Increasingly, two major questions must be asked by leaders regarding these postmodern conditions. First, what is the right size for this particular organization or this particular unit of the organization? We have learned in our postmodern world that we cannot solve the problem of integration simply by devoting more resources to integrative processes as we grow larger. The integration of functions in large organizations may no longer be possible or if it is possible, it requires too great a percentage of the total resources of the organization for this organization to survive. Administrative costs tend to rise not fall with expansion in the size and complexity of organizations. Effective postmodern leaders speak about appropriate size rather than indiscriminate growth.
The second major question that postmodern leaders must ask concerns the nature of the integration that does occur. Traditionally, integration has been equated with control. We keep organizations from flying apart by ensuring that all operations of the organization are tightly controlled. In the modern world, this means that organizations will be structured hierarchically, with each person receiving orders from someone situated immediately above them on this hierarchy.
This emphasis on authority that is line-based and an accompanying emphasis on uniformity of practice supposedly keep the organization fully integrated. An alternative way to think of integration emphasizes influence instead of control. Rather than using the formal hierarchy of the organization, successful postmodern leaders deploy more informal and powerful channels of communication and leadership by example. Rather than looking to the hierarchy to gain control, they look to the network and the web to exert influence. Key people and groups located at nodal points in the network can be highly influential and often play a much greater role in bringing about integration than do those at the top of the organization.
Contemporary organizations are often both complex and fragmented. Postmodern organizations are typified by premodern, modern, and postmodern structures, processes, and procedures that intermingle. We find premodern elements in celebrations, ceremonies, and retreats that bring members of an organization together for recognition and reflection. Examples of the intermingling of modern and postmodern are even more prevalent. We find that many organizations exist as both independent, autonomous institutions that are very modern, and as interdependent collaborating members of complex consortia, partnerships, and alliances that are very postmodern.
As a result of the widespread fragmentation and complexity in our personal lives and organizations, mission has suddenly become very important. Bottom line and continuing growth are no longer adequate criteria of performance for either organizations or secular institutions. Postmodern organizations need clear direction, given the ambiguity of their boundaries and the turbulence of the environments in which they operate. Postmodern organizations are usually the inverse of modern organizations with regard to mission and boundaries. They may have unclear or changing boundaries; however, they must have a clear and consistent mission. Such an inversion tends to counter our normal way of thinking: we are more often inclined to construct firm boundaries when the world around us (as in our current postmodern era) is turbulent and unpredictable.
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