September 8, 2010
Design and the Prospects for Deviant Leadership
by Christopher R. Paparone
As a follow on to the short essay, ―Design and the Prospects of a US Military
Renaissance,‖ (published in Small Wars Journal in May 2010
1
), it is also important to pay some
attention to the potential impact of design philosophy on the institutionalization of leadership –
rephrased, what is the ―ideal‖ leadership model in the context of military design science?
Several authors have attempted to reconceptualize organizational leadership to a postpositivist
view (postpositivism is the underlying philosophical paradigm shift associated with ―design‖).
2
The purpose here is to summarize postpositivist views of leadership by three noteworthy authors
that are arguably very important to the design mindset: Ron Heifetz of Harvard University,
USA; Donna Ladkin of Cranfield University, UK; and, Keith Grint of Warwick University (and
formerly of the Defence Academy), UK. This essay will explore the impacts of postpositivist
leadership defined by these authors in the context of military approaches to design.
Heifetz’s View: Leadership as Deviance
Interestingly, Ron Heifetz, in his 1994 book Leadership Without Easy Answers, does not
use any version of the word ―follower‖ throughout his 348 pages of text. His thesis is that
leaders help others lead themselves through difficult, complex, and even life-threatening
circumstances (leaders beget self-leaders). His principal argument is that leadership is adaptive
work that occurs where technical definitions and solutions are not available. The implications
are clear for the military: if you and your troops are not dealing in adaptive work when faced
with unique, novel, and complex situations, you are engaged in something else other than
leadership. According to Heifetz, adaptive work involves influencing others away from reliance
on authoritative response.
3
An undesirable feature of the more traditional way of framing
leadership is that it creates inappropriate dependencies where others are not motivated to
discover or create solutions because they rely on the leader to do it for them. In other words, the
traditional (culturally, habit-forming) view is that leadership is a kind of technology that troops
depend on as a source for authoritative response. This dependency is a constraint when
adaptivity is needed.
Heifetz’s alternative view challenges the values, attitudes, and habits that comprise the
military’s proclivity to see leadership as a socially-acceptable form of follower dependency.
Heifetz argues that the preferred purpose of leadership is to lessen dependence, promoting a
more decentralized adaptivity in individuals, groups and, organizations when faced with novel,
1
See http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/05/design-and-the-prospects-of-a/)
2
Donald A. Schön, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (BasicBooks, 1983). Schön, one of the
founders of the ―design school,‖ speaks to the ―dominant epistemology of practice‖ (associated with positivism) which he argues
is plaguing professions. He calls for a postpositivist approach to knowledge that he describes as ―reflective practice.‖
3
Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1994), p. 72. Authoritative response is
another name for technical work (fixing definable problems with available solutions).
SMALL WARS JOURNAL
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