Conclusions: Adaptive Leadership and Power for Secure Cyberspace Operations

by Carl W. Hunt, Walter E. Natemeyer and Chuck E. Hunt

Throughout this series on Adaptive Leadership and Power for Secure Cyberspace Operations (ALP-SCO), we’ve stressed how hard leadership is. It’s time for us to admit that operating in cyberspace does nothing to make the fundamentals of leadership and management easier. In fact, successfully operating in cyberspace is one of the greatest challenges leaders (and followers) have ever faced in the history of organizations.

Leaders make the difference in any operating environment, however, and they will in cyberspace also. This concluding post on ALP-SCO both wraps up the series and offers some views on how leaders in all sectors might enhance their thinking about SCO. [1]

Last time, we began to contrast leadership in the “old days” of the information technology world with the need to accommodate system-wide complexity in approaches to leadership for today’s universe of cyberspace operations. Since we’ve emphasized the role of leadership in SCO throughout, it’s worth noting the prominence that cybersecurity author Marc Goodman places on the systemic nature of cyberspace:

In a world in which all of our critical systems and infrastructures are run by computers, it would be easy to dismiss our profound technological insecurity as just a computing problem. But we don’t just have an IT problem. Because technology is woven through the entire fabric of our modern lives, we also have a social problem, a personal problem, a financial problem, a health-care problem, a manufacturing problem, a public safety problem, a government problem, a governance problem, a transportation problem, an energy problem, a privacy problem, and a human rights problem…[2]

Technology and leadership, even though they may at times seem unrelated, must blend effectively in cyberspace to put our nation at the forefront of a future built on the dynamisms of what Kevin Kelly calls the currents and flows of innovation. [3] Here, we don’t mean technology leadership…we mean leadership in a highly technological environment that is increasingly difficult to visualize. Every item in Goodman’s list above has a common basic requirement to succeed and bring about some level of organizational visibility and transparency, however: adaptive leadership.

Getting back to Narrative 2 from last time, “SCO in Complex and Chaotic Environments,” let’s refocus on the elements of good leadership in the age of a complex environment like cyberspace. The two critical components we narrowed in on to succeed as adaptive leaders today are the ability to orient to the realities of the environment and match leadership and power styles to both the environment and to the readiness of the followers. It is the mismatch of leadership and power to the readiness levels of followers and to the environment that leaders must seek to avoid.

Since we’ve talked extensively about OODA and orientation to the operating domains and environment of cyberspace, we refer you to the detailed discussions (here and here). Also, the last post discussed the process of orienting to complex and chaotic environments, so we won’t repeat that in this post, either.

Instead, we’ll reemphasize the application of OODA and Orientation in order to avoid mismatch and operate more securely in cyberspace. And, since ALP can help even in the increasingly rare non-cyberspace environment, it’s like getting a twofer: adaptive leadership and power works in any management setting.

A significant element of adaptive leadership is anticipation of the future requirements and risks. We could easily argue that OODA was in fact designed to make anticipation in complex environments possible. [4] OODA, particularly Orientation, is indeed at the heart of ALP-SCO. Anticipation is equally at the heart of adaptive leadership, as described next.

Coauthor Carl Hunt offers an example of the effective operational level use of OODA and adaptation he experienced as a newly minted Information Technology officer in the Army during Desert Shield-Desert Storm in 1991. Many have likened the leadership challenges we face in conducting secure cyberspace operations to be like war, and we agree. From Carl:

“I had just been assigned to the US Army Intelligence Threat Analysis Center (ITAC) at the Washington Navy Yard, in DC as large numbers of US forces were being deployed to the Persian Gulf in early 1991. When I arrived, I found ITAC and our national intelligence agency partners at the forefront of applying early cyberspace technologies to warfighting challenges in an effort to make national-level intelligence products available to our forces deployed there, in what we hoped would eventually be real-time intelligence support.

“War has always presented a complex operating environment, and until this point, the delivery of these kinds of intelligence products were subject to the vagaries and untimely flows of war…intelligence support didn’t always arrive in a timely manner, or didn’t fulfill the field commander’s needs.

