Get your mojo working: complexity’s call for magnetic and magical leaders

Abstract

In an increasingly fragmented and complex world, the author looks for ways to create greater coherence in the way schools go about their business. This article tracks the progress of a research project over the course of a year to find out what happens when teachers are given the opportunity to have a greater say about the work they do. The author entered the research field with an idea that she hoped would create the dissonance necessary to rethink the organizational systems and reframe them using complexity science as a referent. A form of democratic governance, sociocracy, created the space for emergent leadership, the results of which will continue to evolve over time as the players find new ways of keeping the system healthy, dynamic and moving in the desired direction. This emerging leadership calls for people with ‘magical’ qualities who can work both for themselves and for the organization, both internally and externally.

Notes

1. The term governance, used throughout this article, is to be distinguished from the concept of governmentality as described by Foucault in his writings on power, the dominance of government and managerial control in institutions. The concept of governance that is explored here is a response to the belief that the people being held accountable for something should have some control over that thing (Ingersoll 2008).

2. RIC Educational publishers specializing in blackline master or copymasters and student workbooks for schools and homeschoolers.

3. New Public Governance is the term used to describe a governance paradigm based on trust or relational contacts. New Public Governance has its theoretical roots in organizational sociology and network theory, as opposed to traditional public administration rooted in political science and public policy.

4. Sociocracy is a form of governance that allows groups to self‐organize and make decisions about the work they do in a way that activates a common search to reach agreement. In the 1970s, Dutch engineer, Gerard Endenburg, used cybernetics and systems thinking to develop the principles of sociocracy into a governance model. Further information can be found in Buck and Villines (2007).

5. Learning Hub is the term used by the author and participants in her host schools to describe a place within the organizational structure where both traditional and emerging leaders can gather to dialogue about complex ideas, mentor and coach each other, and learn how to be stewards or spiral wizards for building the capacity of the whole organization.

6. This concept is based on the work of Clare W. Graves, in the 1960s, and later, Beck and Cowan’s work on spiral dynamics.