How Outsider Excutives became Phronetic Transformational Leaders

What is it about?

Organizational research missed the question of how outsider executives solve the major problem of sharing subordinates’ exclusive experiential knowledge essential for wise leadership. Such leadership is phronetic transformational, i.e. it transform for the better organizational functioning by learning and using subordinates' phronesis (Greek for practical wisdom) acquired by praticing jobs which is shared only with fully trusted superiors, those who courageously admit their unknowing. The cases of the few who did it and became wise phronetic transformational leaders are analysed and explained.

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Photo by Mapbox on Unsplash

Photo by Mapbox on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It is important because outsider executives lacking industry insiders’ tacit know-how, phronesis, and premises of decisions learned and developed on the job and in practitioner communities are common, while admission of ignorance requires psychological safety that most outsiders lack. However, avoiding admission prevents the full trust necessary to close knowledge gaps by subordinates’ knowledge sharing. Who and why chose otherwise, practiced trust-creating exposure of their knowledge gaps, shared subordinates’ knowledge, and became wise phronetic transformational leaders expose ethnographies of Israeli inter-kibbutz cooperatives: these few were high-moral humble constructive deviants; moved by servant and self-determination motives consistent with kibbutz communal culture, they exposed their experiential knowledge gaps by vulnerable involvement in deliberations with subordinates, built trust, shared employees’ experiential knowledge, and wisely transformed inter-kibbutz cooperatives.

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