Daniel Edds’ new book Harnessing Leadership Genetics: Cracking the Sustainable Team Performance Code uses a metaphor from DNA and genetics to describe how leadership can be a designed system. In these pages, explore why systems thinking creates a wonderful opportunity to rethink organizational leadership.

Edds feels that more than enough books have been written on leadership. But most of those books focus on the importance of personal leadership and how the individual reader can become a better leader. Edds takes a different approach by showing how leadership can be a system that governs the operation of the entire organization. It then looks at what the DNA of that system would be, how the system would be structured, and how it would affect productivity, earnings, and most importantly, job satisfaction among employees.

While Edds was researching for this book on how leadership could function as a system, he found examples of organizations where leadership systems already existed in places as diverse as the mob, the United States military, the salvation army, and school systems. .

In Harnessing the Genetics of Leadership, Edds uses some very specific examples of organizations that have made leadership systematic, often without realizing it. Tell the stories of those organizations, analyze how they operate, and share your interviews with their leaders. In the process, explore the same elements of quality leadership that many others have written about; the difference is that it looks at how to organize items differently so that they can work effectively for organizations. He states: “I think the next generation’s opportunity will not be to acquire and implement more technology, but to design the ways in which humans must interact to unlock the basic human capacity for innovation, creativity and transformation. They are endless.” Consequently, the goal of this book is to innovate leadership as an organizational system.

Edds argues that making leadership systemic in organizations will also improve job satisfaction. You are well aware of the statistics that show that the majority of employees are not happy with their work; some are basically retired, while others intentionally sabotage their employees. He states: “No one should ever be ashamed of where they work. For all the rhetoric that people are our most important asset, for the most part, it is simply lip service intended to inspire the workforce. The data shows that reality is very. This book is largely my attempt to give a voice to the millions of smart, hard-working people trapped in organizations where mediocracy reigns. ” By applying the mindset and advice found in Leveraging Leadership Genetics, organizations can reap the benefits of systems-thinking leadership. As Edds claims, systems always produce more than the sum of their individual parts. They “take one plus one and create ten.”

Edds’s arguments are compelling because he supports them by looking at four different organizations and the purpose behind each of their leadership systems. It speaks of a manufacturing organization that focuses on servant leadership and employee engagement, a Native American health care system that focuses on relationships, a multinational manufacturing company focused on customer safety. employees and a school system. It also provides an example of a healthcare organization that shifted its focus from patient care to revenue, with catastrophic results.

Edds highlights the sad truth that most organizations don’t teach their managers and leaders how to lead. To a large extent, these leaders had to figure things out on their own and, in the process, received feedback and input from their staff to help develop a system that worked for everyone. The success of these organizations shows that systemic leadership works, and it is likely to be the wave of the future.

Citing a Gallup poll, Edds claims that millennials want jobs that they can connect with emotionally and behaviorally, jobs that help them fulfill their desire for a life of purpose with a healthy work-life balance. Employers must understand that they must build a strong employee brand to attract millennials, or go out of business because they will have no workforce left once previous generations retire. Additionally, Edds looks at how workforce engagement is driven primarily by the worker’s relationship with their manager. Studies show that people don’t stop working; they left the bosses. Edds doesn’t stop when he says, “The job of leadership is to take off the leash created by fear, control, and disrespect.”

One way to help employees become involved in company leadership is for leaders and managers to stop solving problems for them. Doing so is disrespectful because it undermines the belief that humans are highly intelligent and capable of solving complex problems. Edds says that instead of being a problem solver, a leader must learn to become a problem formulator. They must know how to frame a problem accurately so that their employees can learn to solve them on their own and experience the satisfaction of doing so. This freedom increases employee esteem, creates a sense of ownership, and makes them feel psychologically safe so they are motivated to continue being innovative.

Much more could be said about harnessing the genetics of leadership, but you’ll need to read the book to learn about Edds’ discussions of how Lean and kaizen apply to systems thinking in organizations, as well as the role of servant leadership in organizations. systemic leadership organizations. , and much more. This book’s new twist on leadership makes it invaluable. Every leader should read this book, then purchase a copy for everyone in their organization to read, and then collect feedback and ideas from their staff on how to create or transform their own leadership system.