I have enjoyed this conversation on leadership. It has been under my skin
for as far
back as I can remember - Maine State YMCA Camp, 1953, stories of leadership
soaked
up by a ten year old. Here I am fifty years later, still in a state of
wonderment.
Here is what I know today. I should change tomorrow. The Act is what
accompanies each tick of the clock. The act "contains" living moments of
that which we call leading, that which we call managing, that which we call
learning. All happens in one act; seamlessly creating the future called the
next Act.
Upon reflection, we may think we are seeing more leading than managing, and
missing the learning altogether. Then, reflecting upon a later Act, we see
more learning than both. The other whose interaction with the actor
composed the social context in the moments the Act is witnessed do
experience the sensations of the Act, for most organizational behavior
requires join action. Upon each reflecting, asked if there was leadership
behavior, joint actors might say yes or no, depending upon what the term
meant to them and what they recall occurred in that context.
What does this mean to what and how I teach about any of the three as
organizational behavior? I focus on the act as a whole and consider the
future it is creating. Then, if we want to know more about what ensued,
might ensue, could have ensued, we apply concepts to reveal in the act trace
elements of leading, managing, and learning. What matters is the act. Some
acts, of course, turn worlds.
A clock tick or two, before the infamous Skilling of Enron enact the first
"partnership" shell
game, Enron was everyone's darling. Read the story in the May/June 2002 Biz
Ed,Enron 101. Looking back on that act through the chain of acts which
followed, we can ask if Skilling was leader, manager, or just trying out an
experiment as learner. What mattered was that first act and the failure to
act to turn back from the dark side of the force.
It's not all an act, it's all in the Act.
David