Leadership and Emergent Organizational Structures

From siliconyogi ...

"Reflect for a moment on the term "leadership". Your impressions will include some of the following notions a position of power and authority; directing people to get jobs done; having the final say about what, who, how, where, when; "being in charge;" the capacity for imposing your mandate; and so on. Many times, of course, these notions of leadership work just fine. Yet, how appropriate are they when it comes to the enormous magnitude of those innovations that will be necessary for a health care organization to survive amidst unprecedented changes in healthcare financing, governmental regulations, technological advances, and consumer desires. "Being in charge" and "imposing your mandate" just don't seem to hit the mark in the face of the unpredictable, sudden emergence of mergers, acquisitions, and variously fashioned joint ventures.

Yet, it is precisely the unpredictable and the emergent that are so central in the new complexity sciences. Indeed, emergence in self-organizing, complex systems is one of the most fascinating areas of current research into complex systems. Specifically, emergence refers to the unanticipated arising of new higher-level systemic patterns or structures functioning according to new laws and consisting of new properties. If we can consider our institutions and businesses complex, nonlinear systems, then it should come as no surprise that our organizations are replete with emergent phenomena. However, our understanding of what organizations are supposed to be, e.g., bureaucratic hierarchical structures, has pretty much blinded us to seeing the full extent of the emergence taking place right in front of our eyes.

Moreover, if we do recognize emergent phenomena for the spontaneous and "out of control" types of system occurrences they indeed represent, our training takes over automatically and we commence suppressing them as quickly as possible. Fortunately, it seems impossible to stifle all spontaneity and creativity, so emergent phenomena in our organizations and environments are here to stay. But rather than to dismay this fact, leaders can learn to take advantage of what could prove to be an extremely powerful and constructive organizational force."

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