The Institute for Corporate Leadership surveyed 500+ organizations and pulled together the results in Taking the Pulse: Virtual Leadership, a free, downloadable report, worth taking a look at. What jumps out? The finding that leadership development fails to properly address the new challenges introduced by virtual working. Only 3% of those responding said that leading at a distance is covered to "a very high extent" in their development courses.
To the burgeoning bureaucracy of chiefs add this one, from workforce.com: "Chief Blogging Officer Title Catching On in Corporations:"
For better or worse, it seems corporate blogging—and the title of chief blogger—is beginning to hit its stride. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak have recently recruited chief bloggers, with or without the actual title, to tell their stories and engage consumers.
... Geoff Livingston, CEO of Livingston Communications and blogger at the Buzz Bin, [said]: “The problem is that too many people focus on the actual tool: the blog,” he said. “What they need to focus on is the principles behind social media that make it work—like participating in a larger community works, and not controlling the conversation works.”
Ken Thompson of Bioteams has a wonderful piece, "Why penguins have no commanding officer," that builds on his long exploration of teams in nature. In this one, he talks about the collective smarts of animal groups. There's no single leader; collectively, the group leads as each member knows some bit of the whole. Makes great sense to me - and jibes with our line about virtual teams and networks: "Leadership shifts depending on the task at hand," called "polycephalous leadership" by anthropologists Gerlach and Hine. See also Ken's post today, "Did ants invent the perfect mobile communications system?"
Ants interact using a system known as pheromones, involving sending 'chemical messages' to their community through smell and taste. It is also one of the oldest and most sophisticated forms of group communication on the planet with many features today's mobile and virtual teams would die for!
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