TEAMS, LEADERS AND FLEXIBILITY

IMPLICATIONS OF FLEXIBLE BEHAVIOUR IN A LEADERSHIP CONTEXT

Prepared by
Martin Witthoeft

Module Title: Undergraduate Major Project

Supervisor: Dr. Beatriz Acevedo
Module Code: BC330998S
Academic Year: 2008/9

Submitted: 24 April 2009

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this research, in particular the respondents

in the professional networks of Xing and LinkedIn for their participation and advice. I am

especially grateful to my supervisor Dr. Beatriz Acevedo for her continuous support and

feedback as well as my partner Ulrike for her encouragement and patience during the last four

months.

Personally I am still amazed about how this project evolved and the twists and turns it took; to

me Henry Ford’s self-fulfilling prophecy proves true once again: “Whether you think you can or

think you cannot - you are absolutely right”.

This dissertation is dedicated to my father (1951-2005).

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Abstract

This research aims to explore the significance of flexibility in the context of team leadership by

identifying the implications of flexible behaviour for leadership in theory and practice. It further

wants to increase awareness when and how it is beneficial to demonstrate flexible behaviour

and introduce flexibility as one of the major impacts on leader and follower relations.

In order to achieve the purpose of this research, a compelling guiding hypothesis with the aim

to retrieve qualitative data was published in professional online networks. This was followed by

a thematic analysis of the 267 personal replies of professionals to identify the respondents’

associations with the term flexibility. The results of these practical accounts were then put into

context and contrasted with findings in academic literature. The findings highlight three main

themes within the responses; the need for balance between flexible and inflexible behaviour,

an exploration of the motivations for flexibility and the significance of flexible behaviour itself

reveal a strong tendency towards the need for stability in leadership. In contrast to the

literature, the research results identified a perceived negative side to flexible behaviour. This

research makes provisional theoretical contributions in terms of the underlying implications of

flexibility in leader and follower relationships with respect to outcomes within a team

environment. In practical terms the findings increase the awareness of the impact of flexibility

for the choice of a leader in a particular situation or environment. In addition to that, it

provides insights into the outcomes of flexible behaviour which are beneficial on a personal

level. Although there has been research with observations of group participants to categorize

dynamics and competency measures for individuals via testing, very little is known about the

implications of flexibility for leadership. This research attempts to clarify these implications.

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 Table of Contents

I. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1

II. Literature Review ....................................................................................................... 3

1. Holism and Reductionism ..................................................................................... 3
2. Systems Thinking and Cybernetics ....................................................................... 5
3. Law of Requisite Variety ....................................................................................... 6
4. Teams, Leadership and Flexibility ......................................................................... 8
5. Summary of Findings .......................................................................................... 13

III. Methodology............................................................................................................ 15
1. Purpose and Approach ....................................................................................... 15
2. Thematic Analysis ............................................................................................... 15
3. Sample Selection................................................................................................. 18
4. Validity and Reliability ........................................................................................ 19

IV. Data Analysis............................................................................................................ 20

1. Legitimation of Hypothesis ................................................................................. 20
2. Research Results ................................................................................................. 22
3. Summary of Findings .......................................................................................... 29

V. Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 31
1. Conclusions and Theoretical Contributions........................................................ 31
2. Implications for Future Research and Practice................................................... 32
3. Limitations .......................................................................................................... 33

VI. List of References ..................................................................................................... 35

VII. Appendices .............................................................................................................. 40

1. Forum Article ...................................................................................................... 40
2. List of Forums ..................................................................................................... 41

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I. Introduction

The leader of the ’Fantastic Four’ is the most flexible one. (Louis, consultant)

Most people know the following scenario: You sit in an office and your superior just told you

what to do next. While he leaves the room, you ask yourself if he really cares about your

opinion or just listened to you out of courtesy. Many people also had this experience: You have

just left an office after explaining a new concept to your employees. You wonder if they really

got the point and what they think about it. The key to these scenarios is flexibility of both

leader and follower. The success of an organisation depends on the relationships of its people

with each other; thus a logical conclusion would be to adopt the ability to demonstrate flexible

behaviour as a selection criterion for leadership. However, flexibility is hard to define and

difficult to measure. But what can easily be achieved is an increase of the level of awareness

about flexible behaviour and its consequences on the smallest entities of the organisation, the

teams.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of flexibility in the context of team

leadership. For a start it is necessary to understand what flexibility is all about; a practical way

to obtain this information is to ask the right people, those who work in teams every day.

However, what is the right question to catch their attention so they are willing to share their

opinion and experiences? The solution is a bold statement embedded in a compelling context

that will provoke curiosity. For this purpose a technical law was identified in cybernetics that

had been adapted to a presupposition of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP). For this research

the NLP interpretation was then transferred into a business context to create a statement that

would make it possible to examine people’s personal associations with the term flexibility. The

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focus was on creating a clear, short and simple, yet appealing hypothesis that would stand

independent of context and time. The three steps taken to create the hypothesis are outlined in

detail below:

1. An interpretation of the ‘law of requisite variety’ formulated by Ashby (1956:

207) states that:
“The larger the variety of actions available to a control system, the larger the
variety of perturbations it is able to compensate” (Heylighen, 1992).

2. This had been adapted to a presupposition of NLP:

“In NLP the ‘Law of Requisite Variety’ in a given physical system is that the part
of the system with the greatest flexibility of behaviour will control the system”
(Goodwin, 2009).

3. Transferred to a business context the hypothesis of this research states that:

"The most flexible person in a team will end up leading the team. “

The statement was then converted to the question whether it would be ‘the most flexible

person that ends up leading a team’ and published together with the background outlined

above on selected professional online networks. In this research project the responses to these

posts are analysed and the obtained records of real life business experiences are then

contrasted with academic findings in literature. Previous research on leadership and team

theories seems to neglect the importance of flexibility and its implications. This paper attempts

to introduce flexibility as one of the major impacts on leader and follower relations and wants

to clarify when and how it is beneficial to demonstrate flexible behaviour. The main goal of this

report is to increase awareness of flexibility in both theory and practice. In accordance with the

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topic and the hypothesis of this paper, the theoretical frameworks and procedure of data

collection as well as the methodological approach were selected to fit the theme of flexibility.

II. Literature Review

Before the actual analysis of the data it is essential to place the hypothesis into a theoretical

context. In the following paragraphs the underlying frameworks for the hypothesis are briefly

outlined; selected excerpts of literature ranging from the principles of holism and reductionism

to the sciences of systems thinking and cybernetics are presented to establish a theoretical

basis for the law of requisite variety. The review concludes with an overview of definitions for

the concepts of team, leadership and flexibility followed by a summary of the discussed

literature.

