Why every worker should be in charge

By Magdalena Hernandez

"Creating Leaderful Organizations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone" by Joseph A. Raelin (Berrett-Koehler Publishers; San Francisco; 2003; 290 pages; $22.95)

Sound the death knell for the celebrity CEO. As if insider-trading and book-cooking scandals weren’t enough to flatten power players, along comes an organizational philosophy that relegates conventional, charismatic leaders to the dustbin.

Machiavellian maneuvers don’t cut it anymore, the thinking goes. Instead, organizations should make leadership a collective responsibility, whereby everyone affected by a decision gets included in the decisionmaking.

An ethical stance, to be sure, but how do we get there from here? In Creating Leaderful Organizations: How to Bring Out Leadership in Everyone, Joseph A. Raelin points the way, creating a paradigm for groups of all kinds.

According to Raelin, the Asa S. Knowles Chair of Practice-Oriented Education at Northeastern, the ideal community (an umbrella term he prefers to “organization,” despite the book’s title) centers around “leaderful” processes, which encourage everyone to assume community responsibility. In the book, Raelin explains his model, outlines how it differs from conventional leadership, and shows readers how to navigate the road to leaderfulness.

At first glance, Raelin’s perspective seems a tough sell, particularly to the hierarchically minded. Corporate America has traditionally valued loyalty in employees, occasionally to the point of wanting it to look like mindless obedience. Even within companies that claim to prize independent thinking, the folks who practice it are often branded troublemakers, to the detriment of their careers.

Is the corporate culture that brought us yes men and über-competitiveness truly ready for a kindler, gentler organization? And, if so, why now?

In fact, Raelin says, the current economic climate of making do with fewer resources is actually encouraging a reduction of corporate layers. And the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy finds many Americans reassessing their priorities, the author tells us, including looking “for ways to redefine what they find of value in the workplace.”

Raelin calls his practice’s central tenets “the four Cs”: concurrent, collective, collaborative, and compassionate leadership. Concurrent leadership happens when control is simultaneously held by more than one person. Collective leaders transfer responsibilities from an individual to a community. Collaborative leadership entails sharing in a “mutual influence process.” And compassionate leaders strive to “respect the dignity of every other human being.”

Organizations that follow this paradigm thrive, the author asserts. And, fortunately, the book, which some might find a tad academic in places, is chock-full of interesting anecdotes from the trenches. Raelin spotlights organizations from Southwest Airlines to The New Yorker, leaders from General Electric’s Jack Welch to Mohandas Gandhi. The Apollo 13 mission supplies a lesson in teamwork: NASA employees resolved a near-catastrophic spacecraft failure by brainstorming solutions—a sterling example of collective leaderfulness.

Raelin also holds up the Gore Company, maker of Gore-Tex, as a model of leaderful behavior. The company has no hierarchy or job titles, except for those positions legally required for its recognition as a corporate entity. Any employee “can start up a project by recruiting members until a team, and even an entire plant, has formed,” Raelin explains.

Then there’s Andy Pearson, erstwhile PepsiCo CEO, who was so convinced each worker is critical to success that he became, Raelin says, “obsessed with trying to determine how to unleash the power of everybody in the organization.”

Some of the book’s concepts, such as employee empowerment and the practice of having workers take turns at the helm, will sound familiar. Leaderful traits are hardly new; many progressive organizations have used them for years.

But Raelin argues his model is a substantial departure from management trends, because it seeks to transform where leadership is situated in an organization, “from an individual property into a new paradigm that redefines leadership as a collective practice.”
He recognizes not all communities or individuals are ready for radical makeovers. For these, the author prescribes some methods that counter resistance to change and foster the learning environment that’s key to leaderful practice.

True to his philosophy, Raelin also argues that management must not mandate leaderful practice. Instead, transformation should begin from within, as a grassroots effort. And it can begin simply, he says, “in the day-to-day behaviors that people of good will extend to one another. We are all parties to leadership.”

After the revolution, gone will be the autocratic leaders of old. Leaderful managers have a new role, says Raelin—“to engage [employees], to support them, and to keep the field clear so they can be released to do meaningful work.”

Of course, getting to yes may run contrary to the thinking of a company’s finance folks. Raelin acknowledges that a new model can’t emerge at the cost of financial performance. But neither are they mutually exclusive: Profitability needn’t suffer for the sake of meaningfulness; giving a voice to stakeholders can boost an organization’s reputation and productivity.

Many aspects of leaderful practice—such as “bringing your whole person to work” and genuineness—seem in sync with popular lines of contemporary thinking. Raelin’s suggestions for how old-school leaders might assess their current behaviors, reflect on their actions, and learn to give up control ought to strike a natural chord within our self-help nation.

But feeling good is not the only goal. When everyone contributes to the leadership of a community, the entire operation (not to mention the bottom line) is better off for its participants’ engagement, body and soul. “There is far too much need for spontaneity, creativity, and initiative,” writes Raelin, “for blind obedience to have value today. Indeed, loyalty in our era should incorporate dissent.”

The new paradigm also fits America’s knowledge-driven economy. If, as so many organizations purport, human capital is our greatest asset, why not maximize return on investment by ensuring all staff contribute to their fullest capacity? Ultimately, Raelin says, workers’ “motivation would become not just calculative, based on monetary incentives, but also intrinsic, meaning that they would show genuine caring about their job, team, and organization.”

Through scholarship, anecdote, and inspirational forecast, Raelin has marshaled a convincing case for why we need to change the way we work together. Death to charisma. Long live the leaderful organization.

Magdalena Hernandez is a senior editor.

Investing Despite Wall Street, Inc.,
by Fred Plemenos; McGraw-Hill; 2003

Many investors are still suffering a hangover from the intoxicating exuberance of the 1990s. In this guide, Fred Plemenos, BA’55, offers some sobering insights and investing basics as a tonic.

The book sketches the stock market’s history since 1950, culminating in a discussion of what’s gone wrong over the past decade: The author argues that Wall Street has hyped stocks to the disadvantage of the average joe. Finally, Plemenos reviews investment guidelines and principles to help individual investors get back to fundamentals.

Investing Despite Wall Street, Inc., offers sound strategy for spotting and capitalizing on opportunities. It may be just the remedy for your portfolio.

The Old Girls’ Network
by Sharon Whiteley, Kathy Elliott, and Connie Duckworth; Basic Books; 2003

Maybe American women haven’t come such a long way, baby. Chew on this: Women’s businesses account for more than half the nation’s private-sector GDP, yet 95 percent of investor financing for new businesses goes to men.

In this handbook for women building businesses, Sharon Whiteley, Kathy Elliott, and Connie Duckworth seek to redress the disparity. The book includes practical advice for funding a start-up, examples of successful women entrepreneurs, and resources women at any stage of the process may find helpful.

Elliott, LA’75, and her coauthors—three of the founders of Eight Wings Enterprises, a group of angel investors who sink their own capital into fledgling businesses—are trustworthy guides, capably lighting the path for hopeful entrepreneurs.