Abstract

Management of today organizations is required to forecast, understand and deal subjects that are to large or complex to be framed in classical leadership models which are following traditionally a linear thinking, finding itself in a frustration position when compared with requirements of general accepted leadership act and being unable to find straight answers. This paper is offering a literature review and a concrete case study of how to deal complexity through a complex adaptive leadership act in accordance with Obolensky model (2010), this solution being adopted based on a analyze of current leadership context and other current available leadership model alternatives. It is shown how the complex adaptive leadership theory can provide in practice strategies to deal complex supply chain operations subjects ok: training and culture development, functional processes installment, new facility and equipment installment and operation, all linked with opening a new manufacturing plant using current structure of existing plant in context of growth and constrained by budget and performance limits.

Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................................................1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................................................................3 THEORETICAL PART ...........................................................................................................................................................4 CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION ..............................................................................................................................................7 1. BRIEF PRESENTATION OF THE PROFILE OF THE COMPANY/ORGANIZATION .............................................................................................7 2. DETAILED EXAMINATION OF THE COMPLEXITY ISSUE UNDER INVESTIGATION........................................................................................7 3. ANALYSIS OF THE ISSUE(S) ACCORDING TO THE SPECIFIC COMPLEX ADAPTIVE LEADERSHIP THEORY .......................................................8 Strategy for Domain of Training and Organization Culture (High People / High Goal): ................................................9 Strategy for Domain of Functional Processes Installment (High People / Low Goal): ....................................................9 Strategy for Domain of Facility and Equipment Installment and Operating (Low People / High Goal): .......................10 Complexity ranking .......................................................................................................................................................10 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................................................12 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................................................................14

Introduction
Current report consists in analyzing aspects of complex adaptive leadership theory which occurs in installing and running a supply chain organization of a multinational company acting in automotive domain and located in Romania. The company is a labor intensive organization and has more than 1200 employees with a direct to indirect ratio of 23% and a yearly sales turnover exceeding slightly 40 million euro. The plant has an organization that is specific to automotive suppliers: manufacturing plant located close to car manufacturer and with production that is dedicated to a specific carline platform, managed through a business units headquarter linked to customer management located in France, and a corporate headquarters that is located in Germany. Fortunately the actual location workload is growing benefiting from a standardization project of the actual customer, additional efforts being required in supply chain in order to cope with it. In parallel a new customer and its specific products portfolio have to be installed in fastest way possible to overcome the bad effects of geopolitical movements in North Africa. The company management is planning to benefit economies of scale and use the actual overheads structure to implement and run the future new business. Due to short lead time for launching the new business, there is no time to locate the actual and new business under same roof, so a decision is made to rent a building that is 10 km distance from actual location. Supply chain is part of this new organization and required to sustain this ambitious project, and to adapt its functionality in order to best perform, the stake for the management being to motivate staff to embark in this journey.

Theoretical part
Screening the opinions about nowadays situation we see that discontinuity and change are a theme, and in the same time a truism, that occurs to different environments: countries economies, organizations management and management discipline. When we look at macro situation, irreversible changes have already taken place in world economy according to Drucker (1986) and an uncoupling in-between what used to be linked has happened. When we look to organizational context, as discontinuity is one of the single constant, many of today leaders are unable to lead their organizations to cope with new of everything and disappointing according to Nonaka and Takeuchi (2011). When we look at management discipline, as sustained by Obolensky (2010), a huge discontinuity occurred due to low peace of leadership development in comparison with other domains like military, communication, transportation technology or human knowledge. Due to mentioned context, the debate on good answers for question of whom, what and how to lead today organizations it is a very vivid one. It is emerging in both academic and business current literature (Thow Yick, 2007; Seiler and Pfister, 2009; Obolensky, 2010) a new way of thinking that is attempting to integrate the too complex and ever-changing nowadays business environment with the peoples and their required endowment to lead. The objective is to find suitable alternatives to lead the today too hectic organizations and problematic that is far too large to be covered or control, when using the classical view and tools of leadership, this being a consequence of the already occurred discontinuity. The effort to bridge and integrate scientific theories of complexity management with leadership frameworks is conducting to development of a distinctive thinking (Lichtenstein, at all., 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2007, Obolensky, 2010, Thow Yick, 2009). We can see that perception change about leadership is actively conducted aiming to overcome several paradigms: to minimize the discontinuity of leadership development in contrast with development of other domains, using a none-linear view of the business system and creating a merge of terms for manager and leader with a new role. Dominant management thinking creates a belief in control (Stacey, 1996, p1) that is wrong due to fact that it is used a linear model of organization to a system that is none-linear in realty, and this means that any build strategy is meant to failure whenever none-linearity is relevant. There is a need to approach the leadership from a more rich perspective, viewing it as a complex interactive dynamic through