1. Holism and Reductionism

The general principle of holism was first summarized by Aristotle (in Sachs, 1999: 8.6.1045a10)

in his statement “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”. Contemporary authors are still

discussing the implications of this statement; Ballé (1994: 6) explains that hidden in this

reasoning is the assumption that “by increasing the parts individually, the sum of its parts will

also increase”. Kremyanskiy (1960: 126) claims the whole is bigger than the sum but “not bigger

than the organized system of its parts, in all their connexions and intermediaries.” When Smuts

(in Smuts & Holst, 1999: 86) first coined the term holism in 1926, he argued that a unity of parts

would not only give a particular structure to the parts, but also alter them in the process of the

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synthesis to make them “function towards the whole”. Copi and Cohen (2005: 117-119)

exemplify holistic thinking by the following logical fallacies:

The brick wall is six feet tall. Thus, the bricks in the wall are six feet tall.
(Because the whole has a property, the parts do not necessarily have that
property.)

Each brick is three inches high. Thus, the brick wall is three inches high.
(Because the parts have a property, the whole does not necessarily have that
property.)

In order to achieve a better understanding of holism it can be contrasted with reductionism to

highlight key differences. Antonymous to holism, the reductionist approach assumes that the

“whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts” (Ballé, 1994: 30). Here a system is broken

down into sub-systems which are then analysed separately in isolation while the relationships

between them are ignored (Bar-Yam, 2000). In the past reductionism has been successfully

applied to different scenarios by examining individual sub-problems that can provide “self-

contained solutions with no reference to other parts of the problem” (Rafferty, 2007: 4).

However, Ballé (1994: 17) objects these arguments by pointing out that the reductionist view is

neglecting the possibility that by optimizing each of the parts individually, the overall outcome

might still be a “disaster”. Dobson (2003: 3) adds that reductionism is not useful if the

underlying problems cannot be “expressed in simple mathematics“ and Hammer (1995: 555)

refers to it as “local sub-optimization on a very limited set of ‘clear’ objectives”. An example of

the use of reductive levels is to scale down from social groups to multi-cellular living things,

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then to cells, molecules, atoms, and finally to the smallest parts, the elementary particles

(Andersen, 2001: 153).

2. Systems Thinking and Cybernetics

Systems thinking is based on the holistic belief that the “component parts of a system can be

best understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems”

(Capra, 1996: 30). It proclaims that the “only way to fully understand why a problem or element

occurs and persists is to understand the parts in relation to the whole” (Capra, 1996: 30). Ballé

(1994: 42) explains that “systems thinking focuses on relationships rather than the elements

themselves” and sees “patterns rather than events”. He claims that this approach focuses on

“confronting the situation with its context rather than trying to assess the ‘whole context’” on a

general level (Ballé, 1994: 113). Engel (in Frankel et al, 2003: 6) also claims that in order to

identify the rules responsible for the “collective order of a system”, it is essential to not only

characterize the components within each level but to also include the “system characteristics”.

According to Charnley (1995: 538), systems thinking is to be understood as a flexible approach

which recognizes that at times tools from other fields can be ‘borrowed’ to deliver results. Ballé

(1994: 126) adds that systems thinking is to be seen as a “pragmatic down-to-earth approach”

that captures common sense and uses it in a more formal and systematic way. In his book

‘Managing with Systems Thinking’, Ballé (1994: 35) explains the systemic approach with the

example that in trying to get a horse to run faster, there is no point in “teaching each of its legs

to perform a more efficient movement”.

Where systems thinking focuses on the structure of systems and what they consist of, the

cybernetic focus is on how systems function and how they control their actions (Heylighen,

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Joslyn & Turchin, 1999). Since structure and function of a system cannot be understood

separately, cybernetics and systems thinking are to be viewed as “two aspects of a single

approach” (Heylighen, Joslyn & Turchin, 1999).

Cybernetics is a science that studies the abstract principles of organization in complex systems

(Heylighen & Joslyn, 1999) and aims to increase the capacity to interpret and analyse extremely

complex situations (Montejo, 1995: 160). Historically cybernetics aimed to clarify and

systematize the relations between a controller and the controlled, accumulating over time a set

of well-defined theories of regulation and control (Negiota, 1992: 3). However, due to the lack

of a uniform terminology, each of the scientists who contributed to cybernetics defined it on a

personal level; Stafford Beer (in Negiota, 1992: 2), who introduced cybernetic principles into

management studies, defined it as the “science of effective organization”. Other definitions

include Gregory Bateson (in Von Foerster, 1994) claiming it to be a “branch of mathematics

dealing with problems of control, recursiveness and information” or Gordon Pask (in Von

Foerster, 1994) defining it as a science of “defensible metaphors”. When describing

cybernetics, Margaret Mead (in Von Foerster, 1994) stresses the importance of circular 'feed-

back’, a form of cross-disciplinary thought in cybernetics which created a common terminology

for many other disciplines to communicate in a common language. Von Foerster (1994) explains

the feed-back principle by effectors, e.g. an engine or muscles, which are connected to a

sensory organ which, in turn, acts with its signals upon the effectors.

3. Law of Requisite Variety

The origin of the hypothesis of this research and one of the cornerstones of cybernetic theory is

the law of requisite variety. In non-mathematical terms the law states that “only variety can

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destroy variety” (Ashby, 1956: 207). De Raadt (1987: 521) defines variety as “a measure of the

number of states a system can adopt”. According to Walker (2006), variety is also used to

“compare relative complexities”; he uses the examples of a switch that has a variety of two (on

and off), whereas a child has a variety which is enormous. Variety therefore serves as the

measure of complexity, just as temperature is the measure for heat (Walker, 2006). The law

goes back to W.R. Ashby, a psychiatrist who in 1956 applied the law to regulatory activities of

the brain and later claimed that it would also apply to “any system that performed a regulatory

process” (De Raadt, 1987: 517). Ashby’s law is concerned with the problem of regulation or

control and expresses the principle that “the variety of a controller should match the variety of

the system to be controlled” (Hollnagel, 2005). Mendham (2004) illustrates this with the

example of a photographer who wants to take pictures of different objects whose distance is

distinct; the photographer needs a camera capable of at least the same amount of zoom

settings to be able to make sharp pictures.

