Relating Tribal Leadership to The World
Week 7
This weeks reading was centered on the book Tribal Leadership. Specifically focusing this post on Part III: Owning Tribal Leadership. This is the cultural stage where a vibe of "we're great" is authentically infused into these case study organizations.
On the blog Innovation Excellence, an article called, "The 4 Standout Attributes of Truly Great Innovators" by Greg Satell mentions some parallels to the book. The four standout traits are; 1 - Actively Seek Out Important Problems; 2 - They Overcome Failure; 3 - They Have A Vision, But Remain Flexible; 4 - They Maintain A Deep Commitment To Collaboration. In many of the companies that Tribal Leadership feature these traits are seen. For example, to showcase trait 1, when a person hired into a company has to go through an intense vetting process to make sure that their values authentically align with those of the company, this avoids a major communication breakdown in the long run. Trait 4 is also showcased in the book when in these Tribal companies executives, managers, lower level workers, and new hires opinions are all equally listened to and valued. Working side by side to collaborate instead of in hierarchy.
Center for Creative Leadership wrote about this new tool in, "Building a Faster Assessment Tool: How You Can Help" that seeks to measure a leader's digital footprint "to assess key leadership competencies such as resiliency and strategic thinking." This is an interesting concept because like many other data sorting tools it could connect dots and strides in leadership that a naked human eye can't. "We need to enlist about 50,000 leaders who are willing to share content from their Facebook and Twitter accounts, or they can provide text they’ve written in an email, on a website, or in a CV. We’ll then apply data analytics to get a clearer view of how leaders show up in the digital world." However, this tool is missing the major aspect that makes tribal leadership work, face to face interaction. Sure you can measure a leader and their public facing, thought out platforms but what about their instant reactions to real life in the moment situations? It makes me question this tool and its legitimacy.
In The Guardian's article, "Activist stunts make good headlines, but no long-term difference" they call out companies for lying about sustainable initiatives and cutting corners. However, the timeless good prevails evil mantra points out that if corporations were to simply think long-term and focus on bottom-up change instead of short-termism and quick gimmicks, then they wouldn't need to cover up these embarrassing deceptions. As Tribal Leadership points out, setting your values young and sticking to them because it is the right thing to do will lead to overall success and ingenuity.