The Leader Who Had No Title

One thought on “The Leader Who Had No Title”

  1. Luis – I’m going to go out on a limb here and respond without having read the book, and without even looking at the video (cause it’s 2:00 a.m. here in Southern California and my wife and kids are asleep and this is a subject near and dear to my heart).

    As you may or may not recall, I am involved with a group of people who are students of, among others, W. Edwards Deming and Russell Ackoff. Drs. Deming and Ackoff were both proponents of greater democratization of the workplace. We often use the phrase “lead from where you are”, meaning don’t wait until you’re in a position of authority to do something positive. Take the initiative now.

    This does present some problems, though. For instance, I have been told there are three types of authority: Technical, Moral, and Positional. I was once told I had the first two and, therefore, didn’t need the third. This was, to a great extent, true. However, not having the third did present one major problem. Along with not having the positional authority came not having a budget.

    Nevertheless, if I’m getting the drift of where this concept is going (and I’m basing my understanding on conversations we’ve had, etc.), I think this concept is extremely important to how we’re going to go about getting things done in the future, as well as how that change is going to come about. I think what you’re getting at here is something that can make today’s Managers and Executives very nervous, especially in a traditionally command and control environment.

    This is a deep and contentious subject, I’m sure. There’s a lot more involved than we can discuss on this one page, or at this one moment, but I hope I do understand what you and Sharma are getting at (even without reading the book :). I look forward to seeing how this all plays out. Actually, I look forward to manning the virtual barricades and helping make it happen as I’d like to see it. Thanks for bringing up another provocative subject.

    Rick

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