The Connected Leader: Creating Agile Organizations for People, Performance and Profit

The Connected Leader: Creating Agile Organizations for People, Performance and Profit

Article Type: Suggested reading From: Strategic Direction, Volume 26, Issue 6

Emmanuel GobillotKogan Page, 2007

Occasionally I put a book or two in a traveling briefcase to save for a long airplane flight. Generally by the time I return home I have been able to finish one. On my last trip I was finished reading The Connected Leader by the time I arrived at my destination. It was that good! The author, Gobillot, did a masterful job of first organizing (four parts, seven chapters, and five steps) and then painting a picture of a connected leader.

In the first pages I was immediately intrigued with the seemingly obvious premise that leadership is a paradox. I was clearly able to see that successful leadership is more than merely being situational … it is, in reality, contextual. In order to fathom the changing context the connected leaders are able to get their customers to “follow them by creating communities and connections … ” This was such a clear case for the importance of focusing on connections. Gobillot depicts connected leadership as the ability to channel the vitality of a robust and flexible organization through a network of relationships that people have within the formal organization.

The heart of The Connected Leader, in my opinion, is the wedding of the two parts of the case for connections and the case for connected leadership. For example, current leadership tactics can be limited to the present context. Gobillot suggests that modern day organizations need to be able to adapt to a new or changing context that he refers to as the people economy.

After clarifying that the benefits of networks can only be realized if they are properly aligned with the strategic interests of an organization, the author reinforces the need to describe the “real” and revert to the “formal” organization. Although resembling the leadership focus of the past, specifically leadership as a role, leadership behaviors, or followership, his entire focus is on the connectedness of leadership. Daniel Burnham stated over a hundred years ago that we should “ … make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood … ” Connected leaders seem to be willing to take personal risks in the pursuit of a key goal, are capable of influencing others toward their positive engagement with a goal, and are able to create the perception of challenge and support within another person. The author posits that where others see hierarchies, the new leaders see connections. And it is these connections that create the mindset of, not so much creating followers, as to creating doers.

It is very apparent that in recent years there has been a clarion call for authentic leadership. Authentic leaders pay particular attention to visions that excite their people. Gobillot suggests that authentic leaders embrace trust and meaning as the currency of connected leadership. He is right that this can only be done through the medium of dialogue. Further connected leaders create communities of meaning. A recurring theme, which is addressed from multiple perspectives, is that the effectiveness of a team or organization is one measure of the level of social capital within that group and of the richness of their connections and interactions.

If I were asked where The Connected Leader by Emmanuel Gobillot would rank in my library of books on leadership it would be front and center. I am a professor in a graduate program teaching organizational leadership and I have made a personal and professional decision to use it as a required text in an upcoming class. As a further testament of my appreciation relative to how the creative ideas were presented in The Connected Leader I have loaned my copy to our university president. In many ways the concepts presented are a reflection of his style of being an exemplary example by being the connected leader.

Reviewed by David D. McIntire, Professor and Director of Organizational Leadership, Azusa Pacific University, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

This review was originally published in Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Volume 30, No. 4, 2009.