Pontefract, Dan, Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. 2013, Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.
[You can see chapter 1 of Pontefract’s book here.]
With over 2,400 responses to the Vibrancy survey from 92 countries, we find that the quality of leadership in a group is highly correlated with the ability to sustain a specific level of experienced vibrancy in the group. It is not clear whether leadership leads to the experience or the experience invites the leadership. And, we do see that they are both present to the same degree. Great experiences are accompanied by high quality leadership. Many authors are now pointing at the attributes of this high quality leadership. One of those authors that I really enjoyed was Dan Pontrefact in his recent book Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization. I will pull a few quotes out of the book to show you what Dan has to say about the qualities of leadership that support more vibrant groups.
“DDI’s research indicates that ‘organizations with the highest quality leaders [are] thirteen times more likely to outperform their competition in key bottom-line metrics such as financial performance, quality of products and services, employee engagement, and customer satisfaction.'” (Flat Army, p. 4, click text for original source of quote)
“If you really want an engaged workforce, treat [people] as fellow grown-ups working together for a shared purpose.” (Flat Army, p. 11)
“cooperating puts things into a whole new perspective…The harmonious state of leadership occurs when both the leader and the team are open. To achieve harmony in the team or organization is also to act by cooperating with one another. There must be cooperation between leader and team; harmony is the end destination.” (Flat Army, p. 102)
“In research conducted for her book Hot Spots: Why Some Team, Workplaces, and Organizations Buss with Energy and Others Don’t, Lynda Gratton summarizes a team environment that is effectively cooperative as follows: ‘[T]he energy of the cooperative mindset comes not from a mindset of competition but rather from a mindset of excellence. The focus is on the excellence toward which people are striving together rather than the competition of beating everyone else to the goal.” (Flat Army, p. 102, click here to see Gratton’s book Hot Spots)
You can read related observations in my earlier posts about engaging people, harmony, cooperation, competition, shared purpose, and energy experienced.
Reflections of a Pactoecographer 