1. 15. Leadership Derailment
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2. Derailment
Analogy. Things going well – running on rails. Gone wrong – leader has gone off the rails.
SO why is it that some apparently very capable leaders fail?

3. Agenda Complexity. Ambiguity. Derailment research.
Slide: Work to look at successful senior leaders: Capacity for hard work, speed of learning (bright enough), ambitious, political skill & some luck.
Slide: political behaviour slide. Defines peoples behaviour. To be successful need to be wisdom to clever (but probably not cunning). Way to classify the political behaviour of leaders. Framework.

4. Complexity & Ambiguity
As you rise in leadership level the nature of the demand changes.
Two aspects increase:
Complexity.
Ambiguity.
Paradox of leadership: ‘Leader shows way, but may not be sure of the route’.
Area that creates greatest challenge is the context, i.e. complexity & ambiguity.
Increasing seniority has a relationship with these two.
Potential with promotion is ability to deal with increased complexity & ambiguity, to absorb and deal.
3 levels of leadership; further to top, greater complexity & ambiguity. Explore each.

5. Complexity
‘Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.’
Laurence J. Peter

6. Uncertainty Near certainty & agreement = management + navigation.
Little certainty & agreement = leadership + exploring.
Another way of looking at it.
Difference between management & leadership.

7. Arc of Uncertainty Operational Tactical Strategic Certain? Uncertain
Further you go up the organisation the less certainty one deals with. AT bottom: soldier/policeman, parade at certain times, knows what is expected of them. At top of the organisation the General is looking to the future and the future is always uncertain. At middle level the operational level you are spanning both areas: some certainty, some uncertainty. Challenge of middle level. Old philosophy (see quote).
When developing strategy a paradox for senior leader is required to develop plans into uncertainty. One of great challenges of senior leadership.
Role of the leader to absorb the uncertainty; not pass it down. To handle senior rank is ability to handle uncertainty & ambiguity. Have to find a way when there is no obvious route. Lay the way for others. Those following have a path and feeling of certainty. Those at the front are feeling the way. Map reading analogy
An aside:
Strategic level tries to give the organisation some certainty; try to tame uncertainty | allow them to focus on here and now
How do you pass across boundaries.
Analogous to Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle: Impossible to measure the present position (of a particle) and its future motion.
‘In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain’.
Pliny the Elder | 23 AD - 79 AD 7

8. Complexity (Chaos) Theory
‘The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. […] So, in a month's time, a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. […]’
Stewart | 1989 | Does God Play Dice?
The New Mathematics of Chaos.
String theory? Mathematics.
Fun Book: does God play dice.
Mathematically understand increasing complexity.
Can explain using planet’s weather system. Argument runs that flapping of single butterfly wing creates an air current, through cause and effect can transition to a force that can change direction of a tornado. Difficult to understand?
Additional Slide:
Zone 1 – Stable Zone | Tame problems | Tactical
Zone 2 – Instable Zone | Unpredictable over time, doesn’t return to original state, plate tectonics & tsunami | When disturbed moves away from original state | This is where the strategic level sits
Between 1 and 2 might be a wedge, Zone 3, operational space. Unpredictable behaviour within a bounded predictability. Edge of chaos.
Also called randomness (probability theory).
The systems of interest to complexity theory, under certain conditions, perform in regular, predictable ways; under other conditions they exhibit behaviour in which regularity and predictability is lost. Almost undetectable differences in initial conditions lead to gradually diverging system reactions until eventually the evolution of behaviour is quite dissimilar. The most graphic example of this is the oft-quoted assertion that the flapping of a butterfly’s wing can in due course decisively affect weather on a global scale.
The systems of interest are dynamic systems – systems capable of changing over time – and the concern is with the predictability of their behaviour. Some systems, though they are constantly changing, do so in a completely regular manner. For definiteness, think of the solar system, or a clock pendulum. Other systems lack this stability: for example, the universe (if we are to believe the ‘big bang’ theory), or a bicyclist on an icy road. Unstable systems move further and further away from their starting conditions until/unless brought up short by some over-riding constraint – in the case of the bicyclist, impact with the road surface.
Systems behaviour, then, may be divided into two zones, plus the boundary between them. There is the stable zone, where if it is disturbed the system returns to its initial state; and there is the zone of instability, where a small disturbance leads to movement away from the starting point, which in turn generates further divergence. Which type of behaviour is exhibited depends on the conditions which hold: the laws governing behaviour, the relative strengths of positive and negative feedback mechanisms. Under appropriate conditions, systems may operate at the boundary between these zones, sometimes called a phase transition, or the ‘edge of chaos’. It is here that they exhibit the sort of bounded instability which we have been describing – unpredictability of specific behaviour within a predictable general structure of behaviour.
Before the emergence of complexity theory, the unpredictability of such systems was attributed to randomness – a notion that bundles up all unexplained variation and treats it as best captured by probabilities. What actually happens on any given occasion is understood as the result of random choice among possible outcomes, but in proportion to their probabilities. Thus probability becomes a catch-all for what cannot be explained in terms of cause leading to effect; paradoxically the implication is that variation about predicted values results from as yet unexplained causal factors, and that as we understand more about what is going on the residual random element will be progressively reduced.
Use a parable or saying to explain. Complexity of global weather system. Flapping of wing of butterfly, ting change in atmospheric pressure, tiny interference stops a tornado happening.
Complexity theory: changes in systems over time.
Complexity theory: the behavour over time of
certain kinds of complex systems.