“The intelligence products provided from the national level normally had to be either delivered by courier or produced in-theater, typically using less than the state-of-the-art capabilities than existed in facilities in the United States or permanent regional centers. Such localized intelligence products reflected only small parts of the overall context or were of inferior resolution so that they were often ineffective at telling the story the warfighter needed in remote areas. Sometimes the products simply didn’t help commanders in a rapidly changing battlefield environment.

“National intelligence organizations of the early 90s were very keen on sharing relevant information with the warfighter in as timely a manner as possible. This was also the timeframe when we all realized the critical nature of collaboration and sharing information; we actually had the beginnings of an IT infrastructure that could make this sharing a reality, but we had to orient to the new environment; interestingly, there was a lot of talk about John Boyd and his OODA Loop in those days! Fortunately, we also had the roots of what I would call an adaptive and anticipatory leadership approach to serve remotely stationed US forces.

“Unfortunately, on the other hand, it was only the beginnings of the needed IT infrastructure, and it was hard to find “experts” who were familiar enough with the new world of “cyberspace” to adapt old processes and policies (or create new ones) in ways that would accommodate the demands for secure delivery of “real-time” intelligence. However, this was the American military, an organization that appreciated why and how to change to the demands of war, and we relatively quickly coevolved processes and technologies to adjust to these new demands. We helped warfighters win in the Gulf, with what became direct support from DC.

“Adaptive leadership demands that we find innovative ways to coevolve processes such as leadership styles, with technology in order to stay inside an adversary’s own OODA Loop. We began to provide intelligence products in real-time or even anticipated the needs of combat commanders and staged them so they could pull them as needed. In other words, anticipatory/adaptive leadership allowed the US to stay well within the adversary’s OODA Loop and decide and act during this first Gulf War far more quickly than they could before. This contributed significantly to a quick and decisive combat outcome, as well as a low-casualty conflict.”[5]

Such adaptive/anticipatory leadership approaches are precisely what we need to cope with the demands of the complex nature of operating securely in cyberspace today.

If there are any historical lessons that leaders can immediately follow to start implementing ALP-SCO today, they will likely be found in the successful prosecution of modern conflicts like Desert Storm and the follow-on military operations in the Gulf. The essential principles of ALP-SCO worked in the context of war because leaders understood the gravity of the situation and environment and realized the old ways of “attrition warfare” would result in many more casualties.

What Can You Do, Leader in Cyberspace?

Today, we are fighting the battle for cyberspace like attrition warfare, except our friendly forces of businesses, governments and academic institutions are the only ones really suffering attrition. Individual organizations cannot fight this battle alone, and we will all need to collaborate with each other and leverage the forces that governments at every level must refine and deploy in law enforcement and other forms of interagency and cross-organizational operations.

Leaders at all levels can transform the ways in which we interact with adversaries. Leaders can change the nature of the conflict through just a few basic principles derived from the topics we’ve presented in this series. It may not be all that easy to change, but nobody said leadership was easy!

For reference, here is an updated version of the initial model we showed in the first post in this series depicting the major working parts of ALP-SCO:

Here’s what we can all start doing now as leaders in the pursuit of secure cyberspace operations, using ALP-SCO as a model:

1. Understand and orient to the environment of cyberspace. OODA is all about orientation in the support of decision and action.
2. Apply the orientation and understanding of the environment through adaptive employment of leadership styles…avoid mismatching the leadership style to what followers’ readiness and the environment demand.
3. Back up the use of the right match of leadership style with the right power base that complements the follower’s needs and situation. Match style and power base to the environment.
4. Anticipate the adversary and align prepared responses based on good cyber intelligence. Collaborate and cooperate both within and across partner organizations. [6]
5. After a leader has succeeded in the first four principles, then look to technology as an augmentation and set of tools for enhancing secure operations. Leadership trumps technology, but in this day and age benefits greatly from effective implementations of technology.
6. Care about what you do as a leader, take care of your followers and organization, and help make cyberspace secure for all of us.

