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.” Meta-leadership has been “derived through observation and analysis of leaders in crisis circumstances” 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.
Meta-leadership re-frames the practice of leadership by providing:
1) A comprehensive organizing framework for understanding and integrating the many facets of leadership;
2) A method for catalyzing collaborative activity;
3) A focus on improving function and performance across organizational and sector boundaries.
Origins
The framework was developed by Leonard J. Marcus and Barry Dorn of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI), a joint program of the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Joseph M. Henderson Chief of Staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and first published in 2006.
The need for such an expansive view of leadership was driven by the increased complexity of natural and manmade threats facing the United States. The challenge was illustrated by the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina that “revealed profound system weaknesses.” 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.”
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.”
Extensions and Evolution
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.
The original three-dimensional model meta-leadership framework and practice method was further developed and expanded to a five-dimensional model though work that included Isaac Ashkenazi: The person of the meta-leader, the situation, leading up, leading down, and leading across. Incorporating more recent feedback and research on events such as the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing response and the 2014-2015 response the Ebola outbreak in the United States, the model currently taught at the NPLI uses three dimensions similar to those in the original model, though each has been expanded and refined.
Earlier variants may still be in use in settings beyond the NPLI at Harvard and in publications. The current model in use at the NPLI builds upon but does not invalidate previous versions.
The Difference Between Leadership and Meta-Leadership
As a framework and practice method, meta-leadership draws upon and integrates a wide range of extant leadership scholarship, including that on transformational leadership, shared leadership, followership, complex adaptive leadership, and others.
