Leadership in self-organized systems: squaring the circle or a new kind of responsibility?

Abstract

Current changes in society, in particular globalization, demographic trends, and changes in the labourmarket, have far-reaching implications for how we live and work together. Common social problems, for instance, arebecoming more complex and new problematic situations continually arise. With cuts in the social sector and increasingdemands for efficiency and effectiveness, overall conditions are becoming worse. Faced with these developments, socialsecurity systems are increasingly pushed to the limit and are forced to redefine their areas of responsibility. In addition,we must take account the issue of crowding-out processes in the social sphere. Large, mostly internationally operatingenterprises for example are increasingly receiving performance contracts from governments in the areas of elderly careor immigrant services. It is also apparent that social service organizations are overloaded and that their establishedstructures and historically evolved market positions are eroding. In the current discussion, we have to find answers toat least two questions within the context of developing organizations:1. How should we build organizations so that they are able to withstand or handle these challenges?2. How can we define the role of leadership in these organizations?First, we will discuss the concept of responsibility. We will then describe the different challenges that organizationsface, particularly in the social sector. Based on Frederic Laloux’s (2014) model of “Evolutionary Organizations,” wewill present a critical discussion of the possibilities for responsible leadership that are available to organizations in thesocial sector.