Yes, leadership is hard, particularly in cyberspace. But, this is the United States of America. We can “fight and win” as the military mantra goes. We can be good leaders and ultimately secure cyberspace for all operations, including commercial, academic and government. ALP-SCO can make that difference.

Be an adaptive leader, especially in cyberspace.

Originally posted on 9/26/2016.

[1] Readers may note that we have chosen not to label SCO as cybersecurity throughout this series. Cybersecurity has been associated with the IT gurus for too long and removed from the visibility of the CEO, COO and CFO and rest of the C-Suite team. The identification of cybersecurity as one function of SCO is more accurate and better weights the responsibilities that every leader in the organization has for protecting critical assets.

[2] Goodman, M., Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2015. Kindle Edition, (Kindle Locations 8468-8473).

[3] Kelly, K. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future (Kindle Edition). Penguin Publishing Group, 2016.

[4] This makes adaptation and anticipation key features of another property of effective leadership we’ve talked about throughout the series: risk management.

[5] While there are no details here about what we did specifically or how we accomplished it during this conflict, the experimental processes and leadership approaches we implemented paid off very well, and set the stage for how networked collaborative intelligence is done today. Much can be said about the remarkable contributions of those at the strategic, operational and tactical levels of intelligence and what they accomplished in the early 90s and since.

[6] See: How To Stay One Step Ahead Of Cybersecurity Threats, Sep 22, 2016, for a 7-point list of things to do to practice Anticipatory and Adaptive Leadership. The list is composed of items that are leader responsibilities such as follower and peer training, senior-level engagement, collaboration with other organizations and investments into AI and future holistic technologies that go beyond Defense alone.

Contrasting the “Before and After” of Leading in the Information Age

by Carl W. Hunt, Walter E. Natemeyer and Chuck E. Hunt

Leadership in cyberspace is hard work and leaders need every edge they can get to succeed in the Information Age. In the past five posts, we’ve presented the major components of a system for adaptive leadership and power that can synergize to produce a better likelihood of organizational success in cyberspace. Interacting and working together, these leadership components produce a greater effect for secure cyberspace operations (SCO) than any technology available to us today, as well as minimizing the threats that cyberspace offers.

Moreover, combined effectively with technology, adaptive leadership and power (ALP) offers organizations even better opportunities for success. ALP, application of good cyber intelligence and risk management, paired with increasingly good technology, will act in concert to make secure cyberspace operations feasible and profitable. [1]

As Raymond Kelley, New York City Police Department’s longest serving Commissioner recently pointed out “…cyber is interwoven into everything that we do, so if you’re hit by a terrorist attack or natural disaster, cyber is going to play a role in some way, shape or form…(and) if it doesn’t come from the top, chances are (cybersecurity is) not going to be adopted or certainly not going to be interwoven.” [2] Only leaders and adaptive leadership can make ALP-SCO happen as an integral part of secure organizational operations.

Before we wrap up this series on ALP-SCO with a review and conclusions, we want to offer a couple of contrasting example vignettes, or narratives to show the differences in operations before the pervasiveness of cyberspace and what we face as leaders in 2016 and beyond. Even today, too many leaders still apply (or misapply) industrial age leadership to information age challenges and opportunities.

Mismatch of style and process is an area of emphasis for ALP-SCO. We want to demonstrate how the major components of the ALP-SCO model converge to help avoid or at least mitigate mismatch. We want to narratively demonstrate what we hypothesize will be measurable improvements brought on by more effective and secure operations in cyberspace.

In the first narrative, we’ll describe “the good old days” of operating in the world before we started connecting everyone to each other and everything else that could be connected. This is the world of Simple and Complicated environments that we described previously, and to which earlier forms of leadership and management principles applied adequately.

The second narrative will be split across this post and the final, concluding post to cement what we mean by operating in Complex and Chaotic environments like those presented in today’s manifestations of cyberspace. We intend to show how leaders may still rely on good old fashioned leadership approaches to adjust to new challenges and situations that cyberspace introduces, but update their styles and processes through more adaptive forms of leadership and power. In other words, we want to help leaders avoid mismatching their leadership approaches to the challenges their followers and organizations face in cyberspace.

