Lateral Leading: A Very Brief Introduction to Power, Understanding and Trust

Stefan Kühl

Lateral

Leading

A Very Brief Introduction to Power, Understanding and Trust

Organizational Dialogue Press

Princeton, Hamburg, Shanghai, Singapore, Versailles, Zurich

Imprint

ISBN (Print) 978-0-9991479-6-2

ISBN (EPUB) 978-0-9991479-7-9

Copyright © 2017 by Stefan Kühl

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

Translated by: Lee Holt

Cover Design: Guido Klütsch

Typesetting: Thomas Auer

Project Management: Tabea Koepp

www.organizationaldialoguepress.com

Contents

Preface—Leading Beyond Hierarchical Control

1.

Lateral Leading—Introduction

1.1 Applying the Concept

1.2 On the Popularity of Lateral Leading

2.

Power, Understanding and Trust—The Three Pillars of Lateral Leadership

2.1 Understanding—Overcoming Rigid Thought Structures

2.2 Power—The Control of Zones of Uncertainty

2.3 Trust—The Benefits and Dangers of Extending Trust

3.

The Interplay of the Three Mechanisms of Influence

3.1 The Simultaneous Mode of Operation of Power, Understanding and Trust

3.2 The Equal Ranking of the Three Mechanisms—Why You Cannot Prioritize Understanding, Power or Trust

3.3 The Interplay of Power, Trust and Understanding

3.4 Mutual Replaceability—How Understanding, Power and Trust Can Replace One Another

4.

Connection to the Formal Structure of Organizations

4.1 The Genesis of Understanding, Power and Trust from an Organization’s Structures

4.2 The Influence of Understanding, Power and Trust in the Shadows of Formal Structure

4.3 Understanding, Power and Trust—Limitations Caused by Integration in Organizations

5.

How Do You Lead Laterally Through Processes of Change? Applying the Concept

5.1 The Initial Situation: The Logic of Innovation and Routines in Organizations

5.2 The Discussion Phase: The Potential of Lateral Cooperative Relationships

5.3 The Creation of Change Processes: The Benefits of Contingency

6.

Outlook—Additional Search Fields for Further Developing the Concept of Lateral Leading

Bibliography

Preface—Leading Beyond

Hierarchical Control

It would be naive to describe hierarchy as an outdated model or to go so far as to assume that hierarchies should be torn down, taken apart, and chopped up. The concepts of the learning organization and knowledge management, as well as deliberations about the decentralization of organization, have not dealt a mortal blow to hierarchies. There are good reasons to assume that as long as there are organizations, there will also be hierarchies. It seems that no other organizational mechanism is as well suited as hierarchy when it comes to making quick decisions, preventing constant power struggles, and pacifying conflicts at lower levels.

With increasing frequency, however, managers have the impression that hierarchical control in decision-making processes only works to a limited degree, and it appears that there are reasons for this. In the cooperative arrangements in a value-creation chain, there are often only limited ways to call for managerial intervention in conflict situations. This is because the more hierarchies are flattened out, the less available the hierarch becomes for the issuance of a command to solve coordination problems among subordinates. In collective bodies—for instance, works councils or the management boards of corporations—or in project groups with members from different departments, hierarchical coordination frequently has to be avoided, more or less. The leader—if there is even one at all—typically only holds a coordinating function and cannot solve conflicts by referring to a specific hierarchical position. The limits of hierarchical coordination become particularly clear in cooperation between various organizations. Employees of such organizations are often forced to bring up an issue without being sure that the details of their cooperative arrangement are clarified by contracts, or that their managers are even ready to clear up every small problem on the margins of a conference or—to invoke a cliché—on the golf course.

The concept of lateral leading tackles this problem and develops an approach to leadership that goes beyond hierarchy. The term itself may be irritating at first glance, because how can someone lead if they don’t have any authority? The notion of lateral leading is an intentional oxymoron—a combination of two contradictory terms into one phrase—that seeks to make it clear that this concept is about bringing two dissonant demands into harmony. Just as the word bittersweet denotes that a dish can activate two opposed sets of taste buds, the special thing about the concept of lateral leading is the ability to lead without hierarchical authority.

Lateral leading is based on three central mechanisms of influence: understanding, power, and trust. Understanding means comprehending the structure of your counterpart’s thinking in a way that creates new possibilities for action. Trust is built up if one side takes the risk of extending itself and the other side does not take short-term advantage of