Leadership from below is a perspective on leadership: No need for a position in a hierarchy to have influence. It is also a perspective on life: lead when you need. It is not just a trend. In fact it is a stable feature of any society, but it has recently become trendy. However, despite disruptive tech...hierarchy remains systemic part of society. Complexity means that delegation is necessary. Also, people love to delegate. So, the pendulum swings back. However, hierarchy will need re-legitimation.

1. Beyond Leadership
From Below
Trond Arne Undheim, Ph.D. Leuven, 28 October 2010
twitter.com/trondau
The opinions expressed here are the author’s only and do not necessarily represent those of his employers past or present

2. Which theory is best?
• Trait Theory?
• Great Man Theory?
• Behavioral Theory?
• Participative
Leadership?
• Situational
Leadership?
• Contingency
Theories?
• Transactional
Leadership?
• Transformational
Leadership?

3. Which trends are important?
• Consumers?
• Home/work fusion
• Diversity
• Networks?
• Globalization
• Technology
shifts?
• Internet
• Smartphones
• Social media
• Tweetonomics

4. Power?
Manage
Decide
Influence
Push

5. Leadership from below
• A perspective on leadership: No need for a
position in a hierarchy to have influence.
• A perspective on life: lead when you need.

6. LFB is not a trend
• Leadership from below is not just a trend
• In fact it is a stable feature of any society
• but it has recently become trendy

8. © Global Nomad Group

9. My daughter's principles
1. Takes a role: small, powerful, equal
2. Builds deep relationships
3. Negotiates well
4. Convincing
However: she operates in a larger structure

10. Lessons Learned:
1. Hierarchy buy-in
2. User always involved
Huge track record of sharing – 100 speeches across Europe –
10 visits a year from foreign dignitaries
Public procurement case (France)
Domain: Health and Transport services
Origin: France, Interior Ministry http://www.pp.fr
A great solution for all public procurement in France.
Pilot results from Health and Transport show €90 m
savings and 10 tons of paper eliminated yearly on a
€1m/year operation.
Discuss
About us
Search
Personalize
In-depth
eHealth
eInclusion
eGovernment
European Awards
Share good practice
Find a product
Find a speaker
Find an expert
Trying to innovate

11. Persuasion
• Don't take no for an answer
– Find new arguments.
– Make yourself relevant.
– Create urgency.
• Get people behind you one by one.
– Use goodwill. Let others lead

12. Result: ePractice.eu
• World's largest: 80 K.
• 700% growth 1st year
• 1461 cases (€ 1 mrd).
• 35 countries.
• Recapitalized: €10 M.
However: such success
does not last forever.

13. Automatic Authority
1. Traditional
– Church, Monarchy
1. Charismatic
– Jesus, Gandhi, Hitler,
Elvis, Lady Gaga
1. Bureaucratic
– Governments
– Institutions
– Corporations

14. Sovereignty
• "Listen then, kings, and understand; rulers
of remotest lands, take warning; hear this,
you who govern great populations, taking
pride in your hosts of subject nations! For
sovereignty is given to you by the Lord and
power by the Most High, who will himself
probe your acts and scrutinize your
intentions." Wisdom 6:1-3

15. Negotiated Authority
1. Energy
– Drive, self-confidence, flow
1. Lifestyle
– Nature, family, friends
1. Technology
– Master only what you need
– Ignore the rest
Power: Who you are. Who others think you are.

16. # 1.1 Energy
Western thinking
• Individual drive
• Killer instinct
Entrepreneurial spirit
• See opportunities
• Take risk
• Work hard

17. # 1.2 Energy
Eastern tenkning
• Collektive drive (Ba)
• Balance (Ki)
Aikido
• Use other's aggression (Ki)
• Care for the other (Ba)

18. # 2 Lifestyle
Scandinavian thinking
• Ecosystem
• Equality
• Being likable
Collaboration NHO-LO
• Friendly, nice leaders
• Flat hierarchy
Over 2200 work at McDonald’s HQ.
In Danish ISS only 80. Both have
500 thousand employees.

