Day #106

Self to System

Social Leadership happens at the intersection of formal and social systems, which is to say, everywhere.

Formal structures tend to be visible: codified structure of power and control that we rely on for consistency, conformity, replicability and scale.

If you want a consistent educational experience for children, build a school system, and regulate it. If you wish to ensure that codeine tablets are universally effective, standardise the purity in the manufacturing of constituent chemicals then regulate production and sale, if you want to keep savings secure, build a bank and control access to the vault.

Social structures may map neatly alongside formal ones: the bank has a team that runs it who may form a tribe or social group, indeed, may form many (one for Tellers, one for Managers), such as sub sets of Saturday workers.

Or social structures may bear no relation at all to the formal ones that they inhabit: they may be communities of interest or dissent, of leisure or learning.

We are connected into various of these spaces: formally through contracts, birth, geography, or culture, and socially through circumstance, need, friendship, or trust, as well as a host of other factors and forces.

Use your sixty seconds today to ask yourself where you lead: in a formal role, a social one, or at the intersection.

If you are interested to learn more about these varied Communities, you can download my Community Builder Guidebook for free, here. Research based, it provides an overview of what our most effective Communities are, and how we build and support them.