which adaptive outcomes emerge (Uhl-Bien, 2007, p. 314) and to relate it with complexity science. Organizations have to evolve or die, and the right path is to become a bubble-type organization or else saying a complex adaptive system which requires a complex adaptive leadership (Obolensky, 2010). Leaders or managers, the dichotomy about organizations heads personality presented by Zaleznic (1978) appears to be diluted. Druker says about today organization leaders An effective executive does not need to be a leader in the sense that the term is now most commonly used (Druker, 2004, p. 58) underlying that charisma and other attributes know as leaders distinctive characteristics are not enough or valid to support the today leaders. On the same way, study of Collins (2001) proofs as fake different myths/fads promoted by leaders and which, once done, will take the company from good to great. It reveals that the essence of success of constantly performing companies stands in its leaders willingness to run with a steady and pragmatic commitment to excellence attitude, launched with hard working and maintained over time despite of quick fix solutions. There is a work done to frame models of situational leadership that will suit defined specific situations as there is difficult to find what type of leadership to use transversal for all cases and best respond different particularities, making in this way irrelevant the dilemma of leader or manager. Framed in six leadership styles (Goleman, 2000), or in four leader behavior styles (Hersey and Blanchard, 1981) the models are focusing of how leaders prefer to exercise their role, being admitted that managers are not aware of all styles or find it difficult to practice as they will not be in a natural behavior, being admitted that only the best leaders are practicing a wide panel of leadership skills or more productive styles (Zenger, at. all., 2011; Schreiber, and Carley, 2006). On the other side, the individuals in hierarchy are not left alone and solutions are identified for themselves to thrive in their relations with bosses by understanding and mange it or by understanding the how to manage time and tasks (Gabarro and Kotter, 2005; Onken, at. all., 1999; Stayer, 1990), even being stressed that inability to deal such aspects leads to unnecessary leadership stress (Obolensky, 2010). An alternative model to be used in dealing with complexity, is the one developed by Snowden and Boone (2007) which offers Cynefin framework to managers to understand the operating context in four arrays (simple, complicated, complex, chaotic) and offers them a matrix of responses and actions based on the array and danger level.

A step forward, the complex adaptive leadership model is focused on strategy and eventually set the steps of action to be followed in different situations independently of the leaders style preference or its personality (Obolensky, 2010). As defined by Obolensky (2010, p. 179) the aim of complex adaptive leadership is to enable the devolve style when there are possible to be followed four strategies (sell, tell, involve and devolve) to match them with people skills and will, using different attractors and being created like this a dynamic that is the core of the system. On the other side, there is a stream of thinking asking to manage complexity by using diagnose and simplification, standardization or automation afterwards, being in this way obtained better organizational results (Gottfredson, at. all., 2008; Babe, 2011).

Case Study Description

Following section is analyzing a practical case using the tools and methods of complex adaptive leadership theory.

