Book Summary
Joseph Raelin’s book, Creating Leaderful Organizations describes a new model of organizational leadership. It challenges the traditional hierarchical leadership model, where one central leader makes important decisions for the organization. The book describes alternative leadership philosophies that enhance shared leadership in organizations. Raelin recommends various strategies that can help transform organizations from authoritarian forms of leadership to a distributed form of leadership.
The book has two sections: the first part and the second part. In the first part, readers are introduced to the novel concept of ‘leaderful’ practice and its underlying philosophy. In the second part, Raelin describes the management of organizational change in the transformation of organizations from the conventional leadership style to the ‘leaderful’ style. Also, in this part, the author discusses the elements of the ‘leaderful’ idea. He describes the “four C’s of leaderful practice” (Raelin, 2003, p. 115), which, when combined, create a shared leadership.
The author argues that the 21st Century companies require a new brand of leadership to replace the traditional form of leadership that is common in most organizations. In the modern era, organizations are knowledge-based, which means that employees should participate in leadership collectively and concurrently with the leaders. In ‘leaderful’ organizations, team members “share the experience of a serving leader together” (Raelin, 2003, p. 57). Although in this novel leadership paradigm, each team member has a specific role, he or she supports the others when required to. In a ‘leaderful’ team, any team member can handle organizational issues on behalf of the team as opposed to a team where employees have to wait for orders from their supervisors.
Raelin notes that for one to be ‘leaderful’, he or she must occupy a leadership position in an organization, but not necessarily the top leadership position. It is only when one is in a leadership position that he or she is able to lead others around him. In the digital age, many managers often find technology overwhelming, while employees find heavy work assignments, strict deadlines, and work pressure increase draining. Often, the managers and supervisors have a little understanding of the challenges that employees face.
The failure to address their concerns leads to low job satisfaction, increased turnover and reduced organizational performance. In light of this, Raelin recommends a shared leadership that requires managers to relinquish some of their control and facilitate employees’ participation in decision-making. By doing so, Raelin observes that managers and other executives will encourage independence within the organization whereby employees use their leadership abilities to address challenging issues.
Raelin prescribes the steps that organizations can use when transitioning to a ‘leaderful’ culture. He argues that the conventional leadership approach, which follows a hierarchical model, stifles innovation and deters organizations from fully exploiting employees’ leadership abilities and skills to grow the organization. According to Raelin, for managers to become ‘leaderful’, four fundamental tenets of leadership have to be adopted. He states that ‘leaderful’ managers exhibit collectivity, compassion, collaboration and concurrence. In contrast, managers in the traditional model of leadership are controlling, individualistic and dispassionate.
In this book, Raelin’s central argument revolves around the concept of distributed leadership. He challenges the traditional leadership paradigm that recommends one central leader who sets the direction the organization follows. The book discusses four aspects of the distributed leadership paradigm: collaboration, collectivity, compassion, and concurrence. In each chapter, the author outlines the specific approach for implementing the “C factors,” which includes preparing for the new change, distributing the roles, and handling resistance to change. The book also outlines various philosophies of organizational leadership and role delegation, which help to reinforce the author’s argument.
One tenet of ‘leaderful’ firms, as espoused by Raelin, is that such organizations are concurrent. In his view, organizations can have more than one leader at the same time (Raelin, 2003). This implies that leaders must be willing to share leadership roles with others. Such leaders work together with all departmental managers. Raelin argues that since, in practice, leaders perform multiple tasks within organizations, it is impossible for one leader to run an organization single-handedly. Employees who are knowledgeable about a given task may assume leadership positions when they get a chance. This does not mean that the current leader steps down, but it means that the leader and the employees share leadership concurrently to achieve particular goals.
‘Leaderful’ managers prefer to work in teams. In the traditional model, power is concentrated in a central leadership. However, in ‘leaderful’ organizations, power is distributed among team members, who collectively function as leaders (Raelin, 2003). The team does not rely on a single member or team leader to make decisions or choose the course of action for them. Instead, any member charged with the relevant responsibility can make a decision on behalf of the team. Thus, in this scenario, leadership is a collective responsibility. This means that each team member can make decisions within his or her domain so long as the decisions are in line with the team’s strategic mission. In addition, in ‘leaderful’ teams, an idea may originate from one person with the others joining in to support the initiative.
Raelin also views ‘leaderful’ leaders as collaborative people. In ‘leaderful’ organizations, all team members, besides the team leader, exercise some level of control within the organization. In view of this, they can pursue a particular course of action if they strongly believe it will yield positive results for the organization. In addition, team members are sensitive to the other employees’ feelings and opinions. Thus, the members listen to the others’ views and engage them in constructive discussions, whereby they give their beliefs and opinions, and contribute towards refining of the organization’s strategic mission. In light of this, Raelin attributes success in organizations to employee collaboration.