Narrative 1: SCO in Simple and Complicated Environments

Remember the days when “all employees really needed” was to make sure their firewall and antivirus software were up to date and they changed their passwords every few months or so (if indeed they used passwords)? That was a time of simple network environments. Cyberspace was a reality but few were aware of it as an operating environment.

The pioneering “IT staff” had the lion’s share of the responsibility for reliable and safe network access and they only reported to the C-Suite when they had a problem or were asked for budget input. [3] The operational bosses concentrated on the bottom line and taking care of customers (or the government and academic equivalents). There was nothing more important than staying competitive, establishing new markets and making more money.

Yes, those were the days, weren’t they? We upgraded our PCs and network components based on an IT budget and life cycle that was simply one, sometimes minor, line item in the organizational budget. Depending on the size of the organization’s network, it could also be a complicated environment because it was tougher on the IT department to make sure all those software updates and faster printers were implemented in a timely manner. Information flows were relatively transparent.

During those “halcyon days” of early intranetworks and simple office automation, leaders focused on the productivity gains that fax machines, teleconferences and face-to-face meetings offered; email was only a toy to share jokes around the office. Disruptions to business processes based on network outages were few or had minor effects, and the work-arounds were well tested because they were the standard prior to the rise of the early PCs and networks.

Leaders oriented to the early cyberspace environments in much the same way they did before IT became the common and pervasive operating environment of organizations. Connections were clear to see, typically manifested in org charts and telephone directories.

As we wrote in “A Walk-Through for Applying Leadership Orientation Domains,” effective leaders could visualize these connections using tools that were available to them for decades before. Causes and effects were fairly observable and the “remedies” for low follower readiness and motivation were tested by time. Risk Management techniques were similar to what they had been for many years, consisting of standardized training and operating procedures, rarely changing organizational missions, and laws and regulations that reflected still-current industrial age conditions.

Dare we say Risk Management was easy or at least straightforward before the rise of the Information Age and the massive connectivity of cyberspace?

In the early days of office automation and the beginnings of the Internet (the interconnecting roots of cyberspace), leaders were already beginning to question the wisdom of standardized industrial processes, however. Frederick Taylor (Scientific Management), Fritz Roethlisberger (Hawthorne Experiments) and the direct application of military leadership principles to civilian organizations probably sounded great when they were initially introduced to leaders and managers (perhaps based on Machiavelli or Clausewitz). [4]

But, as followers understood through a newly connective mass media what was happening outside their own organizations and behaved in a less “scientific” manner (e.g., predictable), things were changing. Leaders and managers also began to question the scalability of the original “scientific leadership” principles in an increasingly connected and complex world. Looking to the past for leadership inspiration wasn’t working as well as before the rise of cyberspace…a different world was descending upon all of us.

Leaders intuitively knew there were more and more mismatches of style and process. Enlightened leaders found they needed to reorient themselves to the realities of a changing, more connected operating environment.

Fortunately, this was about the time John Boyd introduced new thinking in his OODA Loop model, and leaders could begin to look at innovative ways to consider the rise of cyberspace as an organizational operating environment and orient to the challenges it presented. As we’ve seen, Boyd’s work was starting to influence leadership thinking in the connected age, but leaders needed still more. Hence, our introduction of Adaptive Leadership and Power for Secure Cyberspace Operations.

Figure 1 reviews the basic elements of Leadership Orientation Domains, Adaptive Leadership and Power characteristics and OODA from earlier discussions.

Figure 1: Basic Elements of ALP

 

Narrative 2: SCO in Complex and Chaotic Environments

Situational Leadership, using OODA to orient to operating domains and even understanding and leveraging power and influence in cyberspace are useful concepts to be sure. But if used independently of each other mismatches and reduced leadership effects are still a danger. Failure to allow these components to synergize ensures that leaders will find it harder to orient to the challenges of the very complex and even chaotic world cyberspace imposes on the organization that must work within it.

