Teaching Complexity and Its Practical Implications in Leadership Development Programs

Abstract

This article describes an advanced leadership seminar for senior managers and executives. The three module seminar describes how thoughtful leaders can learn to succeed even under conditions of extreme complexity. The first module describes complexity in the scientific sense and highlights the need to allow events to develop so that emergent patterns can be identified. The second module shows how this new complexity perspective can be used to frame and communicate social and economic imperatives in ways that move the organization forward. The third module puts this knowledge to work and enables participants to be better stewards of collective leadership within their organizations. Some reflections on the success of the program and potential improvements are offered in the concluding section.

Keywords

• complexity leadership, collective leadership, leadership development