Given the state of the world, the 6th Extinction coming our way, it is time to THINK OUT OF THE BOX about a new approach to leadership. We call it ENSEMBLE LEADERSHIP, where together we are leaders, in many ways, doing something with VIRTUE about the global sustainability nine planetary limits (see article by Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin III, F. S., Lambin, E., ... & Nykvist, B. (2009). Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society, 14(2).):
Following is just one way to organize and align the relations between the 17 goals. Some are means to achieve other goals. For example, we can t\start with #4 Quality Education.
This is possible using Ensemble Leadership Theory and Method. See article by Rosile, Boje, and Claw (2016). Thank you.
Table 2: Leadership in SEPTET, ENSEMBLE, and EPIC ESTRANGEMENT Theater Modes (Boje)
Boje’s SEPTET In the box DEAD Leadership |
Boje’s Out of 'XYZ' box with an ENSEMBLE Leadership Theater of GOOD LEADER (figure 1 below) |
Brecht’s EPIC Theater of ESTRANGEMENT Back in-the-box Figure 2 below). |
1. PLOT (X Behaviors in ONE PLOT) Plot detached from spectator’s life |
1. PLOT is Ensemble; Many leaders in multiple plots acting together, including the spectator’s responsibility |
1. PLOT is answerable in Spectators; own living story life; Montage of non-linear plots |
2. CHARACTER (Traits) Stay the same; Character role and actor personae stay the same in performance |
2. CHARACTERS in TAMARA- Land go through changes in Personae from room to room; SOW AND REAP principle of changes; Characters wear different masks in each room/scene to scene. |
2. CHARACTERS’ Role & Actor’s own Self mingle on stage; Character and Actor’s own Self go through Transformations; Actors step out of character to talk to audience; take off their character masks. |
3 THEME (Y Power) is INSTRUMENTALISM; no obligation to intervene in suffering because its just ‘survival of the fittest’; 50% of population live on $2.50 a day’ while 1% accumulate all the global wealth. |
3. THEME is Answerability Ethics to intervene when you are one person in event-ness of Being there in suffering; Answerability to bring sustainability to the 7th generation |
3. THEME is the Grotesque; avoid anything beautiful because world is in suffering; ½ population makes $2.50 a day; population will be 11 billion in year 2100; Hold spectators accountable |
4. DIALOGUE (Z Voices & Participation); Bureaucracy has top-down no bottom-up |
4. Simultaneous in different rooms of TAMARA- Land, with simultaneous storytelling, chasing stories from room to room, & you cannot be everywhere at once. |
4. DIALOGUE set aside as Narrator can sit on stage, and invite Estrangement to snap spectators out of the Catharsis of fear and pity entertainment |
5. RHYTHM (Events are linear, never cyclical, some downward spiral, but never rhizomatic; in traditional leadership its LINEAR progress or tragedy |
5. RHYTHM is multiple Antenarrative processes (fore-having; fore-structuring; fore-conceiving; fore-telling; & fore-caring) |
5. RHYHTM is disrupted, halted, paused, as narrator or actor let the audience in on an Untold Story; The main concept of Verfremdungseffekt (“alienation”). In order to induce a critical frame in spectator to break rhythm of their own complacent life |
6. SPECTACLE (local & Global Situation); Globalization of slavery & poverty; No Golden Rule’ Spectator & Spectacle united in escapism |
6. SPECTACLE is not Lone Hero or Strong Leader, rather its Ensemble of leaders where Golden Rule is needed; Spectator is accountable for the Spectacle; to not do evil globally while claiming ethics in one’s own locality |
6. SPECTACLE is disconnected from Spectator; Floodlights visible flood stage with Light & no shadows |
7. FRAMES (of Organizing) It’s the of Taylorism-Fayolism-Weberism (TFW virus) exclusively; Spectator is bystander, getting entertained |
7. FRAMES are transforming to get out of TFW virus & into Liberatory Praxis; In TAMARA- Land spectator joins actors on stage and break the frame |
7. FRAMES are there to ESTRANGE the bystander role of spectators, to invite them to go on stage and be actors, to intervene, to make decisions |
Ole Kirkeby has an OUT-of-the-BOX leadership model called the Greek Square, where Leadership is a CARE for Freedom in 4 dimensions: The Good, The True, The Just, and The Beautiful. The problem is that the Greek Square (Figure 1 below) has been replaced by the EFFICIENCY Square (Figure 2 below), which reduced The Good ethics leadership with The Efficient performativity optimizing leadership (Newfield, 2008: 44).
