Article: Ecology of Leadership (long version)

The Ecology of Leadership
(long version)

In his book The Web Of Life, physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra outlines six basic principles of ecology. He considers these principles critical to the creation of sustainable human communities. The organizing principles of ecosystems, according to Capra, must be the foundation upon which our educational, business, and political communities are built. He goes as far as to say that “the survival of humanity will depend ... on our ability to understand these principles of ecology and live accordingly.” The basic principles include independence, recycling, partnership, flexibility, diversity, and sustainability. These principles also can be applied to leadership.

Just as ecology deals with the relationships of organisms among themselves and to their environment, leadership can be viewed as an ecological system involving the interaction of humans with each other and their environment. This provides us with a new definition of leadership as a systemic relationship between leader and followers within their context. We can then apply the six principles of ecological systems to gain a fuller understanding of leadership.

The components of an ecological system adhere to the principle of interdependence. Applied to leadership, this means to have a leader, you must have followers. If there are followers, there must then be someone leading. For the leader to be effective, the followers must be effective. What constitutes effective action will be determined by the context. What is effective in one situation may not be effective in another circumstance. Leadership is the interaction of all these elements--leader to followers, followers to leader, followers to followers, leader to environment, followers to environment. Each of these interactions influences the others. A change in any of the relationships within a system has a ripple affect on all the other relationships.

A clear understanding of the interdependent nature of leadership reinforces the importance of communication between the parts of the system. To be effective, leader and followers need to be continually scanning the environment and feeding back to each other what they find. They then need to be unified in their response if they are to impact the environment. This requires continuously recycling information--the second principle of ecosystems--between leader, followers, and context. The more information that can be processed, the more viable the system. Data that may go unnoticed by one individual may be picked up and applied by someone else. As information gets recycled and filtered through each part of the system, the more is learned from the data.

For this principle of recycling to work effectively in a leadership system, it requires leader and followers to work in partnership--the third principle of ecological systems. All parties must trust and respect each other if the flow of communication is to remain open. Without trust and respect, relationships become poisoned with fear, anxiety, and competitiveness. The exchange of information between people becomes constricted. This limits people’s responses to the environment.

Partnership requires each person to exercise flexibility--the fourth principle. You need to build rapport with someone if you are to develop mutual trust and respect. You achieve rapport by communicating in a way that is comfortable and understandable for the other person. This puts that person in his or her comfort zone when interacting with you. The person will then be more open to sharing their thoughts and feelings with you and listening to yours. When people’s interactions are characterized by flexibility, the entire system becomes more flexible in its response to various situations. People are open to learning and sharing rather than protecting themselves behind habitual behaviors and uncompromising opinions.

Flexibility fosters diversity, which is the fifth principle. The more wide ranging the perspectives and skills within a group, the more options are available to it when responding to varying circumstances. This supports the system’s sustainability--the sixth principle. The more effective the group in responding to changes in the environment, the more likely the group will thrive.

If leadership is a system, leadership development must then take into account all the components of the system. Traditional leadership development interventions have focused exclusively on the designated leader. When we look at leadership systemically, we can see how fruitless it is to strive to improve an organization’s leadership simply by giving designated leaders skill training. Such an approach is likely to fail because of a fundamental misunderstanding of leadership.

Leadership is an emergent process. It evolves from the interactions of the system’s components. Having the title of leader does not make you a leader. You become a leader because others choose to follow you. Effective leadership development needs to consider the skills of all parties involved in addressing the particular situation they face. Those who the organization designates as leaders may not emerge as the true leaders. Leadership training is applicable to everyone in the system because we do not know ahead of time who may emerge as a leader at different stages of addressing a particular situation. And for the emergent leader to be effective, the followers need to know how they may contribute to the group’s leadership.

This does not preclude individual development. Before you can impact the leadership of your organization, however, you must understand the ecology of leadership.