Creating Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide - Manual / Resource - Page 60
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By contrast, in what we call “Leaderful Ecologies” (or “ecologies
of leaderful practitioners”) in Figure 1, power, agency, roles,
rights, and responsibility are distributed across a group of people
whose members take on certain tasks they feel called upon to do
or as a situation requires. Every person on such a team may step
up to the plate for a time, and then step back from that position
to let someone else take the lead when the context changes.
Members hone their skills through training and repeated practice,
but their value as members of the team does not depend
on just one set of skills displayed in one type of role. In such
leaderful ecologies, members learn together, share strengths,
and dynamically compensate for each other’s weaknesses. As a
group, they have the greatest flexibility and resilience in the face
of adversity or unexpected needs. Such groups, when successful,
also actively work with different dimensions of diversity, because
they see them as a strength and resource.
Their value as members
of the team does not
depend on just one set
of skills displayed in one
type of role.
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Leadership for complex sustainability challenges
Sustainability challenges are complex and linked across sectors,
scales, and geographies. No single person understands these
challenges fully or has sole management responsibility for them.
This recognition is at the very root of why a different approach
to knowledge generation and action was called for – hence the
emergence of TDR and practice. Clearly, the “King”/”Queen”
leadership paradigm (Fig. 1), with assumed or inherited
leadership qualities of individuals in “top” positions, is inherently
incapable of addressing complex sustainability challenges. And
while intentional learning, training, practice, and experience can
vastly improve leadership skills, even the “Master” approach
to leadership depends too narrowly on just a single individual.
Anyone who has ever felt “in over their head,” overextended,
burnt-out, alone, or unsupported has found themself in this
unenviable situation in the face of complex, overwhelming
problems.
By contrast, distributed leadership assumes that a variety
of perspectives, viewpoints, skills, intelligences, and ways of
being and knowing are needed to solve complex problems.
Intentionality is required if one wishes to put together the
“right” team, not just a “lucky team” that happens to work well
together. The more emphasis is placed on distribution of agency
and power, the more inclusive and engaged the team becomes.
And the more team members are actively learning-oriented, the
greater the chance that a highly competent, flexible, and adaptive
team emerges that can effectively navigate the challenges of
complex problems (including value and worldview differences,
conflicts, trade-offs, uncertainties, and only partial solutions).
In-depth exploration of leadership
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