Figure 1: GREEK SQUARE of Leadership (Drawing by Boje, Nov 4 2016)
0= Care is what makes LEADERSHIP OUT-of-the-BOX. Care of 4 Freedoms means an leadership ethic of 'Care.' For example our university narrates itself as a "Community of Care" in its fund raising. This is rhetoric, but to actually enact Care the 4 freedoms must be an antenarrative reality (fore-caring, bringing Care into being). There are several kinds of ways to Fore-Care in Boje and colleagues Antenarrative Theory. Antenarrative Theory is a way to be foreward-looking about bringing potential futures into existence. That means preparing in advance, instead of being lemmings, headed over the cliff.
With some fore-caring, by preparing in advance, there is another way to go!
1= The GOOD Leader is ethically responsible to prepare in advance, to be answerable (ethically for a sustainable future) for more than the bottom line and more than selfish-greed, is able to fore-have the greater social, planetary, and economic good. This placed Leadership Out-of-the-Box. For more on answerability ethics see Boje (2008, Storytelling Organizations book).
2= The TRUE Leader is a scientist, testing alternatives, to find the TRUE path, the authentic way of Being.
3= The JUST Leader is equitable, participative, power-sharing (as Mary Parker Follett puts it), ensemble leader (Rosile, Booje & Nez, 2016), a champion of Civil Rights, gender equality, and economic opportunity for all.
4- The BEAUTIFUL Leader is a champion of self-managing groups, champtions the indigenous craft culture and its knowledge by apprenticeship, as much as formally college-educated knowledge.
After 1973 oil embargo crisis, and some more economic crises (2008 mortgage banking scandal) the GOOD Leader was displaced and replaced by the EFFICIENT Leader. Corporate and University Leadership went back in-the-box
Figure 2: EFFICENCY SQAURE where Economic Market Performativity (work till you drop/die)replaces THE GOOD, and trumps the True, the Just, andthe Beautiful) [Drawing by Boje, Nov 4 2016).
1= The EFFICIENT Leader reduced the GOOD to only the bottom line, to fore-have the myth of 'Free Market' in what is known as an 'optimization' narrative by means of performativity maximization (which means work till you drop dead) to optimized the top-down administrative bureaucratic control (putting leadership back in-th-box). There is more to THE GOOD than just Efficiency & Market Forces. Free Market means speculative capitalism, and one economic crisis after another (stock market crash 1929, oil embargo 1973, stock market crash 2008, the oil and gas crisis in New Mexico 2016 ongoing).
2= The TRUE Leader becomes the UNTRUE Leader, and steps back in-the-box, and does Taylorism (central expert planning of work, Fayol administrative order, and Weberian bureucaract (the TFW virus) becomes the way of Being an inauthentic Leader addicted to TFW.
3= The JUST Leader becomes the UNJUST Leader, is inequitable, non-participative, power-centeredg, divides and conqures instead of being a champion of Civil Rights, gender equality, and economic opportunity for all.
4- The BEAUTIFUL Leader becomes the UGLY Leader, deskilling not only the crafts but the college-educated positions, in order to lower the pay of everyone. This deskilling of the labor process allows extraction of savings of lower skilled people in middle management to supervise lower-skilled professions, and lower skilled craft people --> then send the money to the 1% wealthy class, while the poverty and middle class do not keep up with inflation, and fall further behind. Definitely back in-the-box is an ugly leadership praxis.
copyright
David Boje, December 7, 2000; revised Nov 4 2016