Q&A
Question:
Explain the idea of sociocracy, and how it relates to responsible leadership? What might be the limitations of sociocractic decision-making compared with a servant leadership approach?
Student Answer:
The concept of sociocracy (Buck & Villines, 2017) is related to the distribution of power within an organization. In a continue line of power distribution, the left end is autocracy, which means the power only belongs to one person who we call a dictator. Democracy lies in the middle, where everyone does have power, however, they assign their power to the elected representative to practice leadership on behalf of the majority. At the right end of the line is sociocracy, where power is shared by everyone through an ongoing reflective discussion to generate, degenerate, regenerate arguments. Sociocracy means there isn’t single personal leader. The consensus argument leads, and everyone who contribute to this argument is part of the leadership. The leadership is shared, dynamic and involving. The organization is leaderful. Everyone is contributing to the leadership and is taking his/her own responsibility in the decision-making process. From this point of view, the idea of sociocracy is aligned with responsible leadership. On the other hand, sociocracy’s consensus make sure that the decision is responsible to everyone involved. This is also the aim for responsible leadership, which underline considering every stakeholders.
Sociocracy might not be cost-effective considering the time spend on continuously circle meetings. And it is difficult to implement in large organizations considering the large number of people involved. Unlike servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1998; Parris &Peachey, 2013), which require the leader to be ethical and altruistic, the sociocracy do not depend heavily on a single person and his/her virtue. Instead, it depends more on the structure established based on sociocracy.
Buck, J & Villines, S. (2017). Rationale for a New Social Design. In J. A. Buck & S. Villines. (Eds.) We the people: consenting to a deeper democracy(2nd ed.) pp (201-210). Washington D.C.: Sociocracy.info Press
Parris, D. L., & Peachey, J. W. (2013). A systematic literature review of servant leadership theory in organizational contexts. Journal of Business Ethics, 113, 377-393.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1998). The power of servant leadership. California: The Greenleaf Center of Servant-leadership.