Ashby’s law also implies that the “variety of the outcomes of a system can only be decreased by

increasing the variety of the controller of that system” (Hollnagel, 2005). This means that

effective control is not possible if the controller has less variety than the system (Hollnagel,

2005). Walker (2006) uses another example to explain this phenomenon: a steam engine which

can run at different speeds has a regulator that must be able to respond to every state of the

engine, thus the variety of the regulator must be at least as large as that of the system it

regulates. This example shows that the regulator must have enough (requisite) variety to

“adequately do its job” (Walker, 2006). An interpretation of Ashby’s law quotes that “the larger

the variety of actions available to a control system, the larger the variety of perturbations it is

able to compensate” (Heylighen, 1992). In other words this means that a flexible system with

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many options is better able to cope with change (Mendham, 2004). Here Walker (2006) uses

the example of a game of table tennis: two players of similar skill (and therefore similar variety)

are controlling each other; their varieties match. If one player takes lessons and learns new

techniques, he can increase his variety and the other player will not have enough variety to

control him. Where a table tennis champion cannot have the variety to beat three

simultaneous opponents, a chess master can increase his variety to match the variety of dozens

of opponents at the same time (Walker, 2006). Hence Jessop (2003: 7) suggests that by

“deliberate cultivation of a personal flexible repertoire (requisite variety)”, a person can also

amplify their own variety in order to lead.

4. Teams, Leadership and Flexibility

There are many different ways to define a team and a great number of leadership theories can

be found in academic literature; most of them incorporate the notion of flexibility. In the

following paragraphs selected concepts are presented to demonstrate how researchers use

different approaches to single out different aspects of the themes teams, leadership and

flexibility.

Teams

Katzenbach and Smith (1997: 45), authors of the book ‘Wisdom of Teams’, define a team as “a

small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose,

performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable."

Stewart (1995: 597) claims that teams are a way to “structure an organisation to better cope

with a rapidly changing environment” and to “achieve the flexibility of operation and

responsiveness required by its markets and customers”. Seen from a holistic point of view,

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Hampden-Turner (in Ballé, 1994: 10) states that “what a team knows and discovers is

potentially more than can be carried away in the heads of its separate members”. Chong (2007:

202) agrees that by combining efforts of individual contributors in a team “synergistic

outcomes“ can be achieved. Heerman (1997: 233) sees team members as service providers to

customers and the community as well as to the team itself. In his opinion, the “energy of the

team exceeds the sum of individual energies present in the team”. Teams develop an

appreciation for “individual and team greatness” and help their members to discover “hidden

talents” (Heerman, 2003: 42).

According to Secan (2009), the members of a team need to be connected to its mission and

each other; he uses the example of an improvisational jazz performance where each musician

continuously provides, receives and responds to information until the performance, or mission

has been fulfilled. In this mission both the leader and the members of the team share the

responsibility for the outcome to meet a target; just like in a sports team where the players and

the coach are both accountable for what happens in the match (Fordham, 2008). In his book

“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team”, Lencioni (2002: 196) suggests that team members need to

have the confidence that their peers’ intentions are “genuinely good” in order to focus their

energy and attention completely on the job at hand and have no reason to be protective of

themselves or political with one another. According to Harrison and Klein (2007: 1211) it is

through the spread of members across qualitatively different categories that the cognitive and

behavioural repertoire (variety) of a team increases. Attributes of within-team diversity such as

functional background enrich the supply of ideas and knowledge available to a team and

enhance team creativity as well as the quality of decision making within the team (Williams &

O'Reilly in Harrison & Klein, 2007: 1201). Blau (1977: 79) originally termed this type of diversity

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‘heterogeneity’ and used Ashby’s law to highlight benefits in terms of different resources of

information; Hambrick et al (1996: 662) define it as a "variation in team members'

characteristics”. Harrison and Klein (2007: 1205) explain the advantages of heterogeneity by

stating that through their diverse kinds of human capital and access to different sources of

information team members can collectively serve as a “team's lens”; each team member can

“filter out unique environmental cues and interpret them for the rest of the team” (Harrison &

Klein, 2007: 1205). Given this greater awareness, heterogeneous teams are able to match even

complex challenges with a “requisite level of cognitive and experiential variety" (Ferrier, 2001:

858).

Leadership

Leadership is an ancient ability about deciding direction, from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning

‘the road or path ahead’; it is about “knowing the next step and then taking others with you to

it” (Chapman, 2008). According to John Adair (in Chamberlain, 2007), first professor of

leadership studies in the UK, leadership is about “converting vision into action”. He believes

that leadership is “a trainable, transferable skill, rather than an exclusively inborn ability”

(Chapman, 2008). As the founding father of functional leadership theory, Adair (in Chamberlain,

2007) argues that the main task of a leader is to assist to the team’s needs; he considers a

leader to be successful if the leader contributes to organizational or team effectiveness. Clegg

and Birch (2002: 4) also see people as the main concern of leaders and add a strong task

orientation and need to achieve. They point out that a leader’s achievement of a task comes

through the goodwill and support of others (Clegg & Birch, 2002: 4).

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Chapman (2008) states that Adair’s work also incorporates the notion of task orientation in his

‘action centred leadership model’, in which three elements – achieving the task, developing the

team and developing individuals, are both “mutually dependent and separately essential to the

overall leadership role”. Adair (in Chamberlain, 2007) claims that in order to be successful, a

leader has to focus on the task at hand, the needs of the team as well as the needs of the

individual. These three areas affect each other, so in case something significant happens in one

of the three elements, it will have consequences for the other two (Chamberlain, 2007).

According to Adair (in Chamberlain, 2007), the most appropriate leadership style is always

situation dependent: skills such as goal setting, planning, communicating and evaluating are

necessary when setting a task for a team; it also depends on the leader himself, the time

available, the knowledge and experience of the team, as well as issues such as culture and

priorities. For Adair (in Chamberlain, 2007) the main leadership qualities are consistency of

character and flexibility of style. Scarnati (1999: 194) sees the need to quickly adapt to a rapidly

changing business environment as one of the main qualities of a leader. Change is also seen as

an important factor by Dilenschneider and Beyma (in Scarnati, 1999: 194), who claim that in the

1980’s each company had to face a “significant organizational change every six to twelve

months”. Stewart (in Scarnati, 1999: 194) amplifies this statement by stressing that an

organization should be “reconfigurable on an annual, monthly, weekly, daily, even hourly

basis.” However, according to Scarnati (1999: 194-195), the claim for change on an hourly basis

may be “antiquated” since he anticipates change managed on a “minute by minute basis” to

become the norm soon. In his opinion, change is the “only constant in this world” and should

be seen as a “welcome ally” that offers an opportunity to excel (Scarnati, 1999: 196).

