Complexity and leadership : conceptual and competency implications

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Globalisation, rapid changes in technology, and demographic trends are all important factorsthat contribute to conditions that require adaptive capacity in military organisations. Thecontext of a majority of military operations is often asymmetric with blurred boundaries, andmilitary organisations are expected to master a wide range of operations from humanitariandisaster relief to more regular warlike situations in a joint- and multinational framework.The complexity of the challenges facing military leaders in contemporary and futureoperations makes it relevant to develop a meta-competency model for leadership in complexmilitary systems, which is the main purpose of this dissertation.A Complexity Approach represents a shift from a set of conservative laws to a perception ofthe world as an open and highly dynamic system, and some characterise complexity as abridge between modernism on the one hand and post-modernism on the other. Complexityand complex systems have a number of characteristics, some of them being a large numberof short-ranged interactions that are dynamic, non-linear and fairly rich. Another significantfeature of complexity is the emphasis on emergent patterns that are codetermined through adynamic process between the history of the system and the interaction with its localenvironment.Leadership in complex systems might be described by the dynamics of emergence, notmerely by incremental influence, and increasingly considered to be a collective socialphenomenon. A complexity-oriented leader acts as an enabler of a rich identity interacting inrichly constrained play of difference, facilitating 'bounded individual and systemic adaptivecapacity.The reigning paradigm in military organisations, however, are closely linked to an autocraticand bureaucratic structure and a fundamental quest for control, equilibrium and stability, allof which are deeply embedded in Newtonian Principles of linearity, reductionism anddeterminism. The investigation of empirical research on Norwegian Military Officers and theNorwegian Armed Forces reveal a considerable amount of homogenous force substantiatingstability and control, at the same time as complexity and uncertainty are acknowledged.This dissertation argues that the definition of competencies as 'an underlying characteristicof an individual that is causally related to effective and/or superior performance in a job orsituation, is not suitable for a complexity understanding and proposes competencies to bedefined as 'interconnected underlying characteristics of an individual or system, which through a dynamic and non-linear process of interaction between local agents and theenvironment contribute to the emergence of identifiable or unidentifiable patterns of individualor systemic behaviour.Based on a synthesis of a non-empirical literature study, empirical research and a modelbuildingstudy, this dissertation suggests that heterogeneity of degree, androgynousity,cognitive flexibility, ethical reasoning, cross-cultural competence, intuition, identity andcourage, are necessary meta-competencies for leadership in complex military systems. It isfurther argued that these meta-competencies must be interpreted as interconnected andinterdependent, and the metaphor of a cloud is therefore presented as a suitable image ofthe intricate dynamics of complexity.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University