“Organizations need independent cells growing and competing with each other”

What does “shared leadership” mean to you?

It’s essentially about taking turns to lead a team: people stepping up to the mark where appropriate, stepping back when necessary. The team leader doesn’t have to be in the chair all the time.

Is it something that you personally buy into as a leadership philosophy?

Yes and no. I have a bit of a problem with leadership because it’s a very loaded word. When one talks about leaders, one tends to think of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and so on. But I don’t think that this is what companies want. I think companies want followership.

What do you mean by “followership”?

Well, “followership” is also a loaded word, as it can imply passivity. But in the end, companies set strategy, and they rely on layers and layers of people following. And if they don’t have that, they get disrupted. And if you have leaders all over the place, then you have lots of independent cells competing with each other, tearing the organization apart. So, followership — or maybe “active followership” is better — is about taking the top direction and helping people around you to go with that. I think this is probably what other people call “shared leadership”.

Do independent cells produce conflict? And is that good? I believe that organizations need independent cells growing and competing with each other, but I don’t think that they know that they need this. But I think that’s how organizations evolve and survive. The temptation is for organizations to smooth out rough edges, and make sure that everyone is totally aligned.

What’s the problem with that?

The problem is that it’s short-term. It might solve the immediate problem, but as the situation or environment changes, or people move, the organization may not be fit for the next purpose, only the last. So, you have this tension between streamlined and efficient organization, and a looser and fatter, more fragmented entity with internal competition from which a new shape can emerge and become sustainable.

Who really ensures that an organization is sustainable? The leaders or the followers?

Well, now we can get more complex because what do you mean by “organization”? I mean many people see an organization as something defined within a set of walls; it’s a certain number of people on the payroll, plus the desks and the machines. That was probably the case at the turn of the 20th century.

But it’s no longer the case?

No. Companies now exist way beyond that boundary and have ceased to exist within that boundary. Just one example: if you now take the average company headquarters, around 35 to 40 per cent of the people who walk in through the gates with a security pass are external: consultants, temporary staff, facilities people, etc. Now, if senior leadership still believes that an organization is the people who are on their payroll, they are missing something. And maybe leadership in the future needs to look at this human capital in a bigger way because most corporations overlook these people. Yet these people often know the organization very well, they are sometimes involved in critical change areas, and they have ideas and skills from other organizations. And this is where a competitive advantage, curiously, could arise and enable survival. But these people are at present entirely missed by most organizations and their leaders.