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Flexibility

Flexibility is an ambiguous concept that lacks of sufficient theoretical clarity (Furaker &

Hakannson et al, 2007: 1). In psychological literature, flexibility is regarded as a “temperament

trait” (Rusalov & Biryukov, 1993: 461) or as a “synonym for the adaptability to change”

(Fleming, 1981: 111). In science, flexibility is employed as a measure for the “susceptibility of a

dynamical system to external forcing” (Marhl & Perc, 2006: 823) or for a model’s “ability to fit a

variety of different data patterns” (Laine, 2006: 3). In an organisational context Aaker and

Mascarenhas (1984) define what they call “strategic flexibility” as “the ability of the

organisation to adapt to substantial, uncertain and fast-occurring environmental changes” that

have a “meaningful impact on the organisation’s performance”. Quey (2004) sees flexibility as

the “capability of an organisation to adopt new innovations and to adapt itself to changing

environments”.

Flexibility as a behavioural trait is often used as a competency. Its attributes include tolerating

ambiguity, shifting priorities, and the “ability to respond with innovative approaches to deal

with the demands of changing conditions” (PSC Canada, 2008). The United Nations System Staff

College (2004) offers a comprehensive definition of behavioural flexibility:

Managers require flexibility to work effectively and efficiently in constantly changing

environments. They are open-minded and recognise the validity and benefits of new or
differing views. They adapt their behaviours and approaches as necessary to better suit
given situations. These abilities and attitudes enable them to quickly understand new
requirements in a larger organisational context, adapt their roles to given
responsibilities and effectively manage a diverse staff in new or changing environments.
(United Nations System Staff College, 2004)

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In a leadership context, Zaccaro et al (1991: 321) use the term “leader behavioural flexibility” to

label “the ability and willingness to respond in significantly different ways to correspondingly

different situational requirements”. Yate (1995: 41) takes this idea further and explains

flexibility as “continual examination of situations” and stresses that when required, leaders

need to utilize “creative adaptability in different contexts” and therefore use flexible thinking to

apply their “existing knowledge base, in the abstract, to another context.”

5. Summary of Findings

In cybernetic terms a team’s variety or diversity (Harrison & Klein, 2007: 1211) needs to match

or exceed the variety or complexity of a problem to be effective. In a business context that

means that a multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-functional team has a greater repertoire

of options due to its within-team diversity (Williams & O'Reilly in Harrison & Klein, 2007: 1201)

than a homogeneous team. Such a team is presumed to be better prepared to cope with

change (Mendham, 2004) since each team member filters out and interprets particular

elements of complexity for the entire team (Harrison & Klein, 2007: 1205). This contributes to

an increased awareness (Ferrier, 2001: 858) that the skill or energy of the team exceeds the

sum of individual skills or energies of the team members and nurtures the appreciation for the

value of individual team members (Heerman, 1997: 233).

Adair’s leadership definition of “vision into action” (in Chapman, 2008) implies a certain degree

of behavioural flexibility; in his ‘action centred leadership model’ he suggests the three

interdependent elements of task, team and individuals. Other authors add drive and

adaptability to environmental changes to this list of attributes (Clegg & Birch, 2002: 4; Scarnati,

1999: 194). The need to focus on all these variables simultaneously poses a great challenge on a

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leader; he can either attempt to control all the different variables or he has to tolerate

ambiguity. A leader’s effectiveness accrues from the support of others but the questions

remain whether flexibility itself is a “trainable, transferable skill “(Chapman, 2008) such as

leadership and how much flexibility is necessary to ensure consistent leadership.

The conclusion is that a leader needs to be able to proactively envision a team’s potential to

lead it to maximum performance. He needs to demonstrate flexibility to create a coherent

team environment and to acknowledge the importance of each team member towards

controlling external variables. This way the leader can safely navigate in ambiguous waters

with his main focus solely on within-team coherence and the modelling of objectives towards a

goal. The team members are then empowered to autonomously come up with solutions for

these objectives and will produce results depending on their clarity.

The relationship between leadership and flexibility as well as the links between the law of

requisite variety and issues in team performance provide the necessary theoretical basis for

this research paper. After exploring the academic literature, the focus now shifts to real-life

experiences. The perspective of the research part of this paper differs from the theories in the

literature review to the extent that it employs a more practical approach. In order to draw

conclusions from this research, it has to be seen as a self-contained examination of the

hypothesis and therefore no direct references to the literature review above will be made. The

findings of the research part will be contrasted with those from the literature review in the

conclusion.

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III. Methodology

This chapter presents an overview of the methodology used in this research. Furthermore, its

purpose, approach and strategy as well as the selection of the sample and issues of reliability

and validity are briefly discussed.

1. Purpose and Approach

There has been research which used competency measures for individuals via testing or

observed group participants to categorize dynamics. However, the objective of this research is

to identify the significance of flexibility for leadership in teams by analysing accounts of

professionals based on their experience. A realist approach seemed to be most in line with the

research objective since it assumes a “largely unidirectional relationship between meaning,

experience and language” and is therefore well suited to theorize motivations, experience, and

meaning in a “straightforward way” (Widdicombe & Wooffitt in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 85). The

overall strategy of this project was to retrieve personal statements to a guiding hypothesis in a

written form and then conduct a thematic analysis of the data to identify “repeated patterns of

meaning” in this data (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 86).

2. Thematic Analysis

Thematic analysis is a method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns within data

(Braun & Clarke, 2006: 79). It is a foundational method for qualitative analysis that focuses on

searching within the data rather than across data (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 81). A theoretical or

‘top down’ thematic analysis was selected with the aim of achieving a detailed analysis of some

aspects of the data (Hayes in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 83). This was combined with a semantic

15
approach to focus on the explicit or surface meanings of the data and concludes with an

attempt to theorize the significance of the patterns and their broader implications in relation to

the literature review of this paper (Patton in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 84). According to Attride-

Stirling (in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 79), qualitative researchers need to include the often-omitted

‘how’ they did their analysis in their reports. Therefore the steps taken in this research will now

be explained in greater detail.

Research process

In order to obtain the data for an analysis, an article including the hypothesis and its theoretical

origin was posted in selected forums on professional business networks with a request for

spontaneous statements to the hypothesis based on knowledge and personal experiences.

When constructing the hypothesis the focus was on creating a complex question that could not

be answered with a clear yes or no and would therefore result in diverse and averse answers.

By not putting the hypothesis in a tangible context, respondents would have to use their own

definitions of the term flexibility and thereby create the base for the thematic analysis.

The research process strictly followed the 6-phase guide to performing thematic analysis as

proposed by Braun & Clarke (2006: 87).

