How do you share leadership: Consider leaderful practice

The Ethical Case for Leaderful Practice

I have made the case for leaderful practice in my writings, in which I suggest that no organization need be dependent on any one individual to mobilize decisions and action on behalf of anybody else.  Everyone can be involved in leadership, not only all together but at the same time.  In other words, leadership can be collective and concurrent.  In this article, I would like to make the further case for the ethical basis for leaderful practice.  We might start by considering that ‘leaderfulness’ is itself associated with a fundamental humanistic principle that can be simply stated as follows:  When people who have a stake in a venture are given every chance to participate in and affect the venture, including its implementation, their commitment to the venture will be heightened.  No matter what form the behavioral change may take - be it through participative management, total quality management, or organizational learning – the leaderful approach requires equal participation in leadership and decision making at all levels and in multiple decision processes.

In this way, the leaderful form of leadership sustains an ethical infrastructure as a democratic practice.  It is consistent with democratic practice because of its encouragement of the equal contribution of all engaged actors within the public forum.  It is not democracy in its representative sense but in its endorsement of public engagement of all those affected by the decision and activity at hand.  It promotes discovery through free expression and direct participation by involved parties through their own exploratory, creative, and communal discourses.  In this sense, it is as much concerned with the subjective and discourse ethics of individuals, facing at times an obstinate organization, as with an organizational or business ethics, seeking to manage the ethical behavior of organizational members.

Let’s consider the democratic principle underlying leaderful practice in a little more detail.  This principle can lead to a range of ethical behaviors among which are two that require further elaboration:  dialogue and meaning making.  The first, dialogue, can be characterized as constituting conversations that begin with a stance of nonjudgmental inquiry toward the other.  At the same time, speakers commit to submitting their own ideas and views to critical scrutiny.  Further, participants to dialogue entertain the view that something new or unique might arise from a mutual inquiry that could reconstruct the participants’ view of reality.

Dialogue, then, emphasizes the value of listening in human behavior to produce harmonious yet pluralist communities.  Listeners, no matter their station in life, defer in deep respect to the contribution of the speaker.  They also listen to the content and rhythm of speakers in group settings.  They listen with a critical ear to things that are unsaid as much as what are said.  When it is their turn to talk, they speak from the heart and solicit inquiry regarding their own viewpoints and suppositions.  They become willing to face their own vulnerability that they may lose control, that their initial suppositions may turn out wrong, or that no solution may be found.  By suspending any preconceptions, conversants attempt to reduce the dreaded condition of fear in the group that someone’s ideas might be ridiculed or rejected without open-hearted consideration.  People acknowledge their positions and power so that no one may come to manipulate or dampen the expression of others.  They point out issues arrived at through false reasoning, through hidden assumptions, or through suppression of overlooked or hidden voices.  In finding their own voice, they “speak up” in ways not merely sanctioned by privileged social authorities but also because of their self-identified interests and commitments to their community.   The resulting dialogue can be characterized as a creative interaction among multiple and contradictory voices that can come to terms with their natural differences.

The second ethical behavior that emanates directly from leaderful practice’s democratic orientation is that of meaning making.  In classic leadership we are often led to believe that a critical function is that of setting the vision for the organization.  But this approach presupposes that the vision is in the mind of the leader rather than emergent from the members of the community who are active participants in their own collective affairs.  Rather than rely on individual visionaries, leaderful practice calls on meaning makers, wherever they may “sit” in the organization, to offer meaning to the community, especially when it may face contested terrain or periods of uncertainty or insecurity.  These meaning makers are not interested in leadership as a means of ego fulfillment, nor, consistent with especially Eastern philosophical traditions, are they seeking to push to make things happen in the world.  Rather, they allow a process to unfold.  They see themselves as providing a service to their community, speaking modestly mainly to shed light and create harmony, valuing discernment over impulsion, and looking for synergy among those engaged.  Often in the sheer act of framing the reality that is observed, the meaning maker consolidates the prevailing wisdom of the collective community.  In the ensuing conversation, there is likely to be deep exploration of ethical dilemmas, recognition of insights based upon alternative framings, empathic awareness based on public and concurrent reflection in practice, and appreciation for the need to either make choices or transcend them in the deliberative decision-making process.