I am nearly always questioned, when the subject of leaderful practice is brought up, where one can find instances of this form of leadership. My first response is that people in our culture are not exposed to it because, let’s face it, our media doesn’t typically pick up on those practices that are collaborative in nature. As a culture, we tend to be more fascinated with the individual and his/her heroics. So, the leaderful doesn’t get the coverage. But it’s there, almost daily, in the mundane actions of everyday people and events.
Sometimes we are aware of it more in what we are subtly told NOT to do – as in such depictions as the popular TV series, ‘the Office.’ But there are organizations that run this way – such as the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra or W.L. Gore, the maker of Gore-Tex.
Another good example is the company of the Foreword writer to my Leaderful Fieldbook, John Foster, who’s Head of Talent and Organization at the renowned design firm, IDEO. IDEO uses a shared collaborative approach, bringing people from various disciplines together in a collective process to confront and overcome intractable worldwide problems.
Another example is the spirit of Ubuntu that permeates South Africa, recent host of the 2010 (soccer) World Cup, the biggest sports event in the world. Although Ubuntu is a Zulu word and thus not only associated with South Africa, I understand that the preamble to the new South African constitution mentions it and that it comes up as a basis of their culture and means: “humanity to others,” or “I am what I am because of who we all are.” Thus, focusing on such values as the pooling of community resources and working together in harmony, it appears to me to embody leaderful practices. Interestingly, Ubuntu has also been adopted by the IT (information technology) world as a community developed operating system!
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