1. Data collection:
The data was analysed by deconstructive reading and respondents were
categorized according to approval or denial of the hypothesis, gender,
professional background and language used.

2. Generating of codes:
The data was then systematically analysed with regard to the main areas of
interest (flexibility, leadership and team) and organised into “meaningful groups”

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 (Tuckett in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 88) to generate initial codes which Boyatzis
(1998: 63) describes as “the most basic segment or element of the raw data or
information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the
phenomenon”. According to Miles and Huberman (in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 88),
the coding itself is to be seen as “part of the analysis”.

3. Searching for themes:

Relevant data was then assigned to each code. The next step was to analyse the
codes and to combine them into overarching themes. According to Braun &
Clarke (2006: 82), “a theme captures something important about the data in
relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned
response or meaning within the data set”. Focusing on the relationships between
codes, themes and different levels of themes, the aim was to end up with a
collection of “candidate themes” and sub-themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 90).

4. Reviewing themes:
The devised set of candidate themes was then consistently refined and reviewed
to check whether they worked in relation to the codes and to the entire data
itself by using Patton’s criteria for “internal homogeneity and external
heterogeneity” (in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 91). After this phase it was clearer how
the different themes fit together.

5. Defining and naming themes:

Following the review, the themes were defined and named. Then each theme
was analysed to identify the essence of what it was about and to determine what
aspect of the data was captured in the theme (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 92-93).

6. Producing the report:

Finally the most compelling examples for each theme were selected and related
back to the research question (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 93).

17
Reasons for choice

The key advantage of thematic analysis is its great flexibility and the prospect of generating

unanticipated insights (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 97). It is seen as a useful method when working

with participants as collaborators as in the case of this research (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 97).

Holloway and Todres (in Braun & Clarke, 2006: 97) argue that when selecting an appropriate

research method, the analysis should be driven by the research question and broader

theoretical assumptions and not be restrained by a commitment to method because of the

danger to fall victim to ‘methodolatry’. Braun & Clarke (2006: 97) argue that a rigorous

thematic approach can produce an “insightful analysis” in order to answer a research question.

3. Sample Selection

A purposive sampling approach (Marshall & Rossman, 2006: 70) was selected in order to

investigate the attitudes and beliefs about flexibility of professionals with experience in working

with or leading teams. The platforms chosen to achieve this goal were selected groups in the

professional networks of LinkedIn and Xing. The majority of replies were obtained from

LinkedIn (71 percent) with the remaining 26 percent from Xing and 3 percent from external

company forums. The distribution of replies in the selected forums was 16 percent NLP related,

14 percent general business and consulting related, 11 percent leadership related, and 5

percent systems thinking related. The remaining 54 percent were obtained through other

general interest forums.

The main advantage in the use of forums is their voluntary nature: After posting the hypothesis

and information about its background there were no further comments posted to ensure the

authenticity of the replies. Within six weeks between January and March 2009 there were 267

18
individual replies to these posts. All replies were considered for this research which resulted in

a widely homogeneous sample with members generally not knowing each other (Marshall &

Rossman, 2006: 71). The sample reflects the views of professionals originating mainly from the

US and Britain with 82 percent of the replies in English and from Germany with 18 percent of

the replies in German, which gives the study a clear Western bias.

There were 75 percent male and 25 percent female respondents. Since there was no

information about age distribution available, the main distinction used for this research was

professional classification: 16 percent of the respondents were senior management and 14

percent middle management level. Apart from these two classifications there were particular

professions that clearly stood out with consultants totalling 18 percent and coaches / trainers

with 8 percent of the replies. Academics accounted for 3 percent with replies from professors

and students. The remaining 41 percent of replies were made up of mixed professionals

including entrepreneurs. Other dimensions of demographics like ethnicity, religion, political

views and education were not retrievable and therefore neglected (Marshall & Rossman, 2006:

107). This research is committed to safeguarding the respondents’ privacy and keeps their

personal information confidential. Replies are therefore coded by first name and professional

classification only (Burton & Steane, 2004: 67).

4. Validity and Reliability

According to Braun & Clarke (2006: 96), the criteria in general qualitative research assessment

can be applied to thematic forms of analysis as well. When quantitative researchers talk about

research reliability, they are usually referring to a research that is credible because of its use of

statistical means while the “credibility of a qualitative research depends on the ability and

19
effort of the researcher” (Golafshani, 2003: 600). In terms of validity, Patton (1990: 39) sees

qualitative research as research that produces findings originating from real-world settings

where the "phenomenon of interest unfolds naturally" and Rubin and Rubin (2005: 226) claim

that “themes and concepts are embedded” within the data. However, Taylor and Ussher (in

Braun & Clarke, 2006: 80) state that emerging themes are a “passive account of analysis and

deny the active part the researcher has in identifying these themes, selecting the ones of

interest and then reporting them to the reader”. The results of this research are therefore

influenced by the author’s personal biases and choices and the author is aware of his

involvement and role within the research (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004: 20).

IV. Data Analysis

Now that the methodology is clear, the following paragraphs aim to achieve further

legitimation for the statement of the hypothesis. They contain clarifications about the

composition of the hypothesis including its implicit assumptions and an acknowledgement of

the variables that affect the results. After that the results are presented followed by a summary

of the main points.

1. Legitimation of Hypothesis

Clarifications

In the process of creating the hypothesis, the presupposition of NLP is to be understood solely

as a vehicle to attempt a logical transition from Ashby’s law to the paper’s hypothesis. The

paper refrains from any further referencing to NLP due to its controversial standing in

20
academics as well as its lack of scientific evidence. The NLP translation of Ashby`s law itself is

quite presumptuous and the hypothesis is even further away from the original meaning. The

main interest is to identify the respondents’ perception of flexible behaviour rather than

attempting a 1-to-1-conversion of Ashby’s law into a business context.

Cybernetics is based on cause and effect relationships where any element of the system can

influence the whole system; in a cybernetic context it is therefore clear that there are many

reasons why somebody could end up leading a team. The use of cybernetic principles and the

law of requisite variety as a context provide a frame of reference for identifying common

denominators between variety and flexibility. It is clear that requisite variety and flexibility are

two different things; neither is a flexible person the same as a “variety of actions available to a

control system” (Heylighen, 1992) nor is the term 'control' the same as 'leadership'. These links

were made solely to create the hypothesis. In the wording of the hypothesis ‘will’ was selected

instead of ‘may’ to install a provocative element to the statement that was intended to

encourage discussion. The notion of ‘ending up’ leading was chosen to further generalize the

statement and take the variable of time out of the equation.

