Is it possible to deliberately and planfully lead in a system?
The Map and the Mycelium...
This is a question that participants on a leadership development programme have been exploring with me for nearly a decade now. Here is an imaginary dialogue that explores some of the issues that it raises….
Setting: A quiet room after a systems leadership seminar. Two colleagues linger behind, coffee in hand.
Characters:
Elena, a systems change facilitator, optimistic but ‘seasoned’…
Jonas, a relational philosopher and leadership sceptic, wary of managerialism…
Elena:
You know, I still believe it’s possible. To lead. Deliberately