Abstract
This chapter explores 21st century leadership practices found in the theories of complexity and adaptive leadership as a path to addressing uncertainty, volatility, and complexity in an increasingly interconnected global world. In this exploratory chapter, the authors discuss the notion of leaders versus leadership and argue that leadership is a process that people do and not a role. The authors also assert that complexity and adaptability are key in addressing trauma that results from change that occurs inside and outside the organization.
TopIntroduction
A few short years ago, Byrd-Poller, Farmer and Ford (2017) the authors of The role of leaders in facilitating healing after organizational trauma, published a chapter on how leaders can facilitate healing and restore wellbeing after trauma in an organization has occurred. In that chapter, the authors examined the conceptual relationship between organizational trauma, organizational change, transformational leadership behaviors and their influence on engagement, wellbeing and professional identity. With the desire to continue and advance their exploration, the authors started with a simple question: What has changed since the publication of the previous chapter? The answer—everything. The world is in the midst of a global pandemic, there is social and political unrest and a global reckoning with racial inequity. What is unique about these changes? They are all external forces—changes over which no one in the organization or the world had any control. Furthermore, these aforementioned external forces have likely caused trauma in the lives of individuals and in organizations.
In this chapter, the authors revisit their assumptions about leadership, trauma and change. Previously, the authors argued that transformational leadership behaviors were required to promote wellbeing and healing when trauma resulted from a planned organizational change (Byrd-Poller et al., 2017). However, the connectedness of the world and organizations has created a complex environment in which individuals must work and thrive. In this new organizational context, what kind of leadership is needed? Further, what kinds of leadership foster healing and resilience from trauma in this new, complex world of work? The authors also expand on the notion of organizational change by broadening their perspective to include the effect that external forces in the form of unplanned environmental changes have on employees within organizations. They also explore how complexity and adaptive leadership may be a path to responding to organizational trauma and change that promotes healing and resilience and enhances the wellbeing of both individuals and organizations.
How This Chapter Is Organized
This chapter is organized as follows:
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Conceptual Framework describes the relevant variables discussed in this chapter and the relationship between them. This section discusses the authors’ previous framework as well as the revised conceptual framework.
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Background provides an overview of the key concepts and theories explored in this chapter.
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Overview of Complexity and Adaptive Leadership provides a high-level review of the literature on complexity and adaptive leadership theories.
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How External Forces Create Organizational Change focuses on how planned and unplanned changes can cause trauma in organizations.
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How External Forces Create Organizational Trauma discusses how external factors, such as pandemics, social unrest, natural disasters and mass shootings can cause trauma in organizations.
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Why it Matters: Discussion and Implications for Practice argues that the right forms of leadership can help organizations to heal after a trauma has occurred.
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Conclusion summarizes the concepts, theories, insights and recommendations for the variables in this chapter.
The next section discusses the conceptual framework and sets the foundation for the discussion in this chapter.
Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 depicts the authors’ original conceptual framework. In this framework, the authors focused on planned organizational change as a cause of trauma to employees in organizations. Further, specific leader behaviors were necessary to alleviate trauma and promote healing through restoring professional identity, increasing engagement and wellbeing.
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework (2017)
Key Terms in this Chapter
Organizational Change: The field of management theory that focuses on the stages that companies go through as they evolve.
Wellbeing: The state of employees' mental and physical health that results from interactions inside and outside the workplace.
Complexity Leadership: Frames leadership as a complex interactive dynamic from which adaptive outcomes, such as learning, innovation, and adaptability emerge.
Resilience: The ability of organization and people to anticipate, prepare for, respond, and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper.
Empathy: The ability to share and see the world through another person’s eyes.
Complex Systems Theory: States that complex systems are composed of many components which may interact with each other. These interactions are unpredictable, dynamic and multi-dimensional.
Organizational Healing: The work of repairing practices, routines, and structures and strengthening organizational functioning through social relationships as the result of disruptions.