Leadership ​

To ensure that people::agents stably occupy the required role positions in the organization, there is a method of leadership that helps performer people to take stable role positions in the project (including if necessary, encourages these performer people to further mastery in performing role-based work methods), and also assists their cooperation with each other in these occupied positions. Leadership methods mainly persuade, "convince" the agent to take a position, help in training to achieve mastery is rarely considered as part of leadership, it is more often assumed that "the agent can, but does not want, he needs to help him want to." If the agent "wants, but can't" --- this is a different situation, a learning situation (but for the agent to start learning some mastery, leadership is also required, because the agent usually "can, but doesn't want to, he needs help to want to").

In management as an organizational engineering, leadership is equivalent to production methods, that is, methods of manufacturing/realizing the intended system according to a known project. In production, we buy or manufacture modular parts, and then take them and connect them so that they together perform the necessary functions during operation. In leadership, everything is not so simple, starting with the fact that the "known org-project" is often absent, it needs to be made explicit. Then people need to be obtained from somewhere. This is done by management, but it often can take some people without the required level of mastery, because with the necessary level of mastery it is "too expensive, we can't afford it", so people need to be further trained, and sometimes even educated (strengthening intellect, because we not only lack people, but also lack educated people and everyone agrees on this. For example, strengthening intellect by studying in the School of Systems Management, but this is about a year, the first three semesters, or a couple of years --- six semesters of the "Organizational Development" program).

And then people need to be "persuaded" to take a position, teach them to perform their role and remain focused, not get distracted. People need to be persuaded to take not a position, not a position in the organizational chart, not a vacancy, but to take a role position!

Leadership does not deal with people taking authority to manage their and other people's work and the company's property/equipment/capital and then using these authorities. Leadership deals specifically with the problem of agents who are not enthusiastic about playing a role, even if they have the required mastery. Often it is said, "yes, I am good at organizing events, but I really want to learn to work with 3D models in CAD," then the organization, which had a good events manager, gets a poor design engineer.

Leadership is often called "catalyzing collaboration" precisely because the division of labor is primarily the division of activities into different roles, assigning different roles to different role performers (not all roles are assigned to one performer), and if any role in its execution is missed, then the project/piece/work organization does not go smoothly, cooperation does not happen. It is necessary for there to be performers of all necessary roles in the project, and they perform these roles well, without hesitation. For example, if no one plays the role of Ophelia in a performance, and there are four extremely busy actors, all playing Prince Hamlet in one company, then there is no cooperation in terms of the role of Ophelia, that needs to be specifically organized --- either hire additional people for the role of Ophelia (either already capable of playing this role, or they will need to be hired and then trained), or retrain someone from the performers of the role of Prince Hamlet to perform the new role of Ophelia, in that case, the organization will be left without the necessary number of Prince Hamlets. Since all current role performers are busy, they carry out the work of those roles and they simply don't have the free time to spend on teaching new methods of their work, so old performers are rarely retrained. Someone has to do the work of the old role performers while new people are being trained for new roles, and those performers of the old roles will continue to work at full capacity in the new roles, they won't have time for retraining. Newly recruited people will learn to do new work using new work methods in new roles.

If people stably occupy a culturally conditioned position, professionalize in its work methods, pursue the interests of this position, then their life becomes fulfilling because they participate in the culture, and they also participate in the team, obviously bringing benefits within the division of labor. Stably holding their position, people are proficient at playing their role very effectively in collective/project division of labor, distributing the work performed by different methods among different agent people who have a high level of mastery in performing various methods.

A leader is also a role! The role of a leader is played not only by managers but by all employees on occasion. A leader is less about "leading" or "setting an example" or "showing the way to go" (strategizing), but more about helping people occupy and maintain role positions in the organization, directing them as the director-casting director, assigning people-actors to project/organizational/activity/professional roles and then helping them successfully master these roles, and to hold these roles in the bustle of corporate life.

