Distributed Versus Centralized Leadership

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, but haven't because I need to sit and focus to work out my ideas. But then I realized, that's what writing is for!

Some ideas:

• The rise of information technology has made information available to the widest reaches of organizations.
• Such information used to be the sole possession of a management class of experts.
• These experts made decisions for organizations because they had the necessary information. They tended to control the actions of their organization members more directly. That's what "supervision" was all about: watching over someone, from the latin roots of the English word.
• I'll call this model of organization Centralized Leadership, emphasizing decisions made by experts who watch over and control the actions of others.

So, far. so good. This is pretty familiar territory for a lot of people. Now there's more:

• But in the information age, there is now too much information for any one person to be the sole expert anymore. Front line organization workers now know more about how to do their jobs than their supervisors often do, and they have access to information systems that enable them, potentially, to make meaningful decisions once made only by managers and supervisors.
• This changes the role of management to what I'm calling a Distributed Leadership model. Leaders in the new environment are no longer the highest subject matter experts with all the information. Information systems now hold and distribute information relevant to decision making. Effective leaders in this environment are now the coaches who teach organization members the best approach to decision making, informed by organizational priorities, strategy and values.
  

Even this is relatively familiar territory, so far. But what is this "Distributed Leadership" idea?

• Because front line organization members have access to information and are making decisions, not only do they obtain decision making guidance and coaching from their managers, but they perform something of the same role for each other. Mini-experts ask other mini-experts for help and guidance all the time, especially when they work closely together.
  
• In other words, the function of leadership is no longer the wholly owned role of the manager or boss in an organization chart. The practice of good leadership - the guidance and development of others in support of peak performance toward some larger, organizational goal - is now distributed throughout the organization.
  
• The distinction, therefore, between designated "leaders" and those who are led in an organization is becoming less meaningful due to the continuing implications of making more decision relevant information available to those anywhere in an organization.
  

This then has the following implication:

• Therefore, the most successful leaders in organizations where information is highly distributed (a category that now includes most modern businesses) are those who can not only guide others in making wise decisions with the information available to them, but those who can also guide others in the practice of distributed, lateral leadership.
  
• Accordingly, the best managers and supervisors now define their role as one where they must teach team members to recognize and encourage the talents and abilities of those around them, fostering each other's mutual growth.

Conclusion:

• The most effective information age leaders are coaches and teachers of peer-leadership practice among their direct reports. The Information Age is an age of Distributed Leadership for the most effective leaders and organizations.