Rowitz On Leadership

In several blog articles , I have discussed meta-leadership in terms of where the perspective takes us in the future. In THE LEADERSHIP CHANGE TRIANGLE(Feb. 2009), I discussed the importance of reciprocity in the development of relationships inside and outside the public health agency. The article also discussed transformational leaders as those systems thinkers who are concerned about policy development, new applications of the systems perspective to change initiatives, and the importance of maintaining ethical standards in these change activities. In META-LEADERSHIP 2.0(April 2009), the issue of networks was discussed and the need to be aware that our partners are often embedded in a number of different network relationships. There is also a need to recognize the importance of the differences in culture in the organizations that our partners represent. Meta-leadership is also affected by the impact of the Internet on our activities. THE RURAL PUBLIC HEALTH SYNERGISTIC LEADER(June 2009) explored the issue of partnerships in small communities where large organizational entities do not exist and where leaders must develop skills to engage both community grassroots leaders as well as organizations to address community priorities in all sorts of public health initiatives. The meta-leader must develop into a synergistic leader who works to create new organizational models that are innovative and adaptive to the communities that they serve. The synergistic leader works to increase the value of the relationships built so that there is more that what was there at the beginning. In SILOS AND PARADIGMS(May 2009), I discussed the difficulty in working across organizational silos where governing paradigms increase barriers between these silos. Leaders become paradigm busters who redefine boundaries and remove barriers to change.

The concept of connectivity that is used by the proponents of meta-leadership simplifies complex relationships between partners. This may be partially due to the fact that the meta-leadership model was initially developed to explore relationship-building in a public health emergency environment. The future requires that we be able to move not only across silos but also across different public health challenges. Arthur Himmelman has argued that it is important to look at the building of relationships as moving from a form of networking to more complex collaboration. However, this clearly takes time to accomplish. Meta-leaders tend to become expert at building relationships across silos. Once connectivity occurs, the partners often address short term solutions to a crisis situation. Heifetz and Linsky in LEADERSHIP ON THE LINE(2002) stated that short term fixes do not change the system. It is long term change that is adaptive and that leads to transformation. Connectivity must not only involve relationship-building. The leader must be able to pull together a different set of leaders for transformational change. The synergistic leader sees beyond the gathering of the partners to the structures that will be needed to change systems for the better. Synergistic leaders understand complexity and how changing technology affects the models that are developed and the changes that are needed for communities to function at a higher level of adaptability. The types of connections that get created with given subsets of partners becomes an important part of relationship management needed by synergistic leaders. Perhaps we need to explore this more under the rubric of “connectivity connections.”

Connectivity connections are impacted by the commitment of other partners from within the silo or from organizations outside of the one of which you are a member. Even with the best of intentions, the leader may not be able to get other organizations or individuals to play the game. In addition, the levels of connectivity or the structures developed to contain the meta-leadership group may take the form of a coalition, an alliance(issue-oriented relationship) or a contractual partnerships(See Rowitz,2009, Chpt. 9). The life-span of the connectivity connection will also vary depending on the reasons why the connections exist.

Synergism is about the end product of the connectivity connections leading to value-added results. The synergistic leader understands systems and complex social relationships. Transformation guides these leaders from policy development to strategic implementation of these new transformational policies.

This posting is partially based on the American Public Health Association session on Silos and Paradigms, November 9,2009