Tackling complexity requires leaders to give power to others.

In an earlier article, I looked at contemporary theories about leadership and power that suggest that leaders have power because they either take it or others give it to them in a continual process of interaction, and provided some examples of where power can be potentially given or taken.

This article explores the interactive process a bit further and suggests three ways leaders in public sector organisations (and others strongly wedded to hierarchies) can renegotiate power with others to tackle complex challenges and enable a more supportive and innovative organisational culture in the process. 

Public policy problems are rarely simple

Policy and program issues tackled by public sector organisations are rarely simple, yet too often they are considered through the ‘rational’ problem solving lens: define the problem, identify the decision criteria, prioritise and weigh the criteria, generate and evaluate alternatives and Pick the Winner. Sometimes Cabinet avoids all that stuff and goes for the ‘option’ of whatever the Minister wants.

It is unlikely either of these approaches fully considers the way issues are interconnected across socio-economic, jurisdictional and stakeholder contexts, or grapples with two other public sector elephants: public sector culture (hierarchy, lack of trust and risk aversion) and cross-agency differences (different ministers and organisational drivers etc).

The Australian Public Service is aware of these issues through various APS State of the Service Reports, the Thodey/Alexander Review of the PGPA Act, the Independent Review of the APS and the 2022 APS Hierarchy and Classification Review (previous articles on these reviews can be found here). As the APS Hierarchy and Classification Review noted:

Consistent with the Independent Review of the APS, we found a deeply ingrained identification with rank. This flows through into rigid, hierarchical behaviour that dampens employee motivation and engagement, and impedes mobility, development and access to new skills (page 3)…

… APS employees need assurance and evidence that they will be both trusted to exercise their responsibilities without undue interference or ‘micro-management’. Change must be led from the top, with those at the most senior levels demonstrating trust in their staff … and providing an environment where responses to mistakes are reasonable and proportionate (page 36)..

Underwriting these findings is an assumption that public sector leaders (SES and above) have access to all relevant information and ultimately can direct their staff towards ‘the answer’.

I’d like to move away from this leadership Disneyland towards something better suited to tackling real world complexity, which requires leaders to consider four steps.

Step 1 – Does the problem require a technical or adaptive response?

The starting point is deciding whether a problem requires what Ronald Heifetz[1] calls a technical or adaptive response. According to Heifetz, the distinction is between a heart surgeon operating to replace or repair a patient’s heart (a technical response based on expertise and training) and the longer term adaptive response (the decisions the heart patient has to make about their health and future lifestyle, such as improved diet, more exercise, quitting smoking, regular medical checkups), the latter depending on multiple elements, other people and requiring ongoing attention to remain effective (i.e. alive). According to Heifetz, too often leaders faced with adaptive problems adopt technical (reactive?) responses and apply their leadership and decision making expertise without looking deeper or wider and involving (sharing power with) others. Such a dynamic also creates what Heifetz calls ‘unresolved dependency’ in those working for the leader as they helplessly await the leader’s decision.

To assist leaders to avoid a ‘knee-jerk’ technical leadership response and perhaps move towards an adaptive response, they should seriously consider Step 2.

Step 2 - Admit you don’t know the answer.

Gervais Bushe[2] suggests that, rather than a leader saying “I know the answer, follow me”, they should spend more time on identifying the actual challenge (i.e. what purpose you are trying to achieve) then inviting (i.e. sharing power with) staff and other stakeholders to try to address the challenge. This acknowledges the reality that problems are too complex for anyone to analyse all the variables and know the correct answer in advance. Therefore a preferable, and likely more durable, approach is to cede decision making power to work with others to develop ideas and solutions.

Step 3 - Provide a safe holding environment to consider the problem.

Once a leader awakens the possibility in themselves and others that they are not all-knowing and that others can assist, leaders need to create a space for others to co-create. This requires leaders to find a balance between loosening their grip on power enough to genuinely encourage the views of others and framing aspects of the problem with sufficient clarity to not get lost in a maze of stakeholder options. See Heifetz’s cooking analogy in Diagram 1. 

Source: Heifetz & Linsky

But, and this is a BIG but, the space for co-creation must encourage and allow for conflict and tension to arise in a manageable way. Guiderails must be in place to frame how discussions are to take place and be resolved and to limit emotions dominating the process, so that alternative views can be vigorously discussed and deconstructed instead of focusing on personal values or the persons holding them. Unfortunately, many leaders remain uncomfortable with not only sharing power, but doing so to generate conflict, as they prefer the safety of hierarchical control and their ability to limit dissent.  

Step 4 – Work with other leaders to maximise problem solving potential

The very nature of complex problems means it is not enough for a single leader to create a ‘sandpit’ for people and ideas to play in – not only are more sandpits needed, but they also have to be connected in some way to maximise problem solving potential, both inside and outside the organisation.

Leadership scholars Uhl-Bien & Arena[3] suggest the way to do this is by leaders and others tapping into existing networks to create collective approaches to problem solving. In every organisation, there are networks that cut across organisational boundaries, hierarchy, gender and experience. The idea, once again, is that leaders adopt a less rigid approach to hierarchy, let some of their power go, and encourage people at all levels to find ways to connect to other networks to cross-fertilise ideas and experiences and engage in (managed) conflict to develop new/better options, which can be tested, refined, adopted and/or discarded. Even if no ‘solution’ to the issue is developed in the short term or otherwise, the opening of networks in this way can deliver a workforce that is more interconnected, engaged and willing to bring their own ideas to the table for debate with others and can also build powerful cross-agency connections for future challenges.   

What all this looks like. 

Diagram 2 (borrowing again from Uhl-Bien & Arena) identifies the dynamics described above. Often, when a complex policy problem presents itself, there is considerable conflicting ‘noise’ from the multiple signals, data, stakeholders and their differing interests. As noted above, leaders often respond by retreating to order and hierarchy to limit conflict and ‘make sense’ of the problem (yellow arrow). While there is logic to this approach, leaders too often stay stuck in the low conflict ‘command and control’ approach and try to implement ‘technical’ responses from their leadership bunker.

While leaders are important, what is more important is a different style of leadership (blue arrow) that acknowledges unknowns, requires power to flow to others to identify and test different and conflicting ideas across intra and inter-organisational networks and wrestles those ideas into future courses of action.

[1] Heifetz, RA & Linsky M. (2014). Adaptive Leadership: The Heifetz Collection: Harvard Business Review Press.

[2] Bushe, G. R. (2019).  Generative Leadership. Canadian Journal of Physician Leadership, 5(3), 141-147.

 [3] Uhl-Bien, M., & Arena, M. (2017). Complexity leadership: Enabling people and organizations for adaptability. Organizational Dynamics, 46(1), 9–20.