Relational Coordination and Complexity Leadership: Enabling the Dynamics of Adaptive Systems.

Research on complexity leadership theory (CLT) is generating exciting new ways to think about leadership and organizing for today's complex environments. Contrary to top-down perspectives grounded in bureaucracy and control, CLT draws from complexity science to demonstrate how organizations can be designed to operate as complex adaptive systems. Relational coordination theory (RCT) contributes additional insights to our understanding of how organizations respond effectively to complexity and emergence. RCT posits that effective coordination under conditions of complexity is carried out through frequent, timely, accurate and problem-solving communication, supported by relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect. In effect, RCT posits that high quality relationships are needed to manage interdependence among participants under conditions of complexity, enabling emergent and adaptive responses without the need for formal leaders to direct those responses. By comparing and ultimately integrating CLT and RCT, we believe we can gain better insight into how to design and lead organizations to operate as complex adaptive systems. The purpose of this interactive panel symposium, therefore, is to engage discussion among researchers interested in complexity and relational coordination around identifying the dynamics associated with adaptive space, and the conditions leaders can create to enable adaptive space generative of productive emergence in complex adaptive organizations, while achieving the scalability and sustainability needed for organizational success in high reliability contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]