Leadership Revisited and a Suggested Method for Improvement of

[Kromkowski@aol.com]

Anton noted:

<<JD Kromkowski recently posted Deming's comments on leadership from OOTC.  I
think if he will review my recent posting on this topic, that most of what
Deming was saying would fit in the categories I suggested for leadership
(which were built on someone else's previous post):Inspire, Facilitate, 
Improve, Look Ahead.  Deming in many cases was providing specific examples 
which are fine, but I think what is important is that managers and leaders 
have an overall sense of what their function is and then use examples to 
illustrate and guide specific behaviors.  Let me use JD's posting to 
illustrate:<<

First, I think that the only thing I directly quibbled about was the use of 
the category "Inspire": which is, in my opinion and in light of Deming's 
writing, highly overrated as a quality of leadership.

Second, my primary point (which I thought I made by citing Deming 
extensively) was that if we are going to have a discussion on the DEN about 
leadership, then we should begin with Deming's text, unless of course, with 
think that the funnel experiment was a pedagogical waste of time.  If that is 
the case, the DEN can discuss things in whatever way they like -- everyone 
well-intentioned and certainly doing their best.

Deming, was in some cases "providing examples" in OOTC, so that one might 
learn by deduction.  But I think he was also explicitly providing underlying 
principles of leadership, so that one might learn by induction.  Typology as 
in the case of "Inspire, Facilitate, Improve, Look Ahead", is sort of a 
hybrid, which can get confusing if the categories are mixed -- some 
principles, some just a forced name for a group of examples.

With respect to the correctness of your "factor" analysis (typology), we 
could haul out the Anderson, et al. Model for Deming (Academy of Management, 
1995 (?) as well as the other literature out there on leadership (much 
written by Neo-Skinnerists, I understand) and see what's out there.  And I 
think the method used by you is backwards, you developed a refined a someone 
else's factor model for leadership (which means you were already pigeon holed 
by politeness) and then tried to fit Deming's words into it.  Maybe the true 
factorization is 5 factors or 7 factors or 2 factors.  Maybe none your four, 
maybe all.

Maybe a more productive method, would be the following:

1.  Collect D's text about Leadership. (We're almost complete here)
2.  Break it down into natural chunks.  Maybe smaller, maybe larger than the 
chunks you listed.
3.  Post individual chunks.  One chunk to a post.  One or two a day.
4.  Allow the DEN, to reply to you (or some designee) alone (not to DEN, 
since this would affect the results depending on the persuasive power or 
authority of the responder) with no more than 3 or 4 words (preferably one 
would) that best categorizes the principles or underlying the chunk.
5.  After all chunks are processed.  Let's see what kinds of natural 
categories arise, and let's see what chunks got a meaningfully high or low 
amount of responses. (We could use a IndX/MR chart, in time order, to see if 
there was a boredom effect.)
6.  Then let's have a discussion about Leadership.

I think that just goes to show that I still don't know what the DEN is -- a 
cocktail party or a colloquy.  I have no objections to the cocktail party, 
except that over the Internet, the liquor would at best only virtual and 
consequently has none of the advantageous (or disadvantages) of the real 
stuff.

JDKromkowski
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