1. Brief presentation of the profile of the company/organization

The local organizational structure of the company consists of a general director which is coordinating hierarchically nine departments covering the administrative and operations business processes, among which is also the supply chain. As this company is a part of a multinational, besides the hierarchic coordination each department manager has one or more functional directors which are located in headquarters in Germany and France. Supply chain department contains five organizational levels: department manager, senior coordinator, and supervisor, team leader, operator / clerk / analyst, whereas the structure covers 20 different job positions linked to 15 different supply chain process domains and a headcount of 75 staff, to operate in 2 physical locations, with almost half of structure newly employed.

2. Detailed examination of the complexity issue under investigation

As it can be concluded from above section, complexity in managing this supply chain organization derives from a low concentration of teams with same activities and domains, therefore segregation of activities and diversity of topics is quite big, and amplified also by the physical separation of the locations. Also, complexity is derived from multi face problems needed to be solved in quick and effective way with implications spreading from international trade, commercial and financial to project management, business planning, transportation and warehouse management, training and working methods development and deployment of organizational culture. In addition, as supply chain drives company planning on mid and short term aligning demand and resources, the consequence is that supply chain organization is interacting to almost all other company organizational departments and levels, being the initiator and the beneficiary of different change requirements.

The management of supply chain has to find the good strategy to enable a smooth development of actual location and in parallel for the new location to be able to: i) deploy corporate culture and train the new structure; ii) install functional processes; iii) install and operate facility and equipment; iv) current structure must be embarked in sustaining this initiative and cost performing in budget boundaries

3. Analysis of the issue(s) according to the specific complex adaptive leadership theory
Considering the mentioned context and using tools and methodology of complex adaptive leadership theory, it will be set onwards a frame of action. First step to run is to set the phase space roadmap (Obolensky, 2010, p. 160) in terms of peoples or goal focus for each of the job position of the supply chain structure, aiming in this way to understand what is the good strategy the leader can employ. When is about people focus it means to diagnose if there is a opportunity or need for individuals abilities to be developed or for the personal relations to be developed. When is about goal focus, diagnose have to state if there is an opportunity or a need to use different peoples to meet the goal. The below table 1 shows the map of the current state of the actual organization in relation with people skill and will and also the appraisal if there is a focus on people or on goal. I have to mention that the conclusions of both tables 1 and 2 are containing aggregated figures outlined following individual and team discussions kept in relation to launch of new location. Table 1 Map actual structure: focus and people skill / will for development of new location Domain Job position People skill/will [high/low] Skill L= 5 Department coordinator H= 1 Low Will L= 3 H= 3 High Skill L= 1 H= 5 High Will L= 5 H= 1 Low Training and Organizational Culture Functional Processes Installment Facilities and Equipment Installment and Operating Skill Will L= 2 H= 4 High L= 4 H= 2 Low

Supervisor Team Leader Analyst Clerk Operators Focus People [high/low] Focus Goal [high/low]

High Low Low Low Low High High

Low High High Low Low

High High High Low High

High Low Low Low Low High Low

High High Low Low High Low High

High Low Low Low High

When interpreting the results of the assessment from perspective of skill/will we can see that, there is a disproportionate in-between the ration of skill / will: domain of functional process installment benefits the higher skills rank (H=5), being closed followed by facility and equipment installment and operating (H=4), with a high gap (H=1) for the organizational culture and training; will is benefiting a much lower aggregate ranking, domain of training and organizational culture installment benefits higher will rank (H=3), other two being ranked in descending order Strategies to be employed by leader for each domain, considering the above evaluation presented in table 1 and the complex adaptive leadership theory would be as described below.

Strategy for Domain of Training and Organization Culture (High People / High Goal):
According to Obolensky (2010, p. 160) the leader has to know the solution but on the other side the people have to own the solution too. So the exercise is for the leader to sell solution using different techniques which will convince the people to assimilate it, acting as a directive attractor. The leader can use the SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need, Payoff) model to get a fast result (Adams, 2011), or the GROW model (Wilson, 2010). When sales is done, then leader have to tell the how because when we look to the table 1 the followers have a low skill level. As motivation level is the highest, the good track is for the leader to devolve right after the sell and tell and avoid unnecessary leadership stress which might occur from fear of letting go and working too hard (Obolensk, 2010, p. 143).

