Mastering Leadership

Chapter 7 The Leadership System: The Central Organizing System

Businesses are facing a Leadership Imperative that requires them to focus on and accelerate the development of effective leadership. This requires a transformative approach to the development of leaders, individually and collectively. Collective leadership effectiveness is one element of the Leadership System which is the central organizing system of business. When the Leadership System functions effectively, performance is high and sustained over time.

This chapter will illustrate a Whole Systems approach to the development of the Leadership System. In doing so, we will highlight four case studies that show what can happen when the Universal Model of Leadership is applied with a Whole Systems approach to developing the Leadership System of these organizations. We will begin by describing what we mean by using a Whole Systems approach to the development of the Leadership System.

The Leadership System is the central organizing system. It is one of six core systems within organizations. We will explain each of these six systems with a special emphasis on the Leadership System.

To illustrate the importance of the Leadership System when we talk with leaders, we often ask them about their Leadership System and the collective effectiveness of the leaders within that system. We ask, “How many people are on the top leadership team?”

One leader responded, “Nine.”

“Now, how many direct reports do those nine people have?” ...