teacher. Think: challenging situations, rich connections, real world problems, deep engagements with customers/front line.

7. Leaders (as humans) learn more from the bad than the good and more from stories than concepts. I liked the idea that traditional fairy tales are a good model for how we learn. We tell stories of pain rather than instructions of good behaviour. Two thoughts here.

• Good conceptual work (strategy, brand, culture, etc) doesn't paint abstract ideal futures - it needs an open expression of the field of possibility and firm guardrails. Practically: what are we NOT. But I like the idea of going further and was charmed by "agreeing worst practices”.

• Learners of all sort engage with stories and pictures more than explicit ideas. I have sometimes resisted stories as i've seen them in leadership development be a disguise for platitudes. And I love clear concepts. But I’m also seeing the limits that i've put on my work this way - and am reflecting on how to embed character, archetype, and story more into my work.

I also like these distinctions on typical group sizes:

• We compromise in groups of 5 or less - so decision making is here

• We trust in groups of up to 15 - so team or project edges are here with the caveat that compromise won't happen and trust takes time

• We can remain cohesive up to about 150 - so division limit is here

Other threads were about: reducing energy, vector orientated change (vs goal orientated), the power of journaling, triangle survey tools, and self-coded narratives. And much of this (and more) is in the EU field guide Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis and The Cynefin Company do lots of good work.

Probably as much as the ideas I enjoyed conversations with curious and interesting people engaged in good work. I felt very enlivened and refreshed after being so “locked away" with Covid and having a kid. Thanks to Cecilia, Friso, Steve, Mark, Christopher, Eleanor and other smart folks who I didn't catch for linked in.