A perspective on Leadership from the new sciences

The structure of any organisation has a profound effect upon its ability to function. But the traditional response to change - rearranging the teams and redrawing the chains of command- achieves little in today's fast moving world and takes up time better spent focusing on the future.

Complexity Theory is a mathematical tool used to investigate systems such as living organisms, the weather or evolution. The main characteristic of these systems is that they contain a large network of independent parts all interacting in complex ways. Simple rules of cause and effect are hidden under hundreds or thousands of interactions and knock on effects. Such systems are known as complex systems, for obvious reasons.

We now know that it is the interaction of the various parts of the system with one another, the sharing of knowledge between them, that controls the structure and behaviour of the system as a whole.

The study of chaos has shown that in complex systems a very small change in any part, as a result of external stress, (such as the increase of average world temperature by 1°C), can have results which are unpredictable in both scale and effect (El Nino, floods, droughts etc.). This is why people sometimes refer to the Chaos Butterfly - if a butterfly flaps its wings in India it could, theoretically at least, produce snow in the desert!

In nature, complex systems have a strong sense of 'self' - every cell in our bodies knows that it is part of a person, every cell of the butterfly knows it is a butterfly - and all have a common purpose, the continued existence of the organism.

When such complex systems encounter an external stress they adapt to the change by finding a new stability. Systems like this, which are hard to destabilise, are known as complex adaptive systems. Much of the organic world falls into this category. This process of stress followed by adaptation is essential for continued survival and underpins the theory of evolution.

One intriguing result is that complex adaptive systems can evolve into something that has a different behaviour to the original, and that this evolution is unpredictable. Therefore a system can naturally exploit a change in its environment or survive in a niche that it previously did not occupy. This can only happen when the system can adapt freely around its knowledge of 'self'.

For modern organisations the essential lesson from the new sciences is the need to move away from inflexible structures, which can be overwhelmed by change, to one that can adapt, and thrive on change.

This means continuing to replace rigid hierarchies by flatter, more fluid, networked approaches and, crucially, enthusiastically adopting a positive approach - an open, free exchange of information and ideas.

The leader's role in these organisations is crucial.

The leader must:-

• Create the strong sense of 'organisational self' by building and communicating a clear vision and a shared understanding of the guiding principles or values -what we stand for
• Enable, support and maintain effective communications throughout the organisation
• Support and exemplify the learning culture
• Challenge current thinking and adapt continually to new ideas
• Introduce reward systems that support the sharing, not the hoarding, of information, thereby dismantling the 'knowledge is power' culture.