A few of my libertarian friends have been "beating me up" on Facebook for some of what I said about leadership in my last blog entry. I'm just beginng to formulate what I'd call a "Libertarian Theory of Leadership." Let me see what I can salvage. First of all, I've been teaching a graduate course on Ethical Issues in Organizations for many years and I'm working on a bibliographical essay on Ethical Leadership this summer. It's interesting stuff! Most of the recent research penned by social scientists either seeks to identify the individual traits that constitute leaders; or understand the social dynamics between leaders, followers, and other stakeholders. Philosophers, tend to look at the conceptual dynamic: What exactly do we mean when we label someone as "leader," "follower," a "good leader" or "good follower?" For most of us leadership resembles pornography: "We know it when we see it." For philosophers that not enough.
We do know that we humans have a universal propensity to socially organize ourselves based on leadership and followership. We first experience it on the playground in grade school, where certain kids "take the lead." As I stated in my last essay, that's natural. We still exhibit that behavior because it facilitated the passage of human genes across generations. My take on it? Social organization based on hierarchical structures with powerful leaders perched at the top, "worked" during the Pleistocene era, but not in complex modern society. It "worked" in in small hunter-gather societies because one "leader" could know enough to facilitate group survival. Hence, the genes for leadership and deferential followership facilitated human survival. Unfortunately, we still have those genes. The genes for hierarchical leadership tend to follow the Y chromosome, that is some males have the natural impulse to "take charge" and most everyone else has the natural impulse to follow that leader. Followers also tend to willingly bestow authority upon leaders; that is we allow them to make individual and collective decisions for us. Followers also tend to "value" leaders more than followers, and therefore we willingly shower them with social privileges that most followers do not enjoy: more sex, more food, more resources etc. Again, I think this is all natural. But it's no longer good. My basic argument is that libertarians must be wary of our natural inclination to coronate leaders and shower them with special privileges. That's how we succumb to totalitarian leadership.
Now back to my contention that today we have too many leaders and that our culture tends to over-pay leaders. Let's see if I can salvage this idea. Let's say that like everything else, leaders are subject to market forces and therefore they are subject to market fluctuations. Call it the leadership market. Philosophers are experiencing the lower end of that business cycle right now! I think that leaders are now about to face that same downturn. Because of the widespead availability of information, we now are coming to the realization that our leaders are not Godlike (omniscient and omnipotent), that they are fallible, and that we pay them more than they are worth. In short, a market correction is now underway. (Ask President Obama!) As a libertarian, I think this is a good thing. Throughout most of human history leaders have been generally given a free pass. They've been able to control information, competition, and even control entry and exit from leadership positions. They've often used government to protect their lofty positions. Interestingly, when we discover leadership chicanery, we say: "Oh, he's not a real leader!" What's going on there?
Showing posts with label leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leaders. Show all posts
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
A Libertarian Theory of Organizational Leadership
I've been thinking about what a libertarian theory of organizational leadership might look like. Libertarians often rant and rave about leadership, but rarely present anything that resembles a general theory rooted in libertarian principles. Here's my modest start.
First of all, humans, like many of species of living things, live in organized groups. Human beings and chimpanzees seem to be especially prone to the formation of "organizations" controlled by dominance hierarchies with coalitions of males perched at the top, with one "alpha male" serving as leader. Organizations, therefore are comprised of complex relationships between "leaders" and "followers." Hence there are no leaders without followers, and no followers without leaders. All human organizations are created to serve some purpose. Thus all leaders lead toward the realization of some future end or goal. Although human beings create and dissolve organizations all the time, most scholars seem to focus on certain kinds of organizations: political organizations, military organizations, and business organizations. The central question of leadership studies is whether there are general laws of nature that apply to all organizations, regardless of their purpose; or whether the laws of nature are relative to specific kinds of organizations that pursue specific goals. In short, are there laws of leadership and followership that apply equally to all organizations? Are the leaders of corporations, terrorist networks, baseball teams, and rock bands (in fact) all subject to the same a set of universal laws? My current view is that there are very general laws of nature that explain, predict and control the behavior of all human organizations. But that will require an argument.