Assumptions

Embedded within the hypothesis are certain assumptions, e.g. it is taken for granted that the

person leading the team is the one who will ensure the best outcome for the team. The

hypothesis asks neither what it takes to be a good leader nor how to build an ideal team; it is

solely concerned with leadership and teams in general. It does however introduce an element

of human choice in the selection of the leader, therefore implying an informal leadership role

(Covey, 2009); in reality more often than not team members have no say in who will be the

21
formal leader of the team because the organisational structure institutes the leader. Another

assumption is that all team members have equal qualifications and that these do not affect the

choice of the leader.

Variables

There are many apparent variables concerning a leader; leadership strongly depends on a

person’s will to lead, their personal learning history and character to name just a few. In terms

of who is to be led, variables include the team’s size and the environment of the firm, the

sector or industry as well as the culture of the organisation. Concerning the team members,

examples of variables are competence, age, gender and experience as well as the length of time

they worked together and whether the team reconvened on future projects. Another variable is

whether the team members were sent or are there voluntarily and whether they performed

formal functions or not. General variables identified include the question what to be flexible

about, the complexity of the goal or problem situation, the objectives or obstacles, and

whether there is one uniform task to perform. An important variable is also the stage of

development of individuals, teams and companies as well as industries. However, this research

attempts to identify common ground in the most general way, regardless of the infinite number

of dependent and independent variables that are apparent; its aim is to introduce flexibility as a

criterion for leadership and show its possible effects.

2. Research Results

The tendency was with 97 percent of replies clearly towards rejecting the hypothesis. Only 3

percent of the respondents felt that it was the most flexible person in a team that would end

up leading the team. However, the main focus of this research is not on the question itself but

22
on the different ways the respondents view flexibility. In the following paragraphs the

respondents’ understanding of flexibility will first be investigated and its impact on leadership

identified.

Definition of Flexibility

Most respondents associated the term flexibility with the ability to adapt to a particular

situation or social and cultural environment. It was apparent that for a majority, flexibility is

only one of many leadership traits and certainly not the first. The term flexibility was used

mostly as a substitute for ‘being able to’ thus describing flexibility as a behavioural trait rather

than a value. In a social context, flexibility was interpreted as the willingness to listen and the

ability to be diplomatic. For many, flexibility also implied the ability or willingness to change.

The majority of respondents saw flexibility rise from experience, a varied background and

functional competency. The concept of flexibility was seen in many dimensions; mental,

emotional, behavioural, social and professional flexibility are only the ones that were

mentioned most. However, there was consensus about flexibility implying an increased ‘variety

of options’ to choose from to achieve a desired outcome.

Implications of flexible behaviour

The analysis of the data revealed a strong polarity between positive and negative aspects of

flexibility; this theme was therefore adopted as the guiding concept for the presentation of the

research results.

The respondents agreed that in order to achieve a goal a certain bandwidth or requisite variety

was required to incorporate new information. This was seen to be necessary to be able to

adequately deal with occurring changes. Flexibility was also seen as the creativity to proactively

23
come up with new alternatives. A flexible person was regarded as being patient and willing to

learn from co-workers. They were to be open for new strategies and to incorporate others’

points of view; therefore they were seen as likely to be popular among co-workers and

regarded as sociable.

Aspects of flexibility which were considered to be counterproductive to the success of an

organisation were flexibility with ethics and integrity, with values and principles, as well as with

compliance and quality. Respondents agreed that flexibility with the final goal was to be seen as

a weakness or liability. This aspect of flexibility was also associated with the terms ‘weak’,

‘yielding’ and ‘pliable’ and related to potential manipulation, thwarting efforts and causing

chaos.

Implications of flexible behaviour in a team

In a team setting a flexible person was considered to have the ability to appreciate team

dynamics and possess the creativity to find different ways of persuasion in order to get the

majority of the team to take a certain position. The ability to appeal to a broad group of people

and earn their trust was identified as a great asset in times when the team would get into

stressful situations that challenged its coherence. Being able to draw from a wider range of

options, a flexible person was expected to be the one to take the first step without hesitation

and generate action to get a team to move. The willingness to commit to the team would also

result in the flexible person taking on the role least desired by their co-workers. Flexible

behaviour in a team was mostly understood as being open to others’ opinions in the sense of

being curious and eager to implement change. Some respondents believed that increased

flexibility would result in more impact and control in the team.

24
The negative aspect of flexibility was depicted as agreeing to anything and being easily

manipulated. This would cause the flexible person to add new things to their already full plate

and they were seen to eventually do most of the work but get the smallest reward for their

efforts. Some pictured a flexible person as avoiding confrontation and choosing consensus over

alignment. Respondents repeatedly used the terms ‘wishy-washy’ and having ‘no backbone’ in

their descriptions. There was the notion that when a certain kind of hierarchy evolved within a

group, the flexible person was portrayed as voluntarily tending to, or being forced to, serve.

This argument was consistent with the idea that a flexible person would be the first to move to

another team.

Implications of flexible behaviour in a leader

The responses about flexible behaviour in a team differed from the responses about a flexible

leader to a great extent. Therefore the next paragraphs look at positive and negative aspects of

a flexible person in the role of a formal leader.

According to the majority of respondents, a flexible team leader would give the team a great

amount of freedom and space and then harness the potential of the team by adopting ideas

from team members. Thus the team would be indirectly involved in the decision process and

this would boost the level of motivation in the team. In addition to that, a flexible leader would

be willing to accommodate divergent view points within a team and have an increased capacity

to compromise. In this context flexibility was associated with the ability to ‘bend without

breaking’ as well as the capacity to ‘bounce back’; Alejandra (professional) illustrated this by

using the example of a bamboo, which “when bent comes back stronger”. Another aspect of

flexibility was the ability to match the personal values of team members and to simplify

25
complex issues which was seen to greatly increase the chances of getting others to buy into the

leader’s agenda; a flexible leader could then align his outcome with the outcome of the team

and use each of the team members effectively as a means to get ahead and outrival

competitors.