When it comes to leaders and followers orienting to cyberspace as the predominant operating environment for business, government and academia, it’s worth heeding the words of Kevin Kelly, subject of one of our blog posts last year: “No matter how long you have been using a tool, endless upgrades make you into a newbie—the new user often seen as clueless. In this era of ‘becoming,’ everyone becomes a newbie. Worse, we will be newbies forever. That should keep us humble.” [5]

We’ll not only be newbies, we’ll lead like newbies to followers that look to us for inspiration and motivation. That’s a failure of leadership! Leaders and managers operating in cyberspace have to do better than being overwhelmed like newbies.

Today, we are still advised to do Risk Management similar to the ways we did it before cyberspace. In reality though, only the risk management prescription terms have changed to reflect new technologies, not new approaches to leadership. [6] Risk management is a leadership responsibility and it has to be articulated in terms that reflect leadership and inspire effective followership. Poor Risk Management is a failure of leadership, also.

So, let’s apply a bit of Boyd’s OODA Loop integrating our self-understanding of heritage, culture, analysis and synthesis abilities, previous experiences and new information inputs, as Boyd wrote. Let’s say that this orientation indicates that we are operating in an environment in which cause and effect are obscured by the highly interconnected nature of cyberspace.

Let’s further say that nothing in the current risk management approach for our organization is effective in dealing with attacks on our networks, and we conclude that we are indeed operating in a complex environment. As leaders, we come to realize we are mismatching leadership style to follower readiness and the organizational environment.

Half of the battle is won as we reach these conclusions: we are at least oriented to the environment we face as leaders. We now understand that simple, rules-oriented and best-practice approaches operating in such a complex environment are no longer suitable. How do we proceed? How does ALP-SCO help us?

Well, not to spoil our conclusions as we wrap up this series, we’ll use this setup to defer to next time. The next and final post in this series will address how we synergize the components of ALP-SCO to understand where we are in cyberspace, how we better operate in a more secure fashion and how we avoid mismatches of leadership style to followership readiness and organizational environment conditions.

Until next time!

Originally posted on 9-13-2016.

[1] We haven’t written a lot about the importance of open-source cyber intelligence, available to all, is to ALP-SCO. It is an important ingredient of agility and adaptation for secure cyberspace operations. Many of the sources of cyber intelligence for this blog post series are taken from Threat Brief, a daily recap of cyberspace and terrorism threats.

[2] Warren, Z., “Cybersecurity ‘Has to be Everyone’s Problem’ Says Former NYPD Police Commissioner,” LegalTech News, 8-22-2016, accessed 8-30-2016.

[3] Remember these early “IT staffers” were likely to be the ones who were early adopters of technology at home; they were the ones who bought the Radio Shack TRS-80 or Commodore VIC-20 computers to fool around with. These folks at least had learned enough computer lingo to tell the difference between a RS-232 serial port and a DB-25 parallel port.

[4] For deeper insights on these early leadership and management concepts, see Natemeyer, W., and Hersey, P., Classics of Organizational Behavior, Waveland Press, IL, 2011.

[5] Kelly, K. The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future (Kindle). Penguin Publishing Group, 2016, Kindle Edition locations 178-180.

[6] Caspi, G., The H Factor – Why you should be building “human firewalls”. “Cybersecurity risk management procedures can include providing employees with a VPN to avoid the risk of them using public Wi-Fi when they work outside of the office; prohibiting the use of personal social media channels to communicate with colleagues or clients about work-related correspondence or information sharing; mandatory periodic password changes; tracking apps on devices to protect from loss or physical theft; a theft hotline procedure with remote-deletion tools in place, and more.”

The Power Factor in Adaptive Leadership and Power

By Walter E. Natemeyer and Carl W. Hunt

This series on Adaptive Leadership and Power for Secure Cyberspace Operations began with a look at the requirement to adapt sound leadership principles for operations in cyberspace today. We proposed that we could integrate several traditional and non-traditional techniques that lend themselves well to leadership in the connected age.