Leadership::method acts as a bridge that connects the soulless world of organization development and design (knowledge, schemas, role/functional objects) and the living world of performer role people with their personal (not professionally-role) preferences.

Informally speaking, a leader persuades (in the field of personality engineering, this would be "educates") a performer to play a certain role in the project, to take a role/professional position. At the same time, a leader does not determine which one! It is learned from the org-project! And if there is no org-project, or it exists, but is not documented, then expect problems.

For example, in a play (which is conducted based on a script, it will be an org-project), there is a lack of Ophelia (role!), and the only actor left in the troupe is Pyotr Nikolaevich. And Pyotr Nikolaevich is not thrilled about playing Ophelia at all. A leader can conduct a series of conversations with Pyotr Nikolaevich: tell him that acting mastery is the art of transformation, that acquiring new skills (continuous education, continuous development) is required, about the complexity of transforming a man into a woman and therefore this will be a real test of acting skill, about the ancient traditions of Kabuki theater^[1], where hereditary male actors play roles simultaneously as men and women. And one evening Pyotr Nikolaevich comes out of the house in a skirt to try it, admitted that acting is incredibly difficult, and it is a "true test of his skill," as the leader said, and after a month he is already successfully playing Ophelia. The troupe is happy, Pyotr Nikolaevich is happy, and the audience is satisfied. This is leadership: on the one hand, catalyzing cooperation and conceptualizing people's lives ("official" modern understanding of leadership), and on the other hand---persuading people to play the roles needed for the organization (determined by the org-project) and maintain those roles amid the hustle and bustle of corporate life (informal modern understanding of leadership).

Leadership::method is a bridge that brings together the soulless world of organization development and design (knowledge, schemas, role/functional objects) and the living world of performer role people with their personal (not professionally-role) preferences.

In simple terms, a leader persuades (in the field of personality engineering, this would be "educates") an actor to play a role in the project, occupy a role/professional position. At the same time, the leader does not determine which one! This is learned from the org-project! And if there is no org-project, or it exists but is not documented, then expect problems.

In a performance (which is based on a script, it will be an org-project), there is a need for Ophelia (role!), and the only available actor in the troupe is Pyotr Nikolaevich. And Pyotr Nikolaevich is not pleased with playing Ophelia at all. A leader can conduct a series of conversations with Pyotr Nikolaevich: tell him about the fact that acting mastery is an art of transformation, that it is necessary to acquire new skills (continuous education, continuous development), about the complexity of transforming a man into a woman, and this will be a true test of his acting skill, about ancient traditions of Kabuki theater^[2], where hereditary male actors play roles both as men and women simultaneously. And one evening Pyotr Nikolaevich goes out in a skirt from home to give it a try, admits that acting is incredibly difficult, and it is a "real test of his skill," as the leader said, and after a month, he is already playing Ophelia very successfully. The troupe is happy, Pyotr Nikolaevich is happy, and the audience is satisfied. This is leadership: on the one hand, catalyzing cooperation and conceptualizing people's lives ("official" modern understanding of leadership), on the other hand---persuading people to play the roles needed for the organization (defined by the org-project) and maintain those roles amid the hustle and bustle of corporate life (informal modern understanding of leadership).

Usually, the entire team is engaged in leadership as a method of "persuading agents to perform the role properly," and every performer of a role in the project is directed to stably occupy his/her position by literally all members of the friendly team, so everyone in the team plays their professional/project role, as well as the role of the leader. Leadership is distributed in good project teams, and explicit leaders are usually not present---everyone engages a little in leadership towards each other, and (more importantly!) conscious leadership towards themselves, demonstrating role-playing skills. If leadership in a gaming/theatrical metaphor is a method used by the master player/director, then role-playing skills are what they teach the players/actors. And, of course, all players/actors are taught to be a bit like game masters/directors (and in life---like managers).

Leadership is covered in the course "Personality Engineering," and in even more detail in the course "Systems Management."