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Scholar Profile · Systems & Complexity

Complex Systems Leadership Theory

Hazy, Goldstein & Lichtenstein · 2007 · Distributed & Complex

Leadership as an emergent event in complex systems.

Begin the walk↓
Room I
The Person

James K. Hazy (Adelphi), Jeffrey A. Goldstein (Adelphi), and Benyamin B. Lichtenstein (UMass Boston) edited the 2007 volume that gathered the emerging science of leadership in complex systems: leadership not as a person or role but as an emergent event — new order arising from interaction.

Room II
The Idea in Context

This stream formalized leadership as emergence: interactions among agents produce leadership events and new order. Leadership is a system property, not an individual possession.

The era: Distributed & Complex — Distributed, dispersed, interdependent, embedded in interaction; leadership as learning; global competencies; combine all theories.

Room III
The Big Idea
The Enduring Contribution
Moved leadership's unit of analysis to the system itself.

Leadership as an emergent event in complex systems.

Room IV
Landmark Works
2007
Complex Systems Leadership Theory
Landmark Work
Room V
Open Sky Lineage

Where this work feeds the Open Sky frameworks.

Thread · Complexity Leadership
Systems theory → Senge → complexity sciences → Uhl-Bien's adaptive space → Heifetz's adaptive work.
Open Sky Module: Complexity Leadership →

Fellow travelers on these threads:

1950s
Systems Theory
1990
Systems Thinking
2002
Complexity Sciences
2007
Complexity Leadership Theory
Room VI
In Practice

Watch for leadership as events — moments where interaction creates new order.

Foster the interactions from which order emerges rather than mandating the order.

Room VII
Reflection Gallery
What order is currently emerging in your organization unnoticed?
Which interactions, multiplied, would change everything?
Room VIII
Sources & Further Reading
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