Who Needs Leaders?



Who Needs Leaders?

  • Play the chaos game with a group of people (see Complex Adaptive Leadership (Obolensky, 2014) Chapter 6, or watch the above video.
  • Create a reflection blog on what this exercise meant to you and how it impacts your understanding of chaos theory; include the implications that this has on strategy.
The title of this assignment is very Monty Python-esque – Who Needs Leaders? We Don’t!  So, what do we do next? 
The exercise demonstrated by Obolensky was a great visual analog to how the activity of business operations may seem chaotic, but in the end, a result is achieved.  And it’s achieved without direct control over every movement.  A few items come to mind upon reflecting on this display.

  •   Will/Skill are needed.  Although relatively simple directions were given, employee skill and effort are compulsory to actually execute a plan.  As Obolensky (2014) states, employee will/skill is often greater than leadership anticipates and expects.  Therefore, micromanagement is usually counterproductive.  Instead, open knowledge transfer will yield best results by allowing refinement of skill and motivation to be constantly improved (Obolensky, 2014)

  •  Time and view can distort.  Much like how our concept of time is different compared to geologic time or that of an optical illusion, what we observe may provide only part of the story due to how long we observe and from which perspective we observe such activity from.  A participants actions may be perfectly logical and efficient, however an observer only viewing a snippet may not fully understand the behavior.  Thus, the ambiguity and uncertainty mentioned by Obolensky (2014) will certainly be observable, but should not be feared. 

  •  Manage like the Free Market – The rhetorical question asked by Obolensky at the end of the exercise reminds me of why central planning, especially economic central planning, typically fails and why it’s best to manage like the free market.  It would be impossible for one person to efficiently direct all players to their spot in the same amount of time, in this case just under 1 minute.  One person would have to direct the 30 some people and provide instructions, corrections, and inspect all the required movements – not going to happen in a minute.  Even if one does endeavor to actually command all movements, it would take too long to be of practical use.  Sowell (2014) states that market economies have succeed better than centrally planned economies because the individual (economic) decisions are coordinated by self-interest (in this case – price).   Thus the self-interest demonstrated by each player to comply and accomplish their task shows how seemingly chaotic movement is actually quite orderly. 


Obolensky, N. (2014). Complex adaptive leadership. (2nd edition.). London, UK: Gower/Ashgate
Sowell, T. (2014). Basic Economics. Washington: The Perseus Books Group.

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