Leadership Agility and Sociocracy – or, How I introduced Sociocracy in my software company and worked myself out of a job

Guest post by Evan J Miller

Back in May I gave a presentation to the Global Sociocracy For All conference. I really appreciated the chance to think through and share my ideas about the connections between Leadership Agility and Sociocracy.

Leadership Agility is a discipline for charting a course for developing leaders, and Sociocracy is a governance model for designing better ways to make decisions in organization.

As far as I can tell, nobody else is talking about how these are related. In other words, the Leadership Agility community is off doing its thing, and the Sociocracy community is off doing what it does. They’re not talking to each other.

My view is that they should be talking – that you really can’t develop to a Catalyst leader without reinventing how decisions are made in your organization. And likewise, you can’t successfully implement a new governance model if the top leaders aren’t consciously developing their leadership capacity so they can embrace the sociocratic model.

Since this was an audience of sociocracy folks, my presentation introduced Leadership Agility and how my personal journey as a leader moving from Expert to Achiever to Catalyst expressed itself in the deployment of sociocratic principles in my company.

This presentation was a lot of fun. You can read a PDF of the presentation, or watch the video recording on my Writings page.

Visitor awed by trust and open communication

Sociocracy has allowed us to have open-hearted conversations about emotionally-laden topics and develop policies we were not able to handle before. One visitor, new to sociocracy, was in awe of the trust and open communication in our meeting.

Cynthia Kennedy, Founding Member, Open Floor International

Productive Give and Take

Sociocracy is very effective at creating a productive give-and-take between the manifold perspectives that exist in any university. The inner core of an organization can express itself more fully once the rigid categories of levels and hierarchies are abandoned in favor of a more integrated model.

Dr. Edward Clift, Dean, The School of Media Culture and Design at Woodbury University, Burbank, CA

Creative Solutions & Good Vibes

What a valuable tool sociocracy is. I have been working with Sheella Mierson, a gifted instructor of this process, and she is great! With only one of the techniques I learned from her we were able to cut through a thorny impasse in our Board and generate a creative solution with good vibes all around. WOW.

Rabbi Marcia Prager, P'nai Or Jewish Renewal community of Philadelphia, and Director and Dean of Ordination Programs for ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal

Problems Solved From Both Ends

When I was an enlisted man in the Navy, I wondered why the officers didn’t listen to our good ideas. When I became an officer, I wondered why I could never get the enlisted men to tell me what they were thinking. I tell you from experience that sociocracy solves this problem from both ends.

Richard Heitfield, President, Creative Urethanes, Winchester, Virginia

Easy, Efficient Delegation

Since we've adopted sociocracy, it's much easier and more efficient for me to delegate. I'm able to receive information from the staff, the faculty, and all the different committees in a much more efficient fashion. I can't tell you how much more enjoyable my job is.

Renee Owen, Executive Director, Rainbow Community School, Asheville, North Carolina

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