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Third Generation Leadership and Teams

Guest post by: Douglas Long

Article Overview: 3G Leaders are not threatened by questions and discussion. They readily share all the information about what has to be done and the parameters within which it needs to be done. Then they seek to harness the expertise of everyone involved so that people are openly listened to and respected. 3G Leaders see themselves in the role of facilitators who are working with their team rather than as controllers to whom the team is responsible. 3G Leaders operate as equals with their fellow team members while being willing to accept ultimate responsibility if things go wrong - which, unsurprisingly, is not often.

Third Generation Leadership and Teams

Recently someone told me, "At my workplace, most of our staff are baby boomers. We struggle to retain these Gen X and Gen Y staff. They demand unconditional respect from the management team. They will choose to move on to another employer if their voice has not been heard. But they do work well as a team if they are shown respect and are listened to."

"Teams" are a major emphasis today but the work environment has changed since the concept was first introduced.

First Generation Leadership never entertained the idea of teams. This was a strictly hierarchical organisation with power centralised at the top. The role of subordinates was strictly one of obedience and, because the manager was seen as the source of knowledge, the issue of teams never arose. In general, Second Generation Leadership didn't really like the term "subordinates" and sought to use other terms to describe the relationships in the hierarchy. The term "reports" became a common one - even if the meaning remained the same - after all, the hierarchy was still there and power was still effectively centralised at the top. But now a new concept developed: that of teams.

Back in the 1970's the concept of "teams" started to become a major emphasis. By the 1980's the vogue was very much an emphasis on "teams" and much time and money was invested in team building. It was argued that "teams" would revolutionise the organisation through the synergy that can occur when people work together. The ideal, according to many, was that teams should become self-directed with managers playing a largely supportive role. Of course what happened in practice was that, in the majority of cases there was a shuffling of the deckchairs on the Titanic - the terms changed but everything functioned largely as it always had.

One team of researchers and practitioners from the 1980's (Organizational Psychology Kolb, Rubin & McIntyre) placed the emphasis on "goal issues, role issues, procedural issues, and interpersonal issues". Another team from Harvard University in The Wisdom of Teams (Katzenback & Smith) made similar findings but they added the point that "high-performance teams are extremely rare". Other researchers endorsed this and made the emphasis that the key to effective teams lay in "defining what had to be done, clarifying roles and responsibilities, involving team members, and empowering people to act."

Organisations with First Generation Leadership and/or Second Generation Leadership (ie today's dominant organisational model) face a conflict of interest in relation to teams - especially if they try to introduce self-directed teams. By definition these organisations have a defined power structure and those people who want career advancement know that, no matter what the rhetoric, the fact is that the team needs to fit in with what is really wanted by "the boss". This is why the work of Kolb Rubin and McIntyre, Katzenbach & Smith, etc has been highly successful - they enable an organisation to maintain the hierarchy and centralised control. The first emphases were on dealing with goal and role issues (defining what had to be done and clarifying roles and responsibilities) with the interpersonal issues coming later. It was accepted that the team members would primarily be engaged with what they were doing and that who they were doing it with was an important but secondary issue. In fact some people made the point that if the goals and roles were clear and people understood the procedures to be followed, the interpersonal issues would look after themselves.

To an extent this is true. My own experienceof leadership in emergency situations has made it clear that there are many times when people will put aside any differences and work shoulder to shoulder with those they dislike in order to save a life, protect property, or provide assistance to those affected by fire or flood. But these situations are the exception rather than the rule and the aftermath of such events as Hurricane Katrina and the recent devastation in Haiti are examples of where, as time elapses, differences among people become more apparent and dysfunctional under First Generation Leadership and Second Generation Leadership.

Today, most people operate in reasonably stable working conditions. Certainly there are goals to be reached and deadlines that must be met and there are parameters within which people should operate. But, in the main, these are known and accepted. People join an organisation because they believe that they will be able to make a contribution within these confines. They want to do a good job and they are looking for opportunities to exercise their skills and experience growth. In the main - especially when unemployment is at relatively low levels - people join an organisation because they want to become engaged with what they do. But, today, they do so with greater and faster access to information than has ever before been the case. They know that, with very few exceptions, there are no "right" ways of doing things - only different ways. And they also know (or can easily discover) whether or not improvement is possible in the way their employing organisation is doing something. Accordingly they are reluctant to accept a situation in which their voices are not heard and/or in which they feel that they are not receiving the respect they believe they deserve.

1G Leaders and 2G Leaders cannot handle this. They see this as an affront - why should they first respect their "subordinates" or "reports"? Their world view is still enmeshed in a power and authority net - and they are the ones with the power and authority. 1G Leaders and 2G Leaders stress the importance of either "command and control" ("do what I say") or "responsibility and experience" ("I used to do this and I know this is how it's done. Ultimately, I'm responsible for this and If it goes wrong I don't intend to get a kick in the pants") Under such circumstances it is not long before "team members" become disengaged not only with their manager and fellow team members, but also with the job itself and either reduced output or staff turnover becomes increasingly probable - which is where the person I quoted at the start of this article finds themselves.

Of course, in reality this is not really "team work". This is simply the traditional hierarchy functioning under different terminology. If, to this, is added a situation in which team members are effectively pitted against each other so that there is internal competition (such as often happens in sales "teams", call centres, and the like) then any real concept of cooperation and shared responsibility is even further jeopardised.

True team situations require Third Generation Leadership.

3G Leaders are not threatened by questions and discussion - in fact they actively seek these so that the very best possible way of doing things and achieving results can be used. They readily share all the information about what has to be done and the parameters within which it needs to be done. Then they seek to harness the expertise of everyone involved so that people are openly listened to and respected. 3G Leaders see themselves in the role of facilitators who are working with their team rather than as controllers to whom the team is responsible. 3G Leaders operate as equals with their fellow team members while being willing to accept ultimate responsibility if things go wrong - which, unsurprisingly, is not often.

In a Third Generation Leadership environment people are engaged not only with what they are doing but also with the people they are doing it with. With 3G Leaders, high performing teams are the norm.

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Article Tags: 3G Leaders, employee engagement, First Generation Leadership, Second Generation Leadership, Team Building, Team Leadership, Third Generation Leadership



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