Leadership Style and Socio-Organo Complexity: Managing Its Effects

Working practices revolve around individuals/’systems’ coming together to form teams that are expected to deliver a required outcome. As ‘systems’ are led to form teams interconnections are generated which result in behaviours that cause complexity. Results from research conducted by the author, on the effects of socio-organo complexity through the attribute of leadership style adopted, indicate that although this is identified as a cause, the attribute is not considered as a means to manage the effects of complexity. The author postulates that the application of complexity theory, and particularly the use of the characteristics, can enable the systematic consideration of the conditions that give rise to socio-organo complexity. To that effect, a framework was develop with and validated by practitioners that enables the management of the effects of socio-organo complexity through the leadership style. In particular, by measuring the effect of the current level of actions taken it allows the user to select and implement appropriate responses that will lead to the management of the effect of complexity.