What Leaders Did Before: Hierarchy, Management Science, Agile and Servant Leadership

All courses / AI Leader / Module 1 / Chapter 2

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Describe six leadership models and the scarcity each one answered.
• Distinguish tasks bundled into the leader's role by accident of information routing from tasks that exist because a person must answer.
• Compare a pre-AI job description with a role charter written against the five leadership functions.
• Classify the leadership practices of an organisation in a practice inventory with an evidence date.

Key concepts

Scarcity behind the shape

The book's own reading of the lineage: each leadership model answered something scarce, namely predictability, efficient effort, motivation and attention, information and fit, purpose and trust, or coordination speed. Four were relieved with layers, rules, reports and meetings; two only by relationships.

Structure as a fossil record

A delegation order, an authority matrix, a span of control or a job description carries the assumptions of the model that produced it. An organisation cannot redesign what it cannot read, which is why the history is useful before deciding what AI should change.

Relocated control

Barker's study of one manufacturing company found that after supervisors were removed, norms set by self-managing teams became a form of control more powerful and less visible than before. Removing a layer does not remove the function of control; it relocates it.

Role charter as code

A role written against the five leadership functions, stating decision rights, ceilings for AI and the tests of answerability, in contrast to a job description that lists routing and controlling tasks. The chapter's first illustration is ROLE-NR-MGR-01 for a home-care unit manager.

Practice inventory

A list of the leadership practices an organisation already has, each with its lineage, the scarcity it answered, whether it carries information, whether it establishes an answerer, where AI touches it, who checks it and an evidence date.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. Both example organisations cut a layer that was read as a router and turned out also to be a school and an anchor of local knowledge. How would you find out what a layer does before it is removed?
2. Servant and transformational leadership do not depend on how information moves. What does that imply for leaders whose practice has consisted mainly of routing?
3. Which documents in your organisation still carry the assumptions of bureaucracy or scientific management, and which of those assumptions would you keep on purpose?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. What is the chapter's limited conclusion about the Hawthorne effect?

   1. The original data confirm that every change in lighting raised output
   2. The effect has been measured reliably in modern field experiments on AI
   3. The textbook version is not established by the original experiments; the school's broader claim rests on other evidence
   4. The experiments show that supervision has no influence on the output of work groups
   Show the answer

   C. The textbook version is not established by the original experiments; the school's broader claim rests on other evidence
   Levitt and List recovered the illumination data and did not find the pattern retold for decades. A later reanalysis disputes details, so the chapter concludes only that the textbook version is not established there.

2. Which scarcities does the chapter say generative AI is most likely to relieve in the leader's work?

   1. Motivation and attention, and purpose and trust, the two that were relieved by relationships
   2. Purpose and trust, and coordination speed
   3. Efficiency of effort, motivation and attention, purpose and trust, and coordination speed
   4. Predictability, efficiency of effort, information and coordination speed
   Show the answer

   D. Predictability, efficiency of effort, information and coordination speed
   These four were relieved with layers, rules, reports and meetings, so the routing and summarising part of the role is expected to shrink. Motivation and attention, and purpose and trust, were relieved only by relationships.

3. What does the chapter say the 2019 job description of the Strandvik unit manager mostly describes?

   1. The work of a router and a controller: allocate, report, pass on, follow up, ensure
   2. The coaching of every employee and protected time for new staff
   3. The decision rights of the post and the ceilings for AI in each class
   4. The representation of the team upward, judgement in difficult cases and the education of new staff
   Show the answer

   A. The work of a router and a controller: allocate, report, pass on, follow up, ensure
   The description lists what can be counted and assigned, as documents shaped by the bureaucratic and scientific lineages do. Coaching, upward representation and judgement are missing or implied, which the charter as code corrects.