Complexity Leadership Theory

The Leadership Quarterly 18 (2007) 298 – 318 www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era ☆
Mary Uhl-Bien a,⁎, Russ Marion b,1 , Bill McKelvey c,2 a Department of Management, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, P.O. Box 880491, Lincoln, NE 68588-0491, USA b Educational Leadership, School of Education, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29631-0710, USA c The UCLA Anderson School of Management, 110 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481, USA

Abstract
Leadership models of the last century have been products of top-down, bureaucratic paradigms. These models are eminently effective for an economy premised on physical production but are not well-suited for a more knowledge-oriented economy.
Complexity science suggests a different paradigm for leadership—one that frames leadership as a complex interactive dynamic from which adaptive outcomes (e.g., learning, innovation, and adaptability) emerge. This article draws from complexity science to develop an overarching framework for the study of Complexity Leadership Theory, a leadership paradigm that focuses on enabling the learning, creative, and adaptive capacity of complex adaptive systems (CAS) within a context of knowledge-producing organizations. This conceptual framework includes three entangled leadership roles (i.e., adaptive leadership, administrative leadership, and enabling leadership) that reflect a dynamic relationship between the bureaucratic, administrative functions of the organization and the emergent, informal dynamics of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Leadership; Complexity theory; Complex adaptive systems (CAS); Knowledge Era; Creativity; Adaptive organizations; Bureaucracy

As we advance deeper in the knowledge economy, the basic assumptions underlining much of what is taught and practiced in the name of management are hopelessly out of date…Most of our assumptions about

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