intro to systems theory and leadership

Global Context for 21st Century Leadership

Master of Arts in LeadershipSaint Mary’s College of California

October 25, 2009

Systems theory is a contemporary telling of an ancient and perennial story about the world as alive, dynamic and interrelated.

Indigenous world-view both ancient and contemporary.

Pre-modern Europe.

Counter-culture MovementsRomantic, Utopian, Arts and Crafts.

Now I a fourfold vision see,And a fourfold vision is given to me; ‘Tis fourfold in my supreme delightAnd threefold in soft Beulah’s nightAnd twofold always. May God us keepFrom Single vision & Newton’s Sleep.

~William Blake 1802

New and alternative paradigms of knowledge developed during the 20th Century.• New discoveries in the sciences• Technological advances in

telecommunication, computers, space exploration

• New developments in philosophy and psychology

• Introduction of eastern religions

Systems Theory emerged in response to the need to make sense of organized complexity in their natural contexts.

• Draws from concepts and metaphors of the life sciences.

• When applied to complex social systems fosters understanding in terms of:

– Wholeness– Relationships– Pattern– Processes– Context

Systems theory emerged as a scientific framework following the World War IILudwig Van Bertalanffy “General Systems Theory”

Norbert Wiener“Cybernetics”

Gregory Bateson“Steps to Ecology of Mind”

Influenced many academic disciplines, such as:

– Biology– Sociology – Economics – Organizational Theory– Management Sciences– And more.

“Lack of systemic wisdom is always punished”

~Gregory Bateson

Recently, Systems Theory has made inroads in leadership studies and practice.

• Wilfred Drath ~ “The Deep Blue Sea”

• Peter Senge ~ “The Fifth Discipline”

• Margaret Wheatley ~ “Leadership and the New Sciences”

• Nathan Harter ~ “Clearings in the Forest”

• All promote Systems Theory as a generative map for the kind of territory within which leadership practitioners live and act.

Map and Territory• What kind of map is systems

theory?

• What value does it have for the practice of leadership?

Map/Territory--Theory/Phenomena

Maps will render territory in very particular ways, obscuring some things while illuminating others.

What is the territory of Leadership in the 21st Century?

The Leadership Dynamic• Relationships • Complex social organizations• Dynamic change• Mutuality• Purposeful

“Leaders are part of a dynamic rather than being the dynamic itself. Leaders are one element of an interactive network that is far bigger than they.”

(Marion and Uhl-Bien, 2001, p. 26).

21st Century context of leadership ~ interdependent and turbulent world.

• Globalization.• Continual and technological change.• Social and cultural upheaval and

change.• Rapid rates of ecological decline.• Exponential knowledge gain.

Systems Theory as a Generative Map

• Orients us toward relationships, wholeness, pattern, complexity, change, interconnections, contexts, process, emergence, etc.

• Necessary in the dynamic, pluralistic, and interdependent world of the 21st century.

• Leadership within a systems view becomes a way of engaging and participating in the living world in service of its health and well-being.

A Living Systems View

Relocate human existence from outside to inside the living world.

Recognize social organizations as living systems embedded in a multiple contexts, which are dynamic, complex, and emergent.

Five Characteristics of Living Systems

• Provides lenses through which to view organizational life.

• Reveals new patterns.• Initiates inquiry leading to deepened

understanding and more skillful actions.

Five Characteristics of Living Systems

Organized wholesSelf-stabilizingSelf-creatingNested HierarchicallyPurposeful

Organized Whole • The difference between:

– a heap and a whole; – a collection of people and a family, an

organization, or a community; – a bunch of trees and a forest.

Organization– An arrangement of relations whose property

derive from interaction among the component parts.

Self-Stabilizing• Maintenance in response to

changes in the environment.• Negative feedback• Homeostasis

– Thermostat– Maintaining blood temperature

Self-creating• The capacity for innovation and

creativity in response to environmental stimuli.

• Positive Feedback--reinforcing vs. balancing

• Emergence• Adaptation

Nested Hierarchically• Means “Sacred Governance.”• Levels of complexity not of rank or

worth• Systems within Systems• Context

Purposeful• A systems “reason to be.” • Defines both identity and boundary• Property of the system• The “blueprint” • Mechanical versus living

Leadership in the 21st Century

Requires a new consciousness a way of viewing and thinking about the world as relational, dynamic and interdependent.

By applying this map to organizational life and

leadership it fosters understanding leading to more constructive activity in service of its purpose.