The Need for Organisational Resilience Chapter 5

narrow dirt track, the Kall trail, being under constant pressure by German forces. Thirdly, German

resistance and effectiveness of artillery from the Brandenburg-Bergstein ridge.

Nevertheless, some leadership lessons were learned. The orders given to Kota were deemed too

complex, and detailed and thus allowed Cota too little latitude. Nevertheless, Cota agreed to carry out

these orders and did not stand up to their superiors, as much as the Germans tended to do. In

addition, once the offensive operation commenced, Cota had too little oversight of the combat

readiness of his regiments, as he spent most of his time in the division command post. In this respect,

it is surprising that too few patrols have been sent out to enhance an understanding about German

intentions.

As for every commander, it is necessary that he maintains his freedom to act, and not to allow

superiors or staff to take over directional leadership. Directional leadership is though not heroic

leadership, when the circumstances clearly indicates that the current direction cannot be maintained.

Regimental and divisional staff need to support their commanders in directing, by aligning regimental

and divisional directions, and administering men and material. WWII has shown over and over again

that balancing administrative and adaptive leadership is an extremely difficult undertaking, with only

fine margins of error.

[TEXT BOX ENDS]

Flexibility of mind instead of mere Obedience

Traditional leadership is often seen as a mean to impose one’s will on others. In regards to

the previous chapter, this implies that the person imposing leadership on others needs to be

infallible (see Chapter 4); an approach with minimal margin of error. It is also troubling to

state that still many organisations opt for eliminating situated human cognition as a source of

error through administrative leadership, stifling the very capability that allows people to adapt

to novel situation.

A more progressive perspective on leadership though is one that drives adaptiveness in

others, in a decentralised manner, nonetheless within the boundaries of an administrative

system. Decision power migrates to a person that is close to a problem and can deal with it

before it escalates to a crisis. Those close the problem, though, need to deal with it, always

in line with the big picture, the intent (see Chapter 4). Such a leadership approach requires a

31 | P a g e