Rowitz On Leadership

When you attend a workshop, it is often beneficial to change your seat after each break. Changing your seat tends to energize you and to give you a fresh perspective on the content being presented. In my October 2010 posting entitled A Thinking Continuum, I began a discussion of the fact that leadership decisions are made from different thinking perspectives. I also discussed the thinking model presented by Heifetz and Linsky in their book LEADERSHIP ON THE LINE about moving from the dance floor to the balcony. This posting will explore and extend the discussion of the dance floor and the balcony. I think there may be a second balcony on which complexity issues are addressed. Synergistic leaders must view things and situations from multiple perspectives and synthesize the information gotten from these different perspectives into a comprehensive view of their leadership world.

In my October article, I equated dance floor thinking to a linear thinking perspective. When you are operating from the dance floor, you are concerned with detail. You are also concerned with keeping situations in balance and as organized as possible. You are a participant in the activities of the dance floor. You concentrate on getting certain results. You have key roles to play. A hierarchical organization feels comfortable. Working in a programmatic silo feels safe. You know the rules and generally what is expected of you. If you are promoted to a supervisory position, your perspective begins to change. You seem to be leaving the dance floor by going up one or two steps to the balcony. You are still a key player but your job responsibilities undergo a key shift in perspective. Being a manager is different. Another promotion and you seem to be moving more away from the dance floor and up a couple of more steps to the first balcony.

Eventually, it becomes your task to observe the functioning and activities of several of the programs in your organization. You are on the first balcony and trying to understand how your organization works systematically. Systems thinking and the big picture now becomes your modus operandi. A move from a more traditional management orientation to a leadership orientation becomes a requirement of systems thinking and working from the first balcony. You notice the structure of things and how the various parts interact. You can look at the dance floor and see how tasks are performed and how potential problems disrupt the activities of the dance floor. You begin to use the tools of systems thinkers to analyze events. The system archetypes guide your action activities. You begin to observe things and events off the dance floor in the hallway and outside the building. You begin partnering activities with external collaborators.

There is a second set of steps up to another balcony. Events and activities appear less structured as you move up the second set of steps. Your synergistic leadership approach allows you to see the mess beyond the structure. You need to expand your leadership beyond your organization and cultivate new relationships as your activities become more complex and less predictable. Structures become less permanent and seem to grow out of the new cultivated relationships. Social networks expand and contract due to increasing social network relationships. You notice more chaotic situations that demand creative interventions to resolve. In one of my workshops “The Paradox of Inside/Outside,” I suggest that many organizations are view mechanistically. This is the dance floor view. As we move from the first balcony to the second balcony, we see as Margaret Wheatley has pointed out that human beings seek organization in their lives and it takes messes to get us to organization. Organization is clearly about developing new relationships and new structures that are co-evolving. It is change that is the organizing force. Order is about our ability to influence our organization and communities to organize, reorganize, and continue to grow more complex. The second balcony can clearly be an exciting place that increases our understanding of the activities on the dance floor and the first balcony.