Unfortunately, this type of activist learning is often done in isolation. One is working alone on the frontier and is not exposed to the challenging and corrective feedback that other people can offer. Those who learn alone are vulnerable to assumptions that are untested and self-validating. Thinking tends to be fast and filled with distorting “heuristics” (such as doing what I have done before or doing what everyone else is doing) (Kahneman, 2011). Furthermore, if learning does occur then it tends to be first level (doing more of or less of what I am already doing) rather than second level (doing something different) (Argyris, 2001). The Model leader tries harder, puts in more hours at work, and spends more time worrying about the fate of their organization. However, they are still doing the same thing and still eliciting the same outcomes.
Model One leadership is often engaged when an organization is in a crisis mode—which is common in a VUCA-Plus world. Leaders of the organization serve as “firefighters” and quickly put out the fire and resolve the crisis. Unfortunately, the organization usually returns to its previous crisis state, regardless of the wisdom and skill of the Model One leader, for the organization has not increased its capacity to identify and solve problems before these become crises. A vicious cycle of crisis and dependency sets in and is hard to break. Crisis management prevails.
Delegated Authority (Model II)
The captain turns their ship over to a tugboat captain. While not having direct control over the ship, as it is being guided into a harbor berth, the tugboat captain does make use of the energy and other resources of his own boat to move the ship into or out of the berth. The tugboat captain in some sense “persuades” the ship’s captain that it is appropriate for his tugboat to take over control of the ship, because he (the tugboat captain) has expertise (knowledge of the harbor).
The ship’s captain does not (in most instances) have to provide any energy or other resources in order to move the ship into the berth. All of the power that is needed to bring about the change (safe movement of the ship) is found initially in the tugboat captain and is transferred back to the ship captain when the ship arrives at its berth. Similarly, the leader of an organization typically delegates authority and responsibility to someone in their organization to handle the ambiguity by providing resources (money, time, equipment) that are needed to bring about achievement of the desired goal (arriving at the “berth”). However, sufficient resources are rarely enough if there is considerable ambiguity, for these are often the wrong resources or the wrong goals.
As in the case of Model I, the learning usually takes place in isolation and is both fast and first level. The one major difference is that the person making the mistakes and seeking to learn from their mistakes is not the captain of the ship. On the one hand, it is the person to whom control was delegated that makes the mistakes. This makes the stress and anxiety that much greater and the temptation to think fast and engage in first level learning that much greater. On the other hand, the leader can play it safe and declare that it was “not their fault” that the ship failed to arrive at the appropriate dock. They can always fire the employee or an outside consultant (tugboat captain) if the venture fails.
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