As a downside of flexibility in a leader, respondents identified an inability to make a decision or

a tendency to quickly overrule it. In decisions that would benefit a large portion of the team but

not all, a flexible leader would hesitate; for this the expected consequences included delay,

diversion from the actual goal and no results. This behaviour was also seen to be prone to

confuse team members who would then want to see a solution and subsequently exert

pressure on the leader. Matthew (senior management) states that the least productive people

he has coached are those that “change their minds at the slightest resistance or input from

their team”; they “become so flexible that nothing gets done”. Shiju (consultant) amplified this

argument and claimed that a flexible leader would “try his hand at everything ending up being

unable to prove himself at anything”. In this context a flexible leader was also pictured to

expect flexible situations, and that is not always an option. Igor (trainer) pointed out that if

“flexibility as a value” was not respected by other team members, there would be a lack of

legitimation for leadership. Flexibility in this context was also linked to being lax with team

mates and was concluded to result in an ineffective team and a poor leader. In turn,

respondents saw this resulting in a loss of respect for the flexible leader and the danger of

being overruled by his team members; Jeroen (professional) used the example of a new

manager that is supposed to bring change into an existing team who ends up “being led by

employees” and “children overruling their parents”; both examples were assumed to happen

26
because a less flexible person would focus on their position regardless if they were right or

wrong.

Implications of flexible behaviour in a follower

A clear trend towards seeing the flexible person as a team player rather than the leading figure

of the team could be identified in the course of this research. Therefore, the implications of

flexible behaviour in a follower are now pointed out.

Anthony (professional) compared the concept of a flexible follower with the perception that

“nature abhors a void and things tend toward the path of least resistance”. Respondents

considered it unnecessary for a flexible individual to challenge an actual team leader; they

would just let the formal leader do their job due to their flexibility to be lead by others. Tina

(senior management) also stated that a flexible person can even follow a leader they do not

fully agree with "as long as progress is being made towards the team's objective." Many

respondents pointed out that a flexible person might feel more comfortable in a team role

where they could make use of their integrating skills and relax tensions caused by the actual

team leader. In this context a flexible follower was seen as extremely valuable and able to draw

on their strengths. This way, a flexible person was seen as extremely capable and even able to

unconsciously lead both team members and superiors. Allan (consultant) noted that a flexible

subordinate would then be the one “leading the leader” or flexible enough to "lead from any

chair” as Patrick (professional) calls it.

The respondents also illustrated negative aspects of a flexible follower: they would be likely to

conform and would tend to go along with other’s decisions as well as take directions without

question. They would try to be helpful to everyone in the team and put the needs of others

27
before their own. Guru (professional) claimed this to be the reason for flexible followers to

become extremely efficient assistants, who would end up as “management pets”. This

behaviour was believed to result in frustration. Claire (professional) even suspected a link into

stress and sickness in the work place or the flexible follower deliberately sabotaging the team.

Implications of inflexible behaviour in a leader

After considering implications of both flexible leaders and followers, the focus now shifts to the

opposite of a flexible leader, the inflexible leader. In the responses there was a clear tendency

towards a positive perception of inflexible behaviour in a leader. The reasons for this are

outlined below.

A great amount of respondents linked inflexibility to stability and decisiveness. Inflexible

leaders were seen to perform well in situations that demanded solidity and inflexibility with

procedure and were called upon if there was a need for delivering tangible results in due time.

They were seen as effective in leading into a certain direction because they would be inflexible

when it comes to goals or objectives; they were even expected to be prepared to suppress

contradictory opinions if that was required to keep the environment in a team stable. However,

the respondents agreed that an inflexible leader would be able to use a flexible person the best

way; Matthew (senior management) exemplified this notion with the captain of a “storm-

tossed boat at sea”. Respondents also saw the advantage of an inflexible leader for the team in

their predictability; their main accomplishment would be to provide the team with a clear path

to rely on.

Negative aspects of an inflexible leader identified were that they would have more limitations

and were only able to cope up to a limit of complexity. They would be comfortable only in a

28
fixed frame of reference with fixed rules as provided by large companies with structured

hierarchies. Team members were seen to experience the inflexible leader as a bully who did not

take their view point into consideration. An inflexible leader would also seem stubborn in a

situation that required dynamic motion and legitimate their leadership solely through the level

of sanction available to him; seen as the “person with the gun” (Neil, consultant), they would

be obeyed by the team provided everyone believed the gun would be used if they did not. John

(consultant) pointed out that occasionally a person who had “tenure but no other qualification”

was named the leader of a team because they did not add value elsewhere. An inflexible leader

was even associated with being the weakest link in a team; Fides (professional) illustrated this

with the example of a “group of children that walk along a narrow path” who would “naturally

walk at the pace of the slowest”.

3. Summary of Findings

The responses were thematically organised and three main themes were identified; in the

following paragraphs the balance between flexible and inflexible behaviour, the motivation for

flexibility and the significance of flexibility itself are presented in more detail.

Balance between flexible and inflexible behaviour

Jeannel (senior management) explains that if a “team's string is too tight, it breaks”; if it is “too

loose, the team can't really perform”. Everyone has a certain degree of flexibility, it is important

to be aware that flexibility by definition is neither positive nor negative. It is all about what a

person chooses to be flexible about and in which context. According to Mike (senior

management), “a strength maximized is a weakness”; an excessive amount of flexibility is

29
therefore not desirable and would ultimately lead to failure. Therefore finding a balance

between the extremes of flexible and rigid behaviour is the way to stabilize a team.

Motivation for flexibility

As Babette (professional) pointed out, there is a need for flexibility “within the team that is not

necessarily with the leader”. Flexibility contributes to leadership but flexibility in itself does not

make a leader. Joseph (professional) agrees that a leader needs flexibility, but “flexibility with

definition”. Sydney (senior management) also stated that the “motivation behind the flexibility

needs to be discovered and defined, in order to determine whether the flexibility will be

successful or not”. According to John (consultant), “not all flexible people make good leaders

and not all flexible people want to be a leader”.

Significance of flexibility

It is important to note that in the long run a leader is replaceable; the most flexible person is

not. Volker (professional) wrote that the leader might change but “the one who keeps the team

going remains”; therefore the flexible person can be considered the “most important” person.

According to Renée (professional) this significance to the organization will result in recognition

of apparent potential through development and training for this person. Due to the fact that

the level of flexibility in a person is not recognizable at first sight, a person’s attitude towards it

can be assessed fairly quickly by asking the right questions. Depending on the task at hand,

consideration should therefore be given to match a person’s attitude towards flexibility with

the right type of job, e.g. where administrative site-specific tasks may look for inflexibility in a

person as a selection criterion, a globetrotter or virtual team environment may almost expect

an eagerness to demonstrate flexible behaviour.

30
V. Conclusions

1. Conclusions and Theoretical Contributions

This paper provides fundamental insights into the underlying processes of flexible behaviour in

leadership. Provisional theoretical contributions were made by highlighting the need for

balance when applying flexibility. In addition to that the motivations for flexibility were

explored and the significance of flexible behaviour was exemplified.

