Friday, November 8, 2013

Moving away from reliance on the "GREAT MAN" model of leadership


"In summary, we suggest that the current working environment, with its emphasis on connectivity and knowledge, demands that we move away from a reliance on the ‘great man’ model of leadership and towards new models that see leadership as a shared activity based on generating shared organisational knowledge and learning. If organisations only develop a small cadre of senior leaders they may find it difficult to generate the necessary knowledge, energy and momentum as employees continue to look upwards for answers and authority. 

Developing the sort of leadership which encourages a shared sense of purpose and personal responsibility has to start by acknowledging that no one person can hold all of the answers and with a belief that we can only find them by working together. How to build a spirit of inquiry in which all voices are heard then becomes a key leadership task."

Questioning leadership
Moira Nangle
Christina Schwabenland
Nigel Springett

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Captain Lambert,

I am a wee bit surprised that you seem to endorse such writings as this, you did not outright state your opinion but you did publish this writing on your blog and us readers of this blog take that as an endorsement unless you say something that might oppose these stated views.
I have told you in the past that I looked at my Commanding Officers as nearly God like figures in most instances and who is the best person to trust to provide the leadership required to perform the daily mission of the ship? And if you are required to do battle during these days do you really think the strategy of battle performance should be determined by “all voices on that ship”, I am not sure that the mess cooks, compartment cleaners, the ships office personnel and the folks in the engine room are competent to make the decisions required to win the day in battle. The ships office might be able find a dictionary to determine the spelling of organizational but they would not understand how to launch missiles to properly defend the ship.
This questioning of leadership can only come from the sources of liberal/Socialist thinking that are making great attempts to change the way that the United States military has performed in the past so they can downgrade the great Navy leaders such as John Paul Jones, Nimitz, Halsey, Farragut and other Captains who helped insure that our country was held safe from any enemy. And I do not think they asked the mess cook’s advice on how to conduct the battles they had to carry out.

Very Respectfully,
Navyman834