Leadership, Dispersed

Conceptual Overview

“Dispersed leadership” sounds like an oxymoron: Leadership is about the concentration of power and responsibility in one leader, not its dispersal amongst many. This probably reached its apotheosis in the Prussian armies of Frederick the Great, where extraordinary discipline facilitated centralized control over huge armies of foot soldiers whose very size had hitherto inhibited control. However, the defeats of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt in 1806 by Napoleon's troops demonstrated the limits of concentrated leadership and initiated a series of changes in the Prussian army that coalesced under von Moltke's leadership (1857–1888) into the philosophy of Auftragstaktik—mission command. This approach, embodied in the subsequent German armies but later undermined by Hitler, required a dispersed leadership where subordinates were made aware of the superordinate's goal but given the training, resources, and freedom to develop the tactics necessary to achieve that goal.

The shift away from assumptions about individuals “leading” organizations toward some form of collective alternative has increased markedly at two historical junctures. The first was during the mid-19th century under the influence of anarchists (“anarchy” means “without government,” from arkhos meaning “sovereignty or ruler” and an meaning “without”) like Kropotkin (1842–1921) and Proudhon (1809–1865). The second was during the20th century within business, from McGregor's theories X and Y in the 1960s through to the semiautonomous workgroups of the sociotechnical systems and the worker-director experiments in the 1970s in Britain and thence to the current concern for enhancing worker participation through various boards, European works councils, and other representative channels. Even formidably successful capitalists have engaged with the problem—as Ricardo Semler's noone-in-charge experiments at SEMCO in Brazil demonstrate, enormous energy can be realized when bosses let the followers lead. In fact, the largest number of cases of dispersed leadership has tended to occur within the educational establishment; this is often linked to the assumption that the leadership of professionals is more conducive to this philosophy and practice.

Although dispersed leadership takes many forms, it is instructive to note what Weber might have called an “ideal case”:

• Collective Responsibility: Organizations are replete with leaders, they are leaderful, full of ordinary people carrying out modest leadership tasks, not dependent on the heroic individuals doing daring deeds beloved of Carlyle. Within this aspect, it is worth distinguishing between what Gronn calls concertive action, where a synergy is derived from collaborative leadership, and numerical action, where many individuals are leading—but only as individuals.
• Collective Flexibility: Traditional organizations maintain unyielding hierarchies of power, resources, and rewards. Such structures, however, impose limits on the flexibility of the incumbents to office. Dispersed leadership implies a shift toward heterarchy—a flexible structure that retains the necessary degree of coherence and coordination but does not require the roles or incumbents to operate within strictly defined limits. For example, an emergency medical team might switch leadership as the situation and the shift systems require. Similarly a rowing eight operates as a heterarchy, not a hierarchy: At different times the coxswain, captain, coach, and stroke all lead.

Critical Commentary and Future Directions

Dispersed leadership is both a process and a philosophy. The latter often implies for its supporters that [Page 785]dispersed leadership is necessarily preferable to traditional leadership, because it embodies decentralization, social responsibility, and collective learning. All of these appear either progressive or liberal or collectively beneficial. But because it is also a process that encourages subordinates to learn to lead, it means that it is possible to consider it as a neutral system that can be deployed for good or evil. In particular, the distribution of responsibility and leadership are also means by which profoundly undemocratic and illiberal organizations can distribute risk and confound those seeking their elimination.

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