19. # 3 Technology
Global trends
• Constantly learning
• Digital identity
Internet
• Standardized platform
• Innovation happens
when we do not follow
the instructions

20. Business from Below
• Opentech—a Scandinavian IT company
– Customers and offices across the globe.
– Hundreds of employees
• Oracle—US multinational IT company
– Customers, partners, offices globally
– 100 thousand employees

21. Opentech
• No visible leadership
• No meetings
• No interruptions
Influence without LEADER in the spotlight

22. Meetings at Opentech
“Deep conversation between a few people
over a beer combined with written proposals
via email is of course more effective than
meetings. A meeting is a bad way of getting
something done.”
--Opentech CTO

23. Oracle
• The Matrix (field, product, geography)
• Customer meetings at centre
• Interruptions ok as long as $ flows
Network support (customers, partners,
competitors more important than support
from your hierarchy

24. Opentech v. Oracle
• Process v. Results
• Programmers v. Salesmen
• Principles v. Pragmatism
• Leadership from below AND hierarchy
• A question of scale, time and maturity

25. Peer Power
• Convince by personality not position.
• Take criticism. Create confidence.
• Carpe Diem. All leadership is short lived.
• Gain authority by giving, not taking.

26. Power?
Place
Positioning
Situation
Convincing

27. Who wins? Fisherman or Fish?
© Chris Martinez

28. Should a CEO share power?
1. Top-down is rude. Smart people do not
use their power overtly.
2. Get to know people. Show weakness.
3. Grow peer relationships.
4. Let workers fail and still prevail.

29. If all else fails, simply pay more

30. Scenarios for 2030
1. Lottery: CEO/worker share authority and power.
2. Majority works from home.
3. Results Only Business Environment (ROBE).
4. Without digital identity you do not exist.
5. A few social media dominate all communication.
6. Your kids will be in jobs providing all of Maslow's
hierarchy of needs: fra air, water, food, lodging,
sex, self-actualization.

31. Who will gain power in 2030?
Individual
Agency
Networks
Initiative
Society
Structure
Hierarchy
Delegation

32. Beyond Leadership From Below
• Despite disruptive
tech...hierarchy
remains systemic
part of society
– Complexity.
– Delegation.
• People love to
delegate.
Flickr image by
carrotcreative

33. Power of individuals
• Despite hype, hard to measure increase.
– Consumer networks are vulnerable.
– Initiative is finite resource. Reaches saturation.
– Bottom-up action is exception.
– Internet (1995): did not change everything,
and what it changed is elastic, it changes, too.
• Ultimately, network effects favor elites.

34. • Hierarchy will still be seen as valid principle
• Only situations and moments give rise to
authority, be it automatic or negotiated.
• Emergent forms of organizational
governance must take this into account.

35. Re-legitimation of hierarchy
• Pendulum swings back. Regression
towards the mean. But...
• Hierarchy will need re-legitimation
– Each organization will need to re-build trust.
– Leaders will be replaced by other leaders.
– Transparency might increase
• Not necessarily a dystopian society.

36. Entrepreneurship/Bureaucracy
• Entrepreneurship is indeed fully dependent
on having a persuasive founder, team,
board, investor, and first customer.
• Bureaucracy is dependent on having a
rational structure that makes sense to
most of its participants, and one capable of
organizing actions beyond the whims of
individuals.

37. Crazy Simple→
• Getting something done is always difficult.
• Recruiting believers is essential.
• You cannot skip it regardless how good
your idea is, what existing power base you
may believe you possess.
• Initially, all initiatives appear to be without
structure, but inevitably a structure forms.

38. True organizational change
• Innovate
incrementally.
• If you can, operate
within existing
frameworks.
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, David Marchal

39. “Entreprenocracy” still crazy
• Currently is not descriptive of any
organization I know of.
• However, all enterprises that survive the
21st century, will have entrepenocracy as
its dominant logic.

40. Conclusion
•We need to look beyond
leadership from below, but
not past it.
•Follow when you can.
•Lead when you need.