We pointed to Dwight Eisenhower’s tried and true leadership perspectives, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model and a novel take on leadership that Nick Obolensky calls Complex Adaptive Leadership. We also demonstrated the power that John Boyd’s OODA Loop model offers to help leaders orient to the emergent environmental conditions that cyberspace and its massive connectivity poses to leaders in the connected age.

All of these approaches and models had one thing in common, whether addressing the environments of cyberspace or not: Leadership is the process of influencing others in efforts toward goal accomplishment. The fact is that leaders cannot automatically influence other people. Leaders have to have some sort of power to enable them to gain compliance or commitment from others.

We define Power as the potential for influence. Leaders who understand how to use power are clearly more effective than those who do not. This was true before the advent of cyberspace but in the face of a relentless, adaptive threat to our organizational networks today, the effective use of power to coordinate and influence our people in the exercise of secure cyberspace operations is more critical than ever.

Let’s look at some ways power has been classified in management literature. Amitai Etzioni broke power into two major categories. [1] One is called position power, and those are the powers that are bestowed upon a leader as a result of title, role or position within the organization. The other is called personal power. It is the power that leaders earn interacting with others based on their respect for knowledge, judgment, experience and the way that they treat other people. It is important for leaders to develop and utilize both their position power and their personal power.

Position Power and Personal Power consist of seven power bases. [2] There is an additional, perhaps transcendent, power base, truly prevalent in the age of cyberspace, which we loosely call “Network Power;” We will discuss this at the end of our description of the initial seven power bases. Figure 1 depicts all of these power bases in relation to each other and to the readiness level of the follower.

Expert Power is based on the perception that the leader has relevant education, experience and expertise to influence the follower’s behavior. It is based on respect for the expertise of the leader.

The second power base is called Information Power. It is based on the perception that this leader has access to, or perhaps control over, information that is useful to followers. People who excel at accessing and providing information are in a better position to influence followers than people who are not.

The third power base is called Referent Power. Referent Power is based on the degree to which the followers like, respect and admire their leader.

The fourth power base is Legitimate Power. This is based on the perception that this individual, because of his or her position, has the right to tell a follower what to do, and the follower has a responsibility to comply.

The fifth power base is called Reward Power. Reward Power is based on the perception that if the follower does what this leader wants, he/she is going to get some positive rewards for that compliance.

Sixth is Connection Power. Connection Power is based on the perception that this individual is connected to important or influential people within or even outside this organization. If the follower does what the leader wants because he/she hopes that it will gain the favor or perhaps avoid the disfavor of those “connections,” they are being influenced by the leader’s Connection Power. [3]

The seventh power base is Coercive Power. Coercive Power is built upon fear. It is based on the perception that if the follower doesn’t do what the leader wants, there will be negative consequences.

Finally, there is also what we are labeling Network Power that has become more noticeable since the advent of cyberspace and the massive connectivity that emerges from this relatively new environment. Over the last few years, several prominent thinkers have written about the general nature of Network Power from a variety of standpoints, including social networks, economies and governance. [4] We speak specifically of the influence of networks on leadership and management in this blog post series, however.

Joshua Cooper Ramo notes that the “future will almost certainly bring a study of the influence of network power upon history” and we take from his thoughts that leaders must also recognize the influence of network power in leadership. ^[5] “In connected systems, power is defined by both profound concentration and by massive distribution,” Ramo writes. “It can’t be understood in simple either-or terms. Power and influence will, in the near future, become even more centralized than in feudal times and more distributed than it was in the most vibrant democracies.” ^[6]

In the context of the Adaptive Leadership and Power for Secure Cyberspace Operations model, this means that Network Power propagates across cyberspace such that all the power bases might have some level of influence in any situation (e.g., not “either-or” as Ramo notes). “What is true for the machines all around us now is true for us too: We are what we are connected to.” [7] Network Power can and likely will enhance or dampen the “traditional” seven forms of power we described above, sometimes in alternating fashion.

“Network power, we might say, exists as a skin of billions of tied-together points linked to vital, centralized cores…Networks create concentration and distribution. As a result, they rip apart many existing structures.” [8] Thus, according to Ramo, Network Power as we describe it for ALP-SCO, is both an ingredient of the former power bases, and a “connector” for adaptive leadership functions. This is distinct from the Connection Power base previously mentioned, but a more general use of the term.

