Intro to Organizational Leadership

Leadership is a broad topic, with multiple facets and applications. The specific area that I will focus on during this blog series is organizational. Which I further caveat by multi-echelon, and therefore relatively large.

This particular type, for me, introduces more complexity, variability and therefore challenges. Even in smaller organizations, the challenge of creating a climate that enables aspirations to be attained by all members of the team, is not minor. Regardless of the experience of the leader or subordinates, translating a vision into reality is hard.

My belief is leaders must have a vision and be expected to communicate their intent (initially and continually). This intent must apply to his/her immediate subordinates and set conditions for that to be further passed to the next echelon (and so on). There are two aspects to "passing down" one's vision or intent - 1) setting the tone and shaping the attitude of the organization writ large and 2) establishing a clear and common reference for expected performance and/or behavior that aligns with your goals and aspirations.

The above are core principles to multi-echeloned organizational leadership. And realizing a vision is intrinsically difficult - due largely to inherent organizational dynamics (i.e. processes/policy constraints and higher/external influencers); individual strengths and weaknesses (i.e. human nature, diversity of skills/competence/interest); and breadth/depth of a respective organizational responsibilities (i.e. fiscal management, health care or public service). All of those factors dictate stress, strain, expectations and motivations. And as you "scale up" with echelons and number, typically you increase the variables, complexity and challenges.

So, this series will give tips and techniques for middle to upper level leaders. It is targeted for those who have at least one organizational level between them and their lowest positioned employee, but can also apply to those who have direct oversight. Contextually, there is an executive angle, but ultimately someone has to translate the abstract to the practical ... and that is what I will focus on.