MIT LEADERSHIP CENTER
Distributed Leadership
in Context
Deborah Ancona, Elaine Backman,
and Kate Parrot!
Distributed Leadership &
Relational Leadership!
Relational Leadership: a pattern of reciprocal interrelating between
workers and managers to make sense of the situation…to create a
more integrated holistic understanding!triggering cognitive
connections in the form of shared goals and shared knowledge !
!
!
!
!
!Gittell & Douglass (2012)!
Distributed Leadership!
1.  Key is interactions between individual leaders & the
system or context of leadership!
2.  Leadership functions, not roles (e.g. manager-worker)!
3.  Anyone—manager, worker, and customer can lead &
all have resources to do so.!
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Four-Capabilities Model!
Visioning
Action
Sensemaking
Enablement
Relating
Inventing
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Industrial Era
Organization: pre 1970ʼs!
!
Knowledge Era !
Organizations: post 1970ʼs!
Strategy!
Sustained competitive
advantage through
efficiency & reliability!
Fleeting competitive advantage
through speed, agility, innovation
(Dynamic capabilities)!
Structure!
Fixed division of labor!
Hierarchy of offices!
Formalized rules!
!
Looser job descriptions!
Flattened hierarchy!
Reliance on teams!
Blurred boundaries!
Leadership!
Rational legal authority
based on formal position!
Decentralized!
Individual & Collective!
Decoupled from formal positions!
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Research Goal!
Understand distributed
leadership organizations
in situ; need to bring!
!
Strategy (dynamic
capabilities) !
Structure (interactive
bureaucracy)!
Leadership (distributed
leadership)!
!
!
!
!
Back Together Again…
© 2010 D. Ancona
MIT LEADERSHIP CENTER
Methods—Theory Generating
Study ! #1: Within-organization
1.  Organization
comparative case study of command & control
versus distributed leadership functional unit!
2.  Organization #2: An in-depth study of a
company known for combining dynamic
capabilities, interactive structures, and
distributed leadership.!
!
Focus on: Dynamic Capability of new product
development!
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Strategy: Dynamic Capability in
Product Development: Routine
for Sensing, Seizing, & Aligning
!  Leadership Self-Efficacy and Entrepreneurial
!
Action!
!  Intelligent Agency: Strategic Mindset for Triple
Word Scores!
!  Creative Collisions!
!  “Sand Dune” Teams and Networks (Hackman &
Wageman 2005)!
!  Vetting and Choosing!
!  Move Ahead or Try Again!
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© 2010 D. Ancona
Structure: A New Game Board of
Rules and Resources!
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Rules!
!  Select the “right” players!
!  Rely on simple rules (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; 1998)!
!  Sell donʼt tell!
!  Idea marketplace: participate in ubiquitous,
open vetting & selection!
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Resources!
!  Just-in-time, ubiquitous resources—budget,
knowledge, commitment!
!  Freedom of commitment!
!  Doodle time!
!  Spaces to enable creative collisions!
!
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Research Goal!
Strategy!
!  Dynamic capability
routines !
Structure!
!  Game Board!
Leadership!
!  Distributed leadership!
!
!
!
!
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© 2010 D. Ancona
Leadership Functions!
1. Enact & Facilitate the Routine—Dynamic
Capability of Product Innovation: Strategy"
!  Entrepreneurship—Sensing & Seizing!
!  Connecting and Coordinating!
!  Coaching and Aligning!
2. Maintain & Reconfigure the Game Board:
Structure"
Chaos
Control
!  Process Change!
!  Meta-Structuring!
!  Synthesizing and Balancing!
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!
Theoretical Contributions!
!  Develops a new, emergent systems lens to
understand new organizational structures that
enact Dynamic Capabilities…!
!  And the leadership needed to enact and
reconfigure such systems!
!  Brings Strategy, Structure, and Leadership
Back Together!
!
!!
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Thank you!!
MIT LEADERSHIP CENTER