Leadership in a CSD Project
Leadership Is Transformed
Transformed leadership is one of three essential features of CSD as a new paradigm for solution discovery in a complex and contentious world. This transformed leadership is focused and dedicated on discovery the good solution that best serves the aggregate interests of all the stakeholders in an issue of concern.
- Manages the Solution Discovery process so it moves forward expeditiously and with excellence.
- Facilitates Stakeholder engagement in the project.
- Upholds the Vision of collaboration and dedication to a result that maximizes the common good.
CSD leadership definitely avoids stereotypes commonly associated with leadership.
- The leader is NOT the big kahuna, the boss who dictates the solution.
- The leader is NOT the hero-genius who single-handedly creates the solution to the amazement of lesser folk.
- The leader is NOT the advocate for one particular solution out of the many that may emerge from the solution search process.
Every Participant is a Leader
CSD project leadership is a departure from leadership in the traditional or commonplace manner. First, think of leadership as a distributed function. Every active participant in a CSD project is a leader in his or her area of responsibility and initiative. Seeing an opportunity to move the project forward, a participant grasps that opportunity and offers a contribution from his/her expertise, creativity and special knowledge. If that contribution is made constructively and collaboratively, and other participants agree on its value, it is incorporated into the project.
Leadership from the Center
However, this distributed leadership is obviously not sufficient. There must also be leadership from the center in the more conventional manner, in order to maintain focus and coherence. In the kitchen there may be many chefs, each responsible for a portion of the meal, but there is also the executive chef who makes sure it all comes together.
Centralized leadership is invested in a Project Leader or a small and close knit Project Leadership Team. Its guiding spirit is participant empowerment. In that spirit, leadership performs its three essential roles of project management, stakeholder engagement, and upholding the collaborative vision while remaining neutral regarding the selection of the final solution.