The leadership roles, corporate culture, and system constraints we describe give these companies an edge over their employees.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Harvard Business Review” (ID: hbrchinese), author Deborah Ancona Elaine Backman Kate Isaacs. Authorized to reprint.
After a long time no one has recommended command and control leadership. But at the same time there is no alternative to full molding.
Part of the reason is that company executives are also ambivalent about changing their own behavior. They clearly know that companies need to be more innovative. They worry that unless leaders are willing to decentralize, let the lower layers of the company participate in decision-making, and allocate more resources to the lower levels, otherwise innovation will not occur. But they also worry that if they relax control, the company will fall into chaos.
In the MIT study, we tried to understand how this contradiction is resolved in companies that are constantly innovating. Most research on leadership patterns in rapidly changing, uncertain environments, or focusing on how traditional bureaucratic institutions are trying to become more agile, or focusing on very young entrepreneurial companies.
We have taken a different approach and have studied in depth the two companies that have been in existence for a long time, so they often need to adjust to changes in the environment while maintaining entrepreneurship and top-notch innovation. They are PARC, a well-known Silicon Valley research and development company owned by Xerox, and W.L. Gore & Associates, a non-listed materials technology company.
From 2009 to 2011 (and 2019), in several rounds of quantitative data collection and subsequent interviews, we found many processes and behaviors related to agile companies: multidisciplinary teams, experimental spirits, and more. But we also saw some less familiar leadership models.
First, we found three different types of leaders. Entrepreneurial leaders, often concentrated at the lower levels of the company, create value for customers through new products and services, and lead the company into new areas. Empowered leaders, usually at the middle of the company, ensure that entrepreneurs have the resources and information they need.