1. Peter Senge, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, Chapter 18
The Leader’s New Work
Peter Senge, THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE, Chapter 18

2. Self-directed teams require a new leadership style
The traditional style of clear directions and well-intentioned manipulation doesn’t work
People with a sense of their own vision and commitment would naturally reject efforts of a leader to get them committed.
One leader did not know what to do, now that he had a self-directed team
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Prepared by James R. Burns

3. Prepared by James R. Burns
Our view of leaders….
Is wrong
Especially in the West, leaders are heros--great men who rise to the occasion
This view reinforces a focus on events and charismatic control of those events rather than on systemic forces and collective learning
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Prepared by James R. Burns

4. Our view of leaders, continued
At its heart, the traditional view of leadership is based on assumptions of people’s powerlessness, their lack of personal vision and inability to master the forces of change
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Prepared by James R. Burns

5. The new view of leadership in learning organizations
Leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers
Leaders build organizations where people continually expand their capacity to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models
That is, leaders are responsible for creating a culture where learning is rewarded
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Prepared by James R. Burns

6. Prepared by James R. Burns
Leader as Designer
Suppose your org is an ocean liner and you are the leader. What is your role?
The commonest answer, not surprisingly, is “the captain.”
Other less common answers include the helmsman, the navigator, the social director (making sure everybody is involved, and communicating)
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Prepared by James R. Burns

7. The neglected leadership role is …
the designer of the ship.
No one has a more sweeping influence than the designer.
It does no good for the captain of the ship to say turn starboard 30 deg. when the designer only allowed for 15 deg.
Yet NO ONE thinks of the designer when they think of the leader’s new role!!
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Prepared by James R. Burns

8. Why did no one thing of the designer
Lao-tzu: little credit goes to the designer
The functions of design are rarely visible
Consequences today are the result of work done long ago in the past
Design work today will show its consequences long in the future
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Prepared by James R. Burns

9. What must leaders design?
Policies, strategies, “systems,” organizations, specifically
Selection policies
Vision strategies
Value systems
Culture systems
Measurement systems
Rewards systems
Criteria by which excellence will be determined
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Prepared by James R. Burns

10. Prepared by James R. Burns
And what of Design?
It is an integrative initiative
All of the parts must fit together and work well together as a whole under a variety of circumstances
The leader must view the firm as a “system” -- Ray Strata
Corporate executives must become organizational architects -- Ed Simon
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Prepared by James R. Burns

11. Gives rise to a new discipline: Business Design
Must loose focus on the P&L statement
Look at the long term, instead
Have to get away from piecemeal reactions to problems
Have to integrate the five component technologies
Must integrate vision, values, purpose, systems thinking, and mental models
The synergy of the disciplines can propel an organization to major breakthroughs
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Prepared by James R. Burns

12. First tasks of Business Design
Design the governing ideas--purpose, vision, and core values
Building shared vision is important because it fosters a longer-term orientation and an imperative for learning
Get the systems thinking going early on
Get the concept of mental models and surfacing underlying assumptions going early as well
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Prepared by James R. Burns

13. Subsequent tasks of Business Design
Design the learning processes
Get personal mastery going
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14. Prepared by James R. Burns
The Leader as Steward
Leaders have a purpose story
This is an overarching explanation of why they do what they do
how their organizations need to evolve
how that evolution is part of something larger
Most gifted leaders have a “larger story”
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Prepared by James R. Burns

15. Prepared by James R. Burns
The Leader as Teacher
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16. Prepared by James R. Burns
Creative Tension
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17. How can such Leaders be Developed
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18. Prepared by James R. Burns
Time to Choose
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19. Copyright C 2000 by James R. Burns
All rights reserved world-wide. CLEAR Project Steering Committee members have a right to use these slides in their presentations. However, they do not have the right to remove this copyright or to remove the “prepared by….” footnote that appears at the bottom of each slide.
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Prepared by James R. Burns
Prepared by James R. Burns