Mary
Uhl-Bien's research and teaching interests are in leadership and
ethics. Widely published, Dr. Uhl-Bien has been active in research,
consulting and management development both nationally and
internationally. She has consulted with Disney, British Petroleum, and
the General Accounting Office, and she served as the executive
consultant for State Farm Insurance.
"There is a sea
change going on in leadership, involving a shift from a hierarchical
way of thinking to a connectionist, networked view."
Connectionist buzzwords:
- Collaboration
- Innovation
- Integration
- Connectivity
- Adaptive Work
- Distributed Leadership
Classic
organization theory pits groups (with local specializations, local
expertise, local autonomy, local self-interest and local identities)
vs. an "integrated" approach (organization-wide hierarchy,
formalization, organizational identity, and centralized leadership).
This doesn't work in the Knowledge Era (Network Age), because attempts to create "integrated" organizations actually results in more localism, and greater pushback.
"In
the 1990s, when reorganizations happened en masse, there was a changing
psychological contract between organizations and employees."
Organizational
silos are an Industrial Age artifact. A representative of a major
government contractor noted to Uhl-Bien "I wish that we could have a
supply chain that goes across 'production' and 'sustainability.'" Right
now, the two functions are in unconnected silos.
Historically, the "heroic" leader was connected to the idea of managerial
leadership, where the leader was a "lone ranger, isolated from those
being led and who often commanded his/her organization primaily through
the use of top-down directives."
In the Knowledge Era, leadership is a behavior, not a role.
Question from the room: "Sarbanes-Oxley is forcing silo'd behavior…how do we get around it?"
A:
"We need adaptive solutions that come from the people in the
organization, not from the top. When we drive bureaucracy, we drive
silos. We want to take a different approach and drive this from inside
the organization."
There
are two kinds of power: "positional" power and "personal' power."
Millenials don't care for positional power, and prefer personal power.