Leadershift: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Mass Collaboration

Citation

Fritsch, J. (2010), "Leadershift: Reinventing Leadership for the Age of Mass Collaboration", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 87-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591011010334

Book synopsis

The central thesis of leadershift is that leaders must shift their world views about leadership to effectively lead a workforce that is now marked by social networks and mass participation. Leaders must learn how to lead an organization by building communities that inspire workers to work collaboratively, while leveraging the knowledge and skills gained from their external networks to sustain the organization's competitive advantage. The target audience for this book is current and future leaders who want to maximize their leadership effectiveness in a world of mass participation. Geared towards the busy professional, the author organizes the book in easy to read, bite‐size chapters with short, 30 second recaps at the end of each chapter.

Chapters 1‐5 discuss four trends – demographic, expertise, attention, and democratic – that will render a leader ineffective or “dead” if not addressed immediately. The first trend, demographic, warns leaders they must learn how to lead a multi‐cultural and multi‐generational workforce that has different expectations of today's organizations. The second trend, expertise, cautions' leaders to recognize that workers are now increasing their knowledge and skills by accessing and building external relationships – outside the managerial reach of the organization. The third trend, attention, demonstrates that today's work is bombarded with information, and leaders must compete for their workforce's attention like never before. Finally, the fourth trend, democratic, advises leaders how the traditional, hierarchical command and control managerial style may no longer be relevant or effective.

Chapters 6 and 7 introduce “leadershift” as a new type of leadership, non‐hierarchical in form, that facilitates the building of collaborative communities. The author maintains that four shifts are necessary to achieve this type of leadership. Chapters 8‐11 discuss each shift in depth. Shift 1 – a move from clarity to simplicity – addresses the need for employee engagement. Shift 2 – a move from plans to narrative – focuses on alignment and how an organization's business plan must align with the business narrative or story. Shift 3 – a move from roles to tasks – emphasizes accountability and the need for individuals to co‐create and identify with the community and its narrative. Shift 4 – a move from money to love – suggests that commitment is gained not from individual rewards and obligations, but from the self‐value generated from participating in a community. Chapter 12 argues that each shift must be supported by conversations within the community. The author concludes by offering thoughts and additional references to enable leaders to make these shifts.

Evaluation

This book is a timely response to many issues facing leaders today. The explosion in social networking and presence of multi‐generational and multi‐cultural groups in the workplace challenges the traditional ways leaders have led. The author has demonstrated that relying on past experiences, structured business plans, hierarchical roles, and individual motivation is no longer effective in sustaining organizational health. The shifts required to propel the organization forward in a world of mass participation are clearly explained with ample examples to guide the reader.

While the author states that the audience includes leaders from private, public, and non‐profit organizations, the book and its examples are geared towards the private or for‐profit sector in Western, democratic societies. Government officials, accustomed to inherited, bureaucratic systems, Asian cultures that emphasize hierarchy, or military leaders who depend upon the command and control leadership style, may find it difficult to relate to this book. Organizational culture, while not explicitly dismissed, does not seem to play a major factor in encouraging mass collaboration. Given that cultures provide the context for individual and collective action, this omission may be significant for those leaders desiring to make these shifts. However, for those leaders trying to sustain a competitive edge in Western‐based companies, this book is thought provoking and will challenge them to make adjustments to their current leadership philosophies.

In the author's own words

Mass participation is not to be feared, even as it challenges the very essence of our models of value creation. It is a much more natural (and therefore energizing) form of value creation than the one imposed on us by our organizational models. This is probably why whenever organizations fail, they do so because a merry band of amateurs have become critical competitors by forming highly‐tuned value‐creation communities. These are the communities that are charting our future (p. 164).

About the reviewer

Jocelyn Fritsch is a PhD student studying organizational leadership, policy, and development at the University of Minnesota in the USA. In addition to her studies, she also teaches an introductory undergraduate course in human resource development at the University of Minnesota. She is the CEO of Lion Leaders, LLC, a global management consulting company specializing in leadership development for Fortune 100 companies and US Federal Government agencies. Her research interests include executive leadership, international workforce development, and organizational politics.