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Last year, a team from the MIT Leadership Center published a whitepaper titled, "Problem-Led Leadership: An MIT Style of Leading." In that paper, Deborah Ancona and Hal Gregersen write how the MIT pattern of leadership often leads MIT people to want to avoid the formal label of a leader. There is an "anti-leadership" effect seen at MIT. Rather, students and graduates want to dive into complex problems, solve challenging cases, and identify opportunities that intrinsically inspire and motivate them to succeed. In essence, they are driven by a problem-led leadership style where they identify and articulate a compelling problem that will inspire people to contribute their best efforts in a spirit of interdependency and collaboration.
I'm reminded of my days at MIT where the first year was pass/fail. You weren't worried about your grades. You just needed to get through and pass the courses. We were working on complex problem sets from the beginning and most exams were open-book. MIT didn't train you to memorize facts. MIT trained you to use information at your fingertips to solve problems. The authors in the paper write, "Systems thinking is a perspective that, once it is learned, informs decisions in every part of life. Thus a hallmark of MIT-style leaders is that they approach organizations as self-organizing systems." Are you working on a complex problem? See if a problem-led leadership framework will help you reach a solution! Comments are closed.
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