Ramo’s definitions of Network Power also means that all of the power bases that are infused through our take on Network Power change the character of the relationships between leaders, followers, and the organization, however subtly.

The impact of the four environments of cyberspace also come into play. “If connection changes the nature of an object, it also elevates those who control that connection to a level of rare power and influence.” [9] In ALP-SCO, leaders must bear this in mind. While there is much to learn about Network Power, this is an area worth hypothesizing about and studying. ^[10]

Figure 1 is an initial effort to integrate Walt Natemeyer’s previous work adapting power bases to follower readiness (and, by extension, leadership styles) to the realities that Network Power expresses in the connected age. Network Power must be recognized, facilitated and accommodated.

 

Figure 1: Leadership Power Bases

 

In the absence of further study of Network Power in relationship to ALP-SCO, we note that when attempting to gain compliance from people with below average readiness (R1/R2), leaders should ideally possess and use their position powers, while tapping the networks they’ve built to focus these position powers. The leader’s ability to provide positive or negative consequences directly (reward and coercive power) or indirectly (connection power) can be instrumental in getting followers at R1 and R2 to accomplish organizational objectives they otherwise would not do.

With people of average readiness (R2/R3), a combination of both position and personal powers tends to be effective at influencing them. Providing positive consequences (reward power), asserting authority (legitimate power) and leveraging positive relationships with people (referent power) tends to work well at gaining their compliance.

And with people of above average readiness (R3/R4), utilizing personal powers (referent, information and expert power), particularly enhanced through social networks, is potentially most effective.

Network Power serves to enhance and/or dampen these powers just as networks do in all other fields (economics, governance, etc.). The leader that learns and exploits Network Power can excel at exercising the other seven powers.

Just as researchers found that there is no one best leadership style, they likewise concluded that there is no one best power base for a leader to use. This is particularly true in the connected age where not only the follower’s readiness is an important measure but so is the impact of the environmental conditions cyberspace imposes. There is no one best leadership technique and there is no one best power base to call upon to influence followers…cyberspace and the networks that emerge makes this certain.

The key to success in exercising power for secure cyberspace operations is to build all the power bases and use them according to the follower’s readiness level and the environmental factors that cyberspace presents. Understanding and leveraging Network Power is critical to that success.

Next time, we’ll provide a few vignettes that illustrate the convergence of follower readiness, cyberspace environmental conditions, leadership styles and how Network Power affects us all.

Originally posted 8/29/2016.

[1] Etzioni, A., A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations, The Free Press, NY, 1975, p. 159.

[2] For a detailed review of the Seven Power Bases in organizational behavior, see Natemeyer, W., and Hersey, P., “Situational Leadership and Power,” Classics of Organizational Behavior, Waveland Press, IL, 2011, p. 440.

[3] This “Connection” power base was identified long before the advent of cyberspace and network connectivity. In spite of the apparent overlap of meaning, we will continue to use the original definition of this term as it relates to the power base theory. We’ll try to be clear where confusion may arise.

[4] Important texts in this area of study include the following: Watts, D., Six Degrees: the Science of a Connected Age, Norton, 2003; Grewal, D. S., Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization, Yale University Press, 2008; The books of Alvin and Heide Toffler (e.g., Future Shock, The Third Wave, etc.); and a very recent work, Ramo, J, The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks, Little, Brown and Company, NY, 2016.

[5] Ramo, op. cit., p. 85.

[6] Ibid., p. 116.

[7] Ibid., p. 35

[8] Ibid., pp, 116-118.

[9] Ibid., p. 177. Throughout the remainder of his book, Ramo describes what he calls “gateways” and “gatekeepers” as being the ultimate holders of power and influence in the connected age.

[10] In fact, one of the expected outcomes of this blog post series is the working proposal to study the role of leadership power in cyberspace and networks. One of the things we propose to look at in this research is the emergence and role of gatekeepers and gateways that exist in cyberspace, as noted by Ramo.