The Do-Be Model for Leadership and Teamwork
Please see these six thumbnail images of the Do-Be Model and see a description of each.
Contact me to learn how this model can help you and your team be intentional as you build both mission and culture for exceptional outcomes.
1. Leadership can’t be understood without understanding teamwork. Teamwork is a measure of leadership. Leadership is a measure of teamwork. Where we see one, we will find the other. Where we want one, we must enable the other. Keeping this relationship in mind allows us to hold center for the “what, why, and how” of reaching for a desired outcome, whether we are those who inspire or those who are inspired.
2. Begin with the end in mind. This tenet from Stephen Covey is well understood and shows up in all leadership models. A function of leadership is to hold space for a sense of purpose that is clear, unifying, and compelling. This is the “what and why” of teamwork, the end for which leadership is practiced. At its most expansive, 30,000’ view, leadership helps a team answer the question, “what are we doing?” This is vital because it establishes a team’s narrative, with both a point of departure and a desired future state. With such a mission in place, teams are poised to implement the strategy and tactics they need for going forward. A team’s ability to hold mission top of mind, with a derivative vision for getting there, is a result of leadership. Such leadership may be exercised by anyone, not just a formal “leader.”
3. Every team has a culture that is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. My adaptation of W. E. Deming’s system theory applies well to how teams always have culture. It takes leadership to get a culture that will support a team’s high performance, a holding environment that makes them a team and enables them to travel the path they choose. Culture is a container for the work, one that needs to be durable, resilient, expansive, and animating. It supports teamwork because it’s a place where teams can grow trust, enable risk taking, give voice to new ideas, and open up new perspectives.
A team becomes a team when they commit to a sense of belonging that takes on a life of its own. This is animation: to act as one body in a collective expression of behavioral commitment, motivation, and selfless contribution. Leadership comes from anyone who will help a team answer the question, “How do we want to be?” Without this, culture can’t be built, maintained, or repaired.
4. Leadership for change. John Kotter makes an enduring distinction: leadership is about change whereas management is about control. Leadership thus differs from management in that it is about risk taking: helping a group toward a desired future that is uncertain. In this definition, leadership stands apart from management because change requires a team to be vulnerable, with members willing to risk reaching for something that they have yet to hold in their hands. Teams must engage in curiosity, learning, and innovation for such striving. Seen through the Do-Be Model, growing a team’s performance takes place in the domains of both “doing” and “being.”
Doing. The yellow icon below represents the outcome of leadership that holds space for high performance task orientation: new strategy and tactics, reliable execution of best practices, improved diagnostics, learning and process improvement, and establishment of benchmarked expectations for performance.
Being. The blue icon represents leadership that holds space for high performance culture: an established “way of being” that supports curiosity, creativity, and exploration of divergent perspectives. It includes norms for difficult conversations and exploring new possibilities. It also engenders a sense of identity that animates the group in difficult times, resulting in persistence, motivation, and sacrifice. For breakthrough performance, the “being” of a team must be expansive: big enough to create room for alternative perspectives, explore the edge of the way we understand the problem, and question the assumptions we bring to the problem solving process.
5. Leadership for tactical vs. adaptive work. The Do-Be Model includes a situational approach to understanding leadership, making use of Ron Heifetz’s typology of problems. In his work, Heifetz suggests that leadership must suit the needs of the problem that is being solved. Seen through the Do-Be Model, we may also understand that leadership must serve the needs of the team that is solving the problem.
For problems that are easily recognized and have known, effective solutions, Heifetz suggests we see these as technical problems. Especially when a team is well trained, experienced, and knowledgeable in the execution of solutions (with team members that share common cultural assumptions and values for taking action), leadership needs to support technical/tactical work. The Do-Be Model holds that in such cases, establishing and projecting of a vision for the sake of mission execution (Doing) is a superordinate function of leadership. See below how General George Patton is an archetype for tactical leadership.
For problems that are ambiguous, poorly understood, or resistant to known solutions, Heifetz suggests we see these as adaptive problems. Especially when learning is needed before the problem can even be understood, when team members do not share common cultural and values perspectives, or when the assumptions that team members bring to their problem solving gets in the way of their ability to innovate (their assumptions are the problem), leadership needs to support adaptive work. The Do-Be Model holds that in such cases, the establishment of a cultural container for adaptive work (Being) is a superordinate function of leadership. See below how Susan B. Anthony is an icon for leadership that built a movement for change that extended past her formal authority to lead, indeed, beyond her own lifetime.
When leadership holds a clear vision for desired outcomes AND the team must nonetheless engage in collaboration to come up with a novel expression of that vision, the Do-Be Model holds that the function of leadership is to hold both a clear vision for the outcome, even as a cultural space is created to support innovation and creativity. Steve Jobs is a good example of such a leader.
Transformational leadership and our “way of knowing.” The Do-Be Model expands on the work of MacGregor Burns and others in their thinking of leadership as a process that transforms those who undergo a paradigm shift in their experience of leadership and teamwork.
Imagine that we live in a pool of light that is our “way of knowing.” Leadership for transformation positions itself at the edge of this circle, inviting those that stand at this threshold into new knowing, helping them with the steps they can take toward growth and change. If this growth is hard, our leadership at the threshold may include helping others recognize and let go of well worn, familiar, but limiting beliefs and assumptions.
Breakthrough learning requires the vulnerability and commitment necessary to see that one’s current way of knowing may be what stands in the way of growth. Leadership in this case helps others explore perspectives that enable them to take steps that have been hiding in plain sight. As followers, until we step into the shadows beyond the pool of light, we are unable to even imagine what change will bring; indeed, it is beyond our knowing.
When a leader is in the pool of light with us, helping but nonetheless enabling our problem solving from within a familiar way of knowing (the problem does not require real change), we are engaged tactically. A team can perform reliably when such tactical leadership helps us focus on desired outcomes while holding us to best practices, with sound strategy, and benchmarked performance standards.
On the other hand, when the work requires us to redefine what is possible, leaders join us at the threshold of new knowing, holding an adaptive space for us to explore the edge of the world as we know it. Such leadership is necessary for work that is ambiguous and complex, where divergent perspectives must be reconciled to move forward, and transformation is required to get to an outcome that can’t be known until the work is done. We can expect to be disrupted in the process, even reimagining ourselves altogether through a paradigm shift that will not let us continue to be who we were when we came to the challenge. Sometimes we don’t solve the problem; instead the problem must solve us. In the context of teamwork, transformational leadership enables collective action at the edge of new knowing. It is generative and leads to innovative and creative results.