9. Complexity Theory | Dynamic Systems
Zone 3
Zone 1 – Stable Zone
When disturbed returns
to original state.
Zone 2 – Zone of Instability
When disturbed moves
away from original state.
Zone 3 - A Phase Transition
or the Edge of Chaos
Unpredictable behaviour
within a bounded predictability.
Zone 2
Zone 1
Capable of changing over time
Formally described as ‘Randomness’ (probability theory )– Random choice amongst
possible outcomes – but in proportion to their probabilities – Randomness induced by
hitherto unknown variables – the more we understand the variables the less ‘random’ the
possible outcome.
Three types of systems: explain each:
Zone 1 – we like to belong to because stays same, is predictable. Leading this is not difficult. Pond.
Zone 2 – when disturbed, moves away from original state, example of butterfly, unstable. Afghanistan.
Zone 3 – most large organisations sit in zone 3, they have the potential to be unstable. Most businesses, organisations and nations are here. Difficult to predict what will happen; but nonetheless it is bounded, not unstable, but just on the edge.
What about your organisation? In reality most live in 3. Change within predictable set of circumstances. Surfing on the edge of chaos. Move with the wave rather than fight it. Flexibility. Libya as an example. Avoid 2.
Useful model to think through.
Used to be called ‘probability theory’ - 20

10. Complexity Theory & Leadership
Analysis loses its primacy.
Contingency (cause & effect) loses its meaning.
Long-term planning becomes impossible
Visions become illusions
Consensus & strong cultures become dangerous.
Statistical relationships become dubious.
How to articulate sitting in third zone on edge of chaos?
Some interesting writing on this.
Things may be so complex cannot see the connection between cause and effect. Analysis seen as highest order of thinking. Cannot understand the problem.
Therefore long term planning, road maps, become impossible. Short term planning within wider framework is only possibility. Climate change. Parts of world, climate not predictable. Cannot predict the harvest.
Consensus: group think.
Stacey | 1993 | Strategic Management & Organisational Dynamics.

11. Complexity Theory & Leadership
Organisations not only adapt to environment, but help to create them.
Organisational success can come from contradiction as well as consistency.
That success may stem from being part of a self-reinforcing cycle, rather than from an explicit ‘vision’.
That revolutionary as well as incremental changes may lie on the route to organisational success.
How to articulate sitting in third zone on edge of chaos?
Some interesting writing on this.
Left hand column:
shape the environment |
answers don’t always come through linear thinking, often through tangential thinking, different systems. E.g. inventing thinkings, how much time for free-thinking, blue sky thinking, Post-It note, 3 M, invents things. Better Glue, Hymn Book. Thinking time, thinking budget. How many organisations do this. Too busy. Too busy fire-fighting.
Success emerges rather than from the vision of the Boss. Visions can become hostages to fortune. Complexity means that vision should provide a direction but not a destination. Destination may change due to ever-changing situation. Emergent strategy.
Rosenhead & Mingers | 2001 | Rational Analysis For a Problematic World Revisited

12. Ambiguity Rising seniority increases ambiguity:
many different conclusions & solutions may be drawn from the ‘facts’ presented.
Increasing uncertainty | longer time horizons | competing demands and stakeholders:
what happens to your decision making?
Increasingly have to deal with the non routine and the ill defined
Are you able to shape environments as well as respond to them
Factors = variables | So what deduction (first order), ask up to 6 times when at the edge of chaos to really understand.
Book: surfing the edge of chaos, surfer has to find path through wave.

13. Risk Complexity Uncertainty Ambiguity
Organisational risk ‘appetite’: Californian vs Stalinist.
Organisational ‘behaviour’ toward risk:
Attitude toward failure.
Performance assessment.
Impact on decision-making & innovation.
All about risk.
What is your organisations appetite for risk.
In military thought to be high, actually very low, casualty averse. Need to try to understand it.
Limit collateral damage.
Performance assessment | linked to annual appraisals | joined up.
Senior leaders, do they live up to standards they say?
Does your decision-making sit in Zone 1, in which case not in reality.

14. Why is it that many (apparently very able) individuals derail?
Derailment
Why is it that many (apparently very able) individuals derail?
Gen McChrystal | Failed | Sacked from being Comd ISAF in Afghanistan.
Why? See next slide.

15. The Peter Principle
‘In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence’
Peter & Hull | 1969 | The Peter Principle
Solutions:
Up and Out.
Demonstrate skills to succeed at next level.
Parallel career paths for technical staff.
The Peter Principle is a belief that in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization's members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability.
‘Up or out" policy that requires termination of an employee who fails to attain a promotion after a certain amount of time.
Refrain from promoting a worker until they show the skills and work habits needed to succeed at the next higher job.
Technical people may be very valuable for their skills but poor managers, and so provide parallel career paths.

16. Derailment
1. An insensitive, abrasive, or bullying style. 2. Aloofness or arrogance. 3. Betrayal of personal trust. 4. Self-centred ambition. 5. Failure to constructively face an obvious problem. 6. Micro-management. 7. Inability to select good subordinates. 8. Inability to take a long-term perspective. 9. Inability to adapt to a boss with a different style. 10.Overdependence on a mentor.
What can it look like?
McCall, Lombardo | 1983 | Off the track: Why and how successful executives get derailed

17. 14. Leadership & Personality
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