The shift in leadership that Obolensky (2010) describes
refers to leadership becoming more spread out in the organization to include
employees, commonly called bottom up leadership (p. 35). In my organization, I
believe this happens to a certain extent. Employees are asked by their leaders
what their opinions are about pressing issues and what possible solutions look
like. However, it is still ultimately up to management how issues are handled
and whether decisions made at lower levels are acceptable and effective. According
to Bill Hampton, Executive Director of marketing and Student Retention for ERAU
Worldwide, the attitude of leadership in general has been shifting to empowering
employees to make decisions and come up with solutions to problems that plague
them. This does not mean that bottom up leadership is occurring the way
Obolensky (2010) describes it.
In order for this to occur, Obolensky (2010) says that
leaders must be willing to admit that they do not know the answers to all of
the questions and be willing to open dialogues with those who know (p. 36). Do
I see this happening? Not really. From my point of view, the hierarchy
continues to grow instead of diminish and leaders are still not at a point
where they are willing to relinquish the decision-making control they have.
The idea of forming cross-functional teams is one that has
been successful in bottom up leadership (Jurkowitz, 1998, p.1). Cross-functional
teams are given the ability to form ideas and come up with solutions for the
organization. The fact that many different stakeholders are involved in this
process, in my opinion, makes the decisions more sound and easily adopted by
others since they had a say in the final decisions. In my organization,
although we may occasionally work with another team on a project, we do not
have cross-functional teams consistently working together. These
cross-functional teams have to be allowed the freedom to make decisions and
come up with solutions. These teams allow employees to learn about different
aspects of the organization and transparency begins to emerge within the
organization.
In addition, for bottom up leadership to work, employees
need to have the desire to make the organization better and ideas to make it
happen to have a significant impact on management (McCrimmon, p.1). McCrimmon
mentions that employees can be seen as leaders this way without being in
charge. This article had a real impact on me. When I have thought about the
term leadership in the past, I usually associate the term with a manger of
people. However, they are not synonymous. People who show initiative and
pioneer a cause are leaders no matter where they are in the organization. A
bottom up style of leadership demonstrates this concept well.
The implication on strategy would be that employees can now
feel as though they are a real part of making the vision happen. Employees
would have the chance to broach new ideas that align with the company’s
strategy. The strategy itself would not have to change but how it is achieved
would. Managers would no longer assign tasks related to the strategy to
employees but rather they would seek out opinions from them as to how the
strategy or vision could be realized.
Seems like a winning proposition to me. Everyone likes to
feel valued and by making them a part of the process, that goal can be
achieved.
Jurkowitz, M. (1998, Feb 18). Bottom-up newspaper
leadership. Boston Globe. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/403928365?accountid=27203
McCrimmon, M. (n.d.). Bottom-up leadership. Retrieved
from http://www.leadersdirect.com/bottom-up-leadership
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Obolensky, N. (2010). Complex adaptive leadership.
(1st edition.). London, UK: Gower/Ashgate
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