The Meta-leadership framework and practice method is designed to “provide guidance, direction, and momentum across organizational lines that develop into a shared course of action and commonality of purpose among people and agencies that are doing what may appear to be very different work.”[1][2] Meta-leadership has been “derived through observation and analysis of leaders in crisis circumstances”[3] starting with the September 11 attacks in the U.S.The focus on national preparedness has subsequently been distilled for more general application, though it remains useful to crisis leaders particularly given current and persistent natural and man-made threats requiring the coordination of multiple agencies and organizations in preparation, response, and recovery.
[1] The challenge was illustrated by the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina that “revealed profound system weaknesses.”[1] Marcus, Dorn, and Henderson posited that “Leadership, as commonly understood, works to build the capacity within organizations.
We premise here that a different brand of leadership is necessary to get beyond that silo thinking to achieve cross-agency and cross-government coordination of strategy and effort for national terrorism and emergency preparedness.”[1] As put forward in the first published article, effective meta-leadership was dependent upon the capacity of individual leaders to “..envision a new connectivity of strategy and effort and then find a way to communicate, inspire, and persuade broader participation.”; situational awareness, “seeing both the problems to be resolved as well as the people and assets that can be constructively brought to bear; and achieving connectivity, “…a seamless web of people, organizations, resources, and information that can best catch (detect and report), respond, (control and contain), and return to pre-event normal (recover) from a terrorist incident.”[1] As a framework premised on integrating theory and practice through ongoing research, teaching, and field observation, meta-leadership has evolved over time as reflected in published work.
Meta-leadership is also increasingly valuable as an internal leadership framework for organizations, public and private, as large entities become less hierarchical and rely more heavily on inter-dependent intra-organizational units and extra-organizational partners.
That means not just harnessing electronic technology to forge links among agencies, but also building relationships between people—transforming a culture that champions independent decision making into one that values cooperation.”[3] Similar observations to Hurricane Katrina emerged during analysis of the response to the Boston Marathon Bombings, a large-scale, multi-agency, time-constrained effort studied by NPLI faculty.