Creating Leaderful Organizations

Citation

Cromb, D. (2005), "Creating Leaderful Organizations", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 26 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.2005.02226cae.001

Creating Leaderful Organizations

Creating Leaderful Organizations

Joseph A. RaelinBerrett-Koehler PublishersSan Francisco, CA2003288 pp.157675233X$US22.95 Paperback

Keywords: Leadership, Teams

Review DOI 10.1108/01437730510591789

Joseph Raelin believes that leadership is potentially the most desperate problem we face in organisational life today but that, conceived in a different way, leadership might also represent the very solution to the ills of work in our current era.

Raelin casts leadership in a new light in order to change our way of viewing it. As our thinking about leadership changes, so too should our practice of it. Any person in the organisation can practice leadership. Management needs to become mutual and our leadership shared.

Raelin offers a mental model, leaderful leadership, in an endeavour to transform leadership from an individual property into a new paradigm that redefines leadership as a collective practice. The recharacterisation of leadership that Raelin suggests is not completely new (neither is his buzzword “leaderful”) but he is bringing it into popular consciousness through this book. Being leaderful means to be full of leadership since everyone shares the experience of providing leadership. Leadership has an interpersonal character.

Leaderful leadership is presented as an integrative model – the author draws on decades of research and publishing of others, with his prime contribution being to present this as a coherent whole. The prevailing “leader as hero” paradigm characterises leadership as serial (leaders are always in a position of leadership and do not cede the honour to anyone else – upon acquiring power, most leaders attempt to sustain or increase it); individual (an enterprise has only one leader – it would weaken or confuse decision-making and direction setting to talk about having more than one); controlling (the conventional leader believes it is his or her ultimate duty to direct the enterprise and engender the commitment of members); and dispassionate (the leader must take tough decisions for the enterprise in a dispassionate manner – these may result in not satisfying particular stakeholders, but accomplishing that the mission must come first).

In contrast, leaderful managers are concurrent (in any community, more than one leader can operate at the same time – leaders willingly and naturally share power with others); collective (the community does not solely depend on one individual to mobilise action or make decisions on behalf of others); collaborative (all members of the community are in control of and may speak for the entire community); and compassionate (leaders extend unadulterated commitment to preserving the dignity of others – leaders take the stance of a learner who sees the adaptability of the community as dependent upon the contribution of others). Raelin styles these as “the Four C's”.

Raelin asserts that leaderful leadership can also accomplish the processes of leadership in more settings and with more pervasive effectiveness than the conventional approach. He doesn't see conventional leadership as being invalid – he simply sees the leaderful leadership approach as more practical and useful in managing communities and organisations in the new century.

The book is divided into two parts. Part one – Presenting a New Paradigm for Leadership, presents leaderful practice through five chapters: its tenets, distinctiveness, challenges, development, and benefits.

Part two – Uncovering the Traditions of Leaderful Practice, is a four-chapter history tour and critique of prevailing leadership concepts and their traditions, showing how these concepts can be cohesive through the “Four C's”. A fifth chapter provides tips to develop leaderful practice under each of the Four C's, for both managers and employees.

Leaderful practice is a relatively new characterisation of leadership – there are no studies that link it to bottom-line results. However, Raelin draws on the wealth of research on teams and organisations to forecast the potential benefits of his characterisation. In other words, Raelin is advancing a theory albeit one supported by a lengthy tradition of its component parts. In very simplistic terms, the normative view advanced is that a happy and empowered workforce is strongly related to superior organisational performance.

Therein lies the one caution I have about this book – it is advancing a theory not yet validated. The book does contain two useful organising frameworks for construction of organisational survey and/or evaluation instruments – the “continua of leadership” and the “dimensions of leaderful development”. Raelin also provides the (not yet validated) “Leaderful Questionnaire” with which to assess your personal predisposition to each of the Four C's. Whilst I am in no doubt that what is being presented in this book has value, it appears that the author's focus has been on advancing his theory through the book and through occasional journal articles rather than through validating the theory through empirical research. “Leaderful” may yet be another buzzword that we need to deal with.

Raelin asserts that the starting point for the development of leaderful practice is personal self-awareness, especially learning how to “let go”. In the absence of validation of the theory, I would suggest that the most practical use for this book would be as a self-help guide. If you are in a position to influence others, then your modelling of appropriate behaviours would expand leaderful practice further in your organisation.

I support Raelin's contention that leaderful practice is preferable to traditional heroic leadership in our knowledge-based era. The book is also an excellent guide to the traditions of leadership, with good text coverage and some 280 endnotes/footnotes.

Raelin says that his target audience is practicing managers. He appears to be aiming especially for those who feel “undervalued, under utilised, and often overwhelmed with `busy' work”. His intent is to cast leadership in a new light and to potentially change our entire way of viewing it. This book is a valuable addition to the crowded field of leadership publications and it is a worthwhile purchase.

David CrombDepartment of Transport, Queensland, Australia