Strategy for Domain of Functional Processes Installment (High People / Low Goal):
According to Obolensky (2010, p. 161) in this situation the leader do not have the solution or holds it back and allow people to discover it, acting as a development attractor being more preoccupied to

increase motivation and involve and when this achieved then devolve. For lasting and effective results the leader has to understand and underlay among the organization the principles of collaborative teams as exposed by Adler at. all. (2011).

Strategy for Domain of Facility and Equipment Installment and Operating (Low People / High Goal):
According to Obolensky (2010, p. 175) in this situation the leader have to act as a reminder attractor, meaning to tell and then devolve. In this context the people want to do, and know to do, however some time it forgets and it needs to be reminded. With the leader intervention of reminding takes place, the activity follows the planed track, and the leadership act resumes. Management tools like OEE or TPM are appropriate ones to be deployed to sustain this domain for lasting results, as sustained by Pophaley (2010).

Complexity ranking
As will of the staff is a very significant dimension of the analyze, it is important to assess what is the state of actual structure in terms of clarity of the roles and responsibility and level of complexity, in order to understand if such factors have a motivation relevancy (Whitsett, 1975). Table 2: Map actual structure roles and responsibilities in future organization including assessment of complexity rank vs. today Job position Absorb extra workload in actual location Department Coordinator Supervisor Team Leader Analyst Clerk Operators Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Contribute to new location development Yes Train new comers Train new comers Train new comers Train new comers Train new comers Future allocation Complexity rank Central Dedicated [2 significant, 1 structure structure average, 0.5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes low] +2 +1 +0.5 (temporary) +2 +0.5 (temporary) +0.5 (temporary)

Above table 2 reflects a higher expected rank of complexity to positions of department coordinators and analysts. This is due to fact that these positions are expected to operate shared for both locations in this way having amplified the work complexity due to physical separation even if the work content is reduced. According to study of Perona and Miragliotta (2004), the complexity in supply chain has a

direct link in organization performance and therefore there is a need reduce complexity by addressing two leviers: the basic complexity reduction and management leviers to reduce complexity. A working tool to adopt can be the analyze roles and responsibilities and spans of control as recommended by Garvin and Levesque (2008). The high complexity rank of coordinator level employs a high impact over all supply chain organization and act as strange attractor (Obelensky, 2010, p. 177), requiring from the leader to exercise a dynamic of strategies in relation with this position which consist of complex adaptive leadership.

Conclusion
The theoretical part introduced the actual issues linked with complexity management. As a fact of nowadays life, multifaceted discontinuity is in spreading from economy, to management thinking versus other domains and finally to organizations management calling for an actual approach to overcome its bad effects. A response is emerging and we can see patterns of complexity approach which attempt to break old leadership paradigms making irrelevant the debate about what is distinctive for a leader and a manager, as well as abandoning assumption of a linear of business environment and embracing a more dynamic and realistic one. Classical situational leadership and debate about what is the appropriate leadership style is discusses together with the implications and options of the leaders and their followers. Finally the complex adaptive leadership model and alternative ones developed for leaders to help them deal with complexity are briefly introduced. The case study is analyses the strategies to be deployed by a leader confronted with a new location development and with specific constraints, using the complex adaptive leadership model. New location development is approached through installments of three domains and was identified specific strategies which the leader can deploy to achieve its objectives: training and organizational culture: a directive attractor strategy along with SPIN and GROW tools functional processes: a development attractor strategy and collaborative teams tool facility and equipment operating: a reminder attractor strategy along with OEE and TPM tools complexity ranking impact over actual and future structure: a strange attractor strategy along with tools to reduce complexity and analyze span of control Finally, a pragmatic response is provided to a real operations challenge and the leader is equipped with strategies which will allow him to approach all the domains, independently of his own preference or

competence of leading, and leverage the strategies to the actual need of the followers. In addition a toolbox has been designed to support sustainable results and practicing complex adaptive leadership.

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