My observation is that all organizations involve relationships between leaders and followers. Over time, as human relationships became more complex under pressure from rapid cultural evolution, most notably in Western nations. Again my understanding of social anthropological findings is that early human social organizations were dominance hierarchies led by an alpha males. But leadership was based on demonstrated competence. No one Alpha made all the decisions. As long as humans lived in small groups this "worked" very well. However, as the sizes of human organizations increased, the efficacy of these dominance hierarchies diminished. Although many large human organizations are still organized based on rigid dominance hierarchies, these organizations often survive but rarely flourish. There are still many nations led by military dictatorships headed by leaders that are viewed in otherworldly terms; that is, omnipotent and omniscient. Many corporations are also still led by iron-fisted CEOs. However, my theory of organizational leadership is that large scale organizations require a different kind of leadership. Actually, Machiavelli noted the difference between a principality (single leader) and a republic (multiple leaders). Large scale republics are more likely to floursh than large scale principalities. Admittedly, many large scale principalities do "survive" for a long time, but they cannot flourish. Why because large scale social organization require the free flow of information and resources. Now, several hundred thousand years ago, leaders could know everything the group needed to survive.Today, it is impossible for the President of the U.S. to know everything about health care, banking, or oil drilling. The President of Toyota can't know how to engineer an automoble from scratch, and college presidents can know how to teach every course on the curriculum. Successful modern leaders cannot be omnipotent and omniscient, therefore, its naive to expect them to be. Obama can't know how to fix the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I's nonsense to expect him to "take responsibility for it." All that does is support our misguided that our leaders must be God-like, which explain why we no longer "trust" our leaders. Effective leaders of modern large scale organizations facilitate the flow of information and resources within their organizations; and forge useful coalitions with other external organizations. That does not require omnipotence or omniscience and it certainly does not warrant multi-million dollar executive pay. Any libertarian theory of leadership will argue that we need less powerful leaders and a lot fewer of them. Finally, if leaders are responsible for maintaining the flow of information and resources, then they are responsible removing forces that interrupt that flow. Therefore, although I do not hold Obama responsible for the oil leak, I will hold him responsible for maintaining inflexible governmental bureaucracies that do not fulfill their official purpose. Good leaders fire irresponsible subordinates and dissolve dysfunctional governmental agencies. Let's start with FEMA,EPA,and he U.S. Coast Guard.
First of all, humans, like many of species of living things, live in organized groups. Human beings and chimpanzees seem to be especially prone to the formation of "organizations" controlled by dominance hierarchies with coalitions of males perched at the top, with one "alpha male" serving as leader. Organizations, therefore are comprised of complex relationships between "leaders" and "followers." Hence there are no leaders without followers, and no followers without leaders. All human organizations are created to serve some purpose. Thus all leaders lead toward the realization of some future end or goal. Although human beings create and dissolve organizations all the time, most scholars seem to focus on certain kinds of organizations: political organizations, military organizations, and business organizations. The central question of leadership studies is whether there are general laws of nature that apply to all organizations, regardless of their purpose; or whether the laws of nature are relative to specific kinds of organizations that pursue specific goals. In short, are there laws of leadership and followership that apply equally to all organizations? Are the leaders of corporations, terrorist networks, baseball teams, and rock bands (in fact) all subject to the same a set of universal laws? My current view is that there are very general laws of nature that explain, predict and control the behavior of all human organizations. But that will require an argument.
My observation is that all organizations involve relationships between leaders and followers. Over time, as human relationships became more complex under pressure from rapid cultural evolution, most notably in Western nations. Again my understanding of social anthropological findings is that early human social organizations were dominance hierarchies led by an alpha males. But leadership was based on demonstrated competence. No one Alpha made all the decisions. As long as humans lived in small groups this "worked" very well. However, as the sizes of human organizations increased, the efficacy of these dominance hierarchies diminished. Although many large human organizations are still organized based on rigid dominance hierarchies, these organizations often survive but rarely flourish. There are still many nations led by military dictatorships headed by leaders that are viewed in otherworldly terms; that is, omnipotent and omniscient. Many corporations are also still led by iron-fisted CEOs. However, my theory of organizational leadership is that large scale organizations require a different kind of leadership. Actually, Machiavelli noted the difference between a principality (single leader) and a republic (multiple leaders). Large scale republics are more likely to floursh than large scale principalities. Admittedly, many large scale principalities do "survive" for a long time, but they cannot flourish. Why because large scale social organization require the free flow of information and resources. Now, several hundred thousand years ago, leaders could know everything the group needed to survive.Today, it is impossible for the President of the U.S. to know everything about health care, banking, or oil drilling. The President of Toyota can't know how to engineer an automoble from scratch, and college presidents can know how to teach every course on the curriculum. Successful modern leaders cannot be omnipotent and omniscient, therefore, its naive to expect them to be. Obama can't know how to fix the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. I's nonsense to expect him to "take responsibility for it." All that does is support our misguided that our leaders must be God-like, which explain why we no longer "trust" our leaders. Effective leaders of modern large scale organizations facilitate the flow of information and resources within their organizations; and forge useful coalitions with other external organizations. That does not require omnipotence or omniscience and it certainly does not warrant multi-million dollar executive pay. Any libertarian theory of leadership will argue that we need less powerful leaders and a lot fewer of them. Finally, if leaders are responsible for maintaining the flow of information and resources, then they are responsible removing forces that interrupt that flow. Therefore, although I do not hold Obama responsible for the oil leak, I will hold him responsible for maintaining inflexible governmental bureaucracies that do not fulfill their official purpose. Good leaders fire irresponsible subordinates and dissolve dysfunctional governmental agencies. Let's start with FEMA,EPA,and he U.S. Coast Guard.
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