Leadership Networks

Leadership, Social Capital, and Ties

Often, organizational resources such as information, expertise, and innovation that reside in a system are a result of building human capital, which comprises the knowledge, skills, and abilities of individual actors in an organization. In addition to the resources that stem from human capital, organizational capacities can also be derived from the social relationships among organizational members. Social capital is concerned with the resources that exist in relations between individuals, often referred to as ties. In essence, social capital theorists argue that the ties between individuals create a social network structure, which in turn supports or constrains the distribution of resources. Connections and access, or a lack thereof, to available resources situates leaders in structural positions that enable more or less power, influence, and access to resources than other positions in the social network.

The transfer of resources in any system may be influenced by the quality of ties between actors. The content of the network creates a structure that defines the purpose [Page 481]of the network and, in turn, how well the resources flow between actors. For example, the social structure of a work-related knowledge network may differ significantly from the structure of a more normative social network, such as friendship. In both examples, resources flow through ties (the first being knowledge, the second friendship), but the overall structure of the network may look quite different. A number of studies have indicated that leaders who have strong ties across an entire organization, often measured by quantity (how frequently the interaction occurs) or quality (the “strength” of the interaction), have been found to be able to better transfer tacit, nonroutine, or complex knowledge; facilitate joint problem solving; and stimulate the development of coordinated and innovative solutions. In contrast, through weak ties, a leader may provide for brokering opportunities between actors and access to nonredundant, novel information.

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