Although flexibility as the main reason for the choice of a leader was dismissed by this research,

it was clearly identified that a minimum level of behavioural flexibility is important in a leader.

The results show similarities with the definition of leadership proposed by Adair (in Chapman,

2008) to the extent that consistency of character is acknowledged to be beneficial for the

coherence of the team and that the appropriate degree of flexibility is situation dependent.

Contrary to the position of the literature review, the importance of empathy and a potential for

individual or team development of the leader was not seen as a requisite for leadership in the

findings. The major focus was rather on achieving tasks and delivering results than on within-

team coherence. Instead of a ‘drive to achieve’ as proposed by Clegg and Birch (2002: 4) or an

‘adaptability to environmental changes’ (Scarnati, 1999: 194), there was a tendency to focus on

the ‘will to lead’ as the main attribute of a leader. After clarifying this motivation, the necessity

for awareness of the implications of flexible and inflexible behaviour became important in the

debate. Where the essence of the literature review is all about flexibility and its advantages, the

research results identified a perceived negative side to flexible behaviour. As outlined in the

analysis, flexibility can, if applied in the right situation and a suitable environment, contribute

to “bring out the best in people” (Shiju, consultant). When used in an inappropriate way, there

31
is the danger that this flexibility may actually harm its bearer; there is a fine line between

serving the team’s best interests and being exploited.

Adding to the findings of the literature review, the flexible leader in the analysis was found to

be clearly linked to tolerating ambiguity and the inflexible one to focusing on control. Looking

at extremes, the consequences for the team were perceived to be more positive with an overly

inflexible leader than a too flexible leader. This was due to the fact that a coherent team

environment was seen to originate from stability; thus a leader who is predictable was

preferred over one that is visionary. In the case of an inflexible formal leader the research

indicated that here the support of the team originates mainly from the structure of the

organization rather than the personality of the leader. Flexibility in general is therefore not to

be seen as a leadership trait per se, however, in times of uncertainty the ability to adequately

deal with ambiguity is likely to be the “difference that makes the difference” (Jagat,

professional).

2. Implications for Future Research and Practice

Future research should build upon this study by further investigating the significance of

flexibility and attempt to create a common, universally applicable definition of the term

flexibility in a business context. Open questions include whether there is another single factor

or a combination of factors that can be isolated as a cause for informal leadership. It should

further be investigated to what extent team performance is affected if a leader is flexible or not

and whether it would influence the outcome if the team was only comprised of leaders. For this

research a qualitative approach to data analysis was appropriate. Further studies into this area

32
of research should include a quantitative research approach and use statistical means to

validate the findings of this paper.

The relevance of this research for the practical business context consists of its contribution to

raise awareness of flexibility when choosing a leader for a particular environment. This paper

introduces the matching of a leader and a situation in terms of flexibility as a way to improve

the relationships within an organization. In addition to that the increased awareness of the

impact of flexibility and the choice of whether or not to act or react flexibly in a particular

situation is also beneficial on a personal level in almost every aspect of life. Finally, this paper

might serve as a personal motivation towards training and self development activities since it

reminds the readers to consciously and proactively increase the variety of options available to

them to be equipped for future challenges.

3. Limitations

To conclude this paper, it is essential to look back and keep in mind that qualitative research

cannot be used for definitive theory testing (Bryman in Sumner-Armstrong et al, 2008: 855) and

that the interpretation of the data through thematic analysis is clearly subjective and biased.

Although an attempt was made to limit the bias in the research sample through the use of

multiple platforms and different forums, the vast amount of variables mentioned earlier make

interpretation difficult. Due to the different backgrounds of the large sample of 267

professionals, the research was not able to sufficiently target a certain group to make precise

predictions. Since the respondents volunteered their opinions freely, it is possible that there

are unidentified common characteristics that influence the findings, e.g. respondents differ

from other professionals due to their membership in professional online networks and their

33
active involvement in special interest groups which indicates that they have the time available

to answer such questions, that they value networking and share a willingness to contribute.

Regardless of the limitations above, the current research provides useful insights into the

implications of flexibility for leadership and identified preliminary questions for future research

of the relationship between leaders and followers.

34
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VII. Appendices

1. Forum Article

"Is it the most flexible person that ends up leading a team?"

Dear everyone,

I am currently researching for my dissertation, the topic is:

“How cybernetics can test the following statement: The most flexible
person in a team will end up leading the team.”
I am looking for spontaneous statements to this hypothesis; please share
your view or real life experiences.

A little background to the choice of topic:

1. The original ‘law of requisite variety’ formulated by W.R. Ashby (1956)

states that:
“The larger the variety of actions available to a control system, the larger
the variety of perturbations it is able to compensate.”
http://pcp.lanl.gov/reqvar.html

2. This is adapted to a presupposition of NLP:

“In NLP the ‘Law of Requisite Variety’ in a given physical system, is that the
part of the system with the greatest flexibility of behaviour will control the
system.”
http://www.nlpscotland.com/law-of-requisite-variety.htm

3. Adapted to an actual business context my hypothesis states that:

"The most flexible person in a team will end up leading the team. “

I am currently working on defining the terms of flexibility, leadership and

team in a tangible context.

"Is it the most flexible person that ends up leading a team?"

What do you think?

Thanks a lot and all the best from England,

Author

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 2. List of Forums

BUSINESS FORUMS
Xing LinkedIn

1. Global Business (7) 1. Leadership Think Tank (20)

2. Consulting Business (8) 2. Business Excellence Professionals (8)
3. Leadership Symposium (5) 3. Change Consulting (7)
4. Leadership Forum (4) 4. Worldwide Management Consultants (5)
5. Economy & Spiritualism (2) 5. European Young Professionals (1)
6. Team Development & Leadership (2)
7. Leadership & Management (2)

SYSTEMIC FORUMS
Xing LinkedIn

1. Education, Training & Coaching (8) 1. NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) (11)

2. NLP-Community (8) 2. System Dynamics Practitioners (6)
3. Coaching Convention (6) 3. Systems Thinking (3)
4. Systemic Structural Constellations (3) 4. Systems Thinking & Lean for Services (3)
5. Systems Approach (1) 5. NLP Network (1)

GENERAL FORUMS
Xing LinkedIn

1. brand eins Community (7) 1. LinkedIn Answers (122)

2. Querdenker Club (5)
3. Cross-cultural communication (3)
4. Modern Nomads (1)
5. Debate Club (1)

SELECTED COMPANY FORUMS

1. Performance Partnership (5)

2. Matrix Training Solutions (2)

(..) number of replies 30 Forums / 267 replies in total

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