Another element of Raelin’s ‘C factors’ of ‘leaderful’ managers is compassion. ‘Leaderful’ leaders show compassion that goes beyond preserving the interests and values of the employees. In ‘leaderful’ organizations, the shareholders’ opinions are sought before the management can make major organizational decisions (Raelin, 2003). In addition, ‘leaderful’ leaders value all employees and do not discriminate them based on social status, gender, or background. They objectively examine each employee’s opinion before implementing a new process or system. Being compassionate requires leaders to take a learning stance in order to appreciate the contribution of each employee in the organization (Raelin, 2003). Compassionate leaders encourage participation as they recognize that it is only through shared decision-making that the employees’ commitment to the organization is enhanced.
Reactionary Critique
The book has interesting leadership philosophies, which support the author’s perspective on organizational leadership. The book also excels in providing theoretical underpinnings of ‘leaderful’ leadership, along with several examples of the concept as has been applied in many organizations. It has a checklist for leaders to assess their leadership styles and determine their position in the continuum of leadership styles. This approach provides a baseline for managers to define personal as well as organizational goals, both in the short-term and in the long-term. The book also has figures and tables that serve as visual aids in explaining how organizations can implement ‘leaderful’ principles in their missions. It shows that the value of organizational leadership does not lie in one individual or position but is a combination of diverse skills, which constitute the ‘leaderful’ practice.
Creating Leadership Value
If leaders desire to build leadership value in organizations, then building individuals should not be pursued as this trend only develops a temporal value. In contrast, focusing on ‘leaderful’ practice creates sustainable leadership value in the organization. A ‘leaderful’ practice creates a positive environment that encourages employees to pursue various actions in line with the organization’s goals. In effect, the book presents a novel model that promises to change leadership from a person-centric paradigm to a new approach where “leadership is a collective practice” (p. 5). This leadership approach is consistent with the concepts of creativity and employee empowerment.
In their book, Mauzy and Harriman (2003) state that, leadership should nurture systemic creativity by giving everyone a chance to be innovative. In view of the recent strained labor relations, which have led to downsizing due to dwindling productivity, organizations should consider diffusing leadership roles and encouraging creativity in order to create value. It requires leaders to not only be supportive of change but also to learn how to manage change. As Raelin (2003) puts it, to promote change, leaders should allow everyone to participate in organizational affairs. This can only be achieved if employees have full control of the affairs within their domains.
Employee Creativity
In most organizations, workers are very proactive because they do not always wait for instructions from their supervisors. This behavior is a common characteristic of ‘leaderful’ practice. In the conventional leadership model, workers look up to their leader for direction, support, and instructions before performing their roles. This represses invention and skill development. In contrast, ‘leaderful’ leaders encourage workers to generate their own ideas, which help shape organizational behaviors, values, attitudes and skills in a way that reflects the organization’s mission. It calls on leaders to be not only masterful but also mentors to encourage learning as one way of having skilled and self-sufficient employees (Mauzy & Harriman, 2003). In the book, Raelin distinguishes the traditional leadership model from the ‘leaderful’ practice using the four C’s. Though the book does not clarify whether or not these dimensions are interdependent or independent, the dimensions highlight the benefits of the new model of leadership.
The book’s four tenets focus on the leadership experiences of top executives in big companies. The concurrent approach, unlike the serial approach, is an embodiment of leaders from many departments, while the collective tenet is a comparison of individual leadership styles and represents many workers. In addition, the collaborative approach entails employee consultation as opposed to the direct control of the workers. On the other hand, compassionate leaders show sensitivity to the other workers’ views and values. The book labels conventional leaders as dispassionate, sequential, commanding, and individualist; hence, the need to shift to a ‘leaderful’ system that enhances responsiveness and creativity.
The book makes a compelling argument for the ‘leaderful’ model of management. However, it fails to elaborate on inherent assumptions in this theory. According to Mauzy and Harriman (2003), managers should examine theory assumptions before applying the theory in practice. This implies that most managerial choices should be situational. Nevertheless, the book presents invaluable leadership principles that meet the needs of today’s companies by encouraging responsiveness, flexibility, and innovation as core elements of ‘leaderful’ practice.
References
Mauzy, J., & Harriman, R. (2003). Creativity Inc.: Building an Inventive Organization. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.
Raelin, A. (2003). Creating Leaderful Organizations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.