Complex Adaptive Leadership

[Graham Durant-Law]

I was given Nick Obolensky’s ‘Complex Adaptive Leadership ’, published by Gower, as a gift just before Christmas, and only now have gotten around to reading it. I like books which have a management and leadership theme associated with uncertainty: after all leadership (and management) are about uncertainty and trying to reduce risk, but I digress.

I did not find Complex Adaptive Leadership an easy book to read, but I did find it interesting. Obolensky’s thesis is that traditional leadership is oligarchic and requires an individual to act in a decisive way. He proposes that complex adaptive leadership is polyarchic: that is leadership of the many by the many. He is not proposing that oligarchic leadership is thrown away, but rather that oligarchic and polyarchic leadership are complementary. This is the paradox, and it creates a tension as well as uncertainty. Really the book is about alternative ways to view leadership in dynamic situations.

Obolensky draws heavily on systems thinking, Taoism, and complexity thinking, with references to chaos theory thrown in for good measure.

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