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How would you summarise the responsibilities of a leader? To inspire? To influence? To motivate? To coach? To guide?
Organic Leadership is a concept, framework and set of tools we have created at Gemstone to equip managers to lead in an increasingly human economy. In developing it, we wanted to tackle the need that businesses face to differentiate their product or services by leveraging organisation-wide creativity, strategic thinking, and skills unique to each team-member. It was also driven by an understanding of what we as participants in the human economy rightly demand from our jobs: purpose, impact, recognition, human connection.
The framework has many sources of inspiration, but if we are to summarise the responsibility of a leader in five words, we can do no better than to paraphrase Robert Greanleaf’s 1970(!) article The Servant as Leader:
To lead is to serve.
In a nutshell, Organic Leadership means to serve: our team, our colleagues, our organisation and our customers. Practically, this has many implications for our interactions and our management style¹ but for now we can consider the Organic Leader as someone who builds an environment conducive to the expression and growth of their team.
We can use the metaphor of the conductor and the orchestra to explore the characteristics of a Organic Leader in more detail. When we go to see an orchestra perform, we’re not there to watch the conductor: we’re there to feel the music. The conductor’s role is to bring out the best in others, so that they may collectively serve (or provide value to) the audience.
If the music holds the value, and the playing of notes is the task assigned to the musician, then the instrument they hold and their mastery of it is their own unique contribution to the ensemble.
We can consider our mind, our spirit, our unique capacities and hidden gems as an instrument. Similarly to musicians, given the right environment, we can learn to increase our command of this unique instrument, so that we might better express our superpowers and contribute value.
It is the Organic Leader’s responsibility to build this nurturing environment:
- Organic leaders have the big picture vision in mind, and implicate in it their team. They know the ‘music’ they are looking to create, and how it should feel;
- They know the rhythm and cadence needed for each player in the team to stay in sync, and collectively reach each phrase and movement as planned;
- They understand people, their unique capacities or instruments, and how they complement each other;
- They maintain a level of trust that allows information—whether good or bad news—to flow.
In Organic Leadership, we call these four pillars Purpose, Discipline, Trust, and Optimised Teamwork.² All four are necessary for an environment conducive to the team’s growth.
If we get these right; if we fulfil our responsibilities as an Organic Leader, then our team will depend less on us, and find guidance instead in the music that they are creating. In this way, the best leaders make themselves redundant so that they can go on to serve others; to serve more.
Notes
- I will write more about the practical manifestations of this responsibility to serve in the future.
- The Organic Leadership framework and tools developed by Gemstone have a wide range of influences and sources of inspiration. The subject areas of the four pillars are derived in part from the eight pillars of unity described by Lawrence Miller in his excellent book Spiritual Enterprise: Building your business in the spirit of service.
