Yet it is likely that a shift from rescuer to coach would enable health care leaders and managers to more effectively navigate the rising tide of VUCA-Plus realities. Coaching toward empowerment enables a health care leader to lead a more fulfilling life at work and to achieve better outcomes for all of us. There is a further upside to which we are about to turn. A coach-like role enables healthcare leaders to embrace and engage a dynamic organizational phenomenon that we call “emergence.”
Fostering Emergence
Emergence is a term that is used in many ways. It was originally employed by those engaged in process-oriented philosophy. It referred to the emergence of a new form that could not have been anticipated from the elements that went into the creation of this new form. The classic example of emergence is the creation of water from two gases (oxygen and hydrogen). No one could have anticipated the presence of something so very different from a gas than an entity called water.
New Forms: In human systems, we find that new forms emerge from most revolutions—be they scientific or political. At a less dramatic level we find emergence when a cluster of puzzles (complicated state) suddenly become tightly interwoven and interdependent (complex state). Together these puzzles become an elusive and multi-tiered problem or even a “mess” made up of several intractable problems. We even see the emergence of several problems that require completing solutions. They become dilemmas and often form a condition of polarization. (Fish and Bergquist, 2022).
The “complexity and adaptive leadership lens” offered by Lichtenstein, Uhl-Ben, and Marion (2006) may provide insights regarding leadership within the context of emergence. Insight might also be found regarding surprises inherent in the dynamics of complex adaptive systems—as are often found in healthcare. Lichtenstein, Uhl-Ben and Marion reframe the traditional model of leadership. They shift their focus from an individualistic, charismatic, leader who acts “on” an organization toward relational leadership that is distributed throughout the organization. This distributed leadership stimulates purposeful tension to create adaptive outcomes and changes in the organization.
The shift of focus from individual leaders (traditional) toward distributed leadership relationships provides us with a new lens. It is a lens that yields important insights regarding important interactions in an organization. These are interactions that generate novel, emergent and innovative ideas and behaviors that might not otherwise surface. The authors point out that leadership itself is an emergent event.
Outcomes emerge from the relational interactions among agents in the organization. They don’t emerge just from a single person at the top of an organizational hierarchy. The capacity of leadership in an organization to create just the right relational tension and harness a series of positive emergent changes is critical. The successful engagement of this relational lens of leadership will eventually lead to a new and more adaptive organization. The organization will be able to navigate whatever VUCA-Plus external and internal realities emerge.
