Tightknit organizations such as political groups, NGOs, and some corporations, among other types, have leaders who
teach others to be leaders. leaders make more leaders.
recruit people sincere about the cause and doing a good job. (conscientious)
teach others to in-turn teach/lead/recruit
recruit based on go-getters, on those who are proactive.
organize along effective lines of operations, logistics, and intelligence, and the best people for each role
have a strict understanding of chain of command or else an effective process for quickly resolving differences.
are constantly studying opposition's motives, playbook, and operations to gain an edge.
regularly take note of, and promote, high morale, seeing it as essential to operations.
understand the importance of practicing procedure, training, drilling, and team-level competency.
are always gauging the field, be it operational, or at the public perception level, taking notes of opportunities for gains, and minimizing loss at every turn,only ever toward and in conjunction with a broad-tent strategy or vision that can always be referred back to when in doubt about what the mission is.
knows who to tell what. Compartmentalizes information, both to prevent leaks to opposition, and to keep each level and branch of the organization focused only on the essentials of what the job is, therefore maximizing their reliance on each other and steady communication.
Lets go over each
(1) If the biggest problem is a lack of leadership, as is often the case in politics, the social sphere, companies, and elsewhere, and people willing to lead are valuable, that makes leadership a weak link.
Therefore one of the most important traits of a leader, one of the main goals, is creating more people willing and able to lead. In a situation where leadership is targeted first by opposition, part of winning is assuring, even if a particular leader is removed, their loss does not cripple the org or network.
(2) A common problem organizations of all sorts face is infiltration, bad faith, or lackluster new members that aren't in it for the larger goal, or even for the people they work next to. The way to answer this is to filter by personality, and focus on people already dedicated or already part of a smaller group to be absorbed. This is also mass politics, the unification of disparate forces or groups towards a larger strategy.
(3) Often what happens in organizations is an otherwise effective leader will run things for a while, and then be removed from their position or leave. Whatever the case, their influence goes with them. The lessons and skills they have are not transmitted to the broader org. Those lessons do not become part of the culture and driving force. This can be counter-acted by training standards, policies, and peer-accountability. Make it a matter of habit to train newer people in more advanced roles the longer they are part of the org. In this way, when the vagaries of life, opposition, and circumstance remove people from your org, the organization remains flexible to the change.
(4) An organization made of random recruits, those who have to be 'motivated', above and beyond typical morale, is an organization that is lethargic and prone to developing a culture of inaction and retrospectives without follow through. To create an organization thats energetic, a leader has to ask the potential members why they're joining, and what they bring to the table. In the most general case, one recruit that is willing and able to do something, anything, toward the goal, is better than hundreds or thousands of well-wishers and near-do-wells who aren't prone to take their own initiative. Leadership makes it their goal to identify those with initiative and clearly lay out the impact that group effort can have versus "going it alone."
(5) Too many mechanics on the car ruin the engine. Too many drivers at the wheel wreck the car. So it is with organizations. Effective organization is about putting the right people in the correct roles that they're both suited for in terms of proficiency, and which they will excel in terms of disposition. For example, lets say an investor wants to build a factory. To sell to the hardware stores, and make sure his attempt at grabbing the market isn't squelched, he might have to understand where the various hardware stores in his chosen city are, and understand their delivery routes to get opportunities to make network connections to distributors on the ground. He would be ill-advised to therefore send a guy who has a spontaneous disposition and won't have the stamina to consistently follow the routines of competition and distributors. This example would be an intelligence position and requires someone with experience in logistics, and it highlights the importance of knowing who fits where in your org.
(6) An organization that cannot adapt, and utilize situational opportunities, quickly and efficiently, will miss opportunities, and incur risks. One of the easiest ways to assure planning and operations are efficiently carried out is to have every recruit trained and fully aware of what the chain of command is. By organizing around a chain of command, there is never any doubt, in an uncertain or unstable situation, who is in charge and what the final word on any matter is. There is no 'pull' in opposite directions. Everyone understands a single point of control, when in competent hands, allows the group to act in unison, maximizing its potential impact, as long as everyone agrees who is making final decisions. These may not always be the correct decisions in hindsight, or may not seem like the best at the time, or may seem incorrect because a member has limited information about why a decision was made (and that may be intentional even). This also assumes of course that there is room for disagreement or to raise an issue thats an obvious hazard if otherwise overlooked by a team leader. Every member is, through recruitment, made to understand they are there to support the mission whatever the mission or goal happens to be and that the best way for them to do this, is to carry out decisions and orders quickly and efficiently.
(7) Leadership understands that situations are fluid. That changing environments can present unexpected opportunities and unforeseen hazards. That material circumstances for the organization or even opposition, can change on a dime. And likewise that all actors within an environment have their own planning, operations, intelligence, motives, organizational goals, and strategies, some of which change and emerge during competitions between organizations.
Being aware of these facts, leadership seeks to get within the decision making loop of opposition, while attempting to likewise make their own organization opaque and confounding as possible. Opposition will attempt to keep its competition (you) busy, inactive, demoralized, and confused about their motives, strategies, and methods. When these start to become clear, that is when leadership knows it has entered into the opposition's
decision loop.
(8) Mental state makes or breaks groups and organization, be it psyching people up for an event or group activity, or managing their expectations or reactions to events. Failing to maintain morale can see people leave, cast doubt on broader goals, or lead to infighting and ruined organization operations. Low morale also causes organizations to spin their wheels. Tactics that drag on too long are a drag as Alinsky himself wrote. Leadership endeavors to balance operations with downtime, and mixing up tactics to keep people from becoming demoralized. This may come in the form of things as wild as bonfires, parties, or simply a night out, or away time, for people to reassess and recommit as necessary. Ideally this downtime is spent with a member's immediate team so their membership does not simply devolve into a "work relationship".
(9) "leaders understand the importance of practicing procedure, training, drilling, and team-level competency."
No plan or organization's strategy survives a punch to the mouth but it is important understand what happens and what to do after things go sideways. Leaders understand reflexes and habits developed naturally are not by themselves the best response to a given situation, and seek to be prepared for all contingencies, with a best-case response when a situation goes south. And leaders understand the best way to be prepared for any outcome, is
to train for that outcome until it becomes automatic, a reflex, even for individual events. Team and organization operations are meticulously laid out, drilled, and thought through, to look for flaws, oversights, and potential gotchas that competition or opposition might pursue. And then they are practiced until everyone in a team,
or every relevant member, knows exactly what their role is and the roles of the people around them and has no last-minute hesitancy or doubt about what to do. Plans become practice. Practice becomes process. Process becomes procedural memory.
(10) Leadership is constantly looking at both the field of risks and opportunities, and asking for each, does this align with the goals or vision for the organization? Without a vision, when the center doesn't hold, when all else fails, when even the best leadership fails against simply bad luck or competition, its easy for an organization to collapse in on itself. The point of vision is to be able to ask in the worst case scenarios, what are you still about?
If everything else changes, if everyone quits, or if no one is left to keep things running, and nothing you try works, and you have to change everything about your org: what is the one thing that originally brought everyone to the table? The one idea that inspired everyone from the start? The one thing that made the organization or team what it is at its core? Because if the foundation is solid, then even if everything else crashes and burns in an organization, you can always tear it all down and rebuild on that foundation. Thats what vision is. It's a hot knife that cuts through the red meat of any situation and strikes at the bone. It's a jumping-off point to get restarted when circumstance knocks an organization off its feet. It's the position from which all other positions are reevaluated.
(11) If knowing the opposition is paramount, then preventing the opposition from knowing your organization is equally important. Effective leaders understand people operate best when they have all the details and information relevant to their role and the roles of those around them and no more. Too much information demoralizes
for a variety of reasons, to little, the same outcome, demoralization. There may be disagreements about higher level goals, or how one branch operates compared to another branch. A good leader therefore seeks to compartmentalize an organization, to both prevent leaks, and keep an organizations various branches, teams, and members, focused on the task at hand, and not on low level disagreements and opinions, which are distractions from the broader goal.
This has been a brief overview of what makes effective leaders and organizations.
I encourage others to add their own know-how.
(post is archived)