Adaptive Leadership for Agile Organizations

Abstract

This paper explores how the fundamental structure of organizations (Vision, Mission, Capacity, and Learning, or VMCL) can assist agile organizations with adaptive leadership. Through learning the four functions of the VMCL theory, this paper will also explore how organizations can utilize the ideas of complex adaptive systems, POSIWID, feedback and how structure drives behavior. Using a case study on the systematic failure of Wells Fargo, this paper will demonstrate a real-world example of applying VMCL to improve the systems within organizations.

The Four Waves of Systems Thinking

“…Recently, however, the emphasis on methodological pluralism has been subject to critique for encouraging 'a thousand flowers (methodologies and methods) to bloom' without keeping a sufficiently strong core narrative about the fundamentals of systems thinking [18,23]. Without the latter, newcomers cannot easily get to grips with the field [23], and nor can the field mature into a viable scientific endeavor [91,92,[108][109][110][111][112][113][114][115]. Also, despite the methodological diversity, there remained a focus on rational analysis (albeit with a broadened understanding of rationality), with arts-based and other approaches mostly marginalized [57,108].…”

“…• How can we develop better practices for helping disciplinary experts to transform their fields by using the universal structures of systems thinking to determine what 'Systems X' (e.g., systemic evaluation, systems engineering, systems neuroscience, systems education, systemic leadership, systemic innovation, etc.) should mean to them (see [91,92,110,113,199])? • What does systems thinking look like in the organizational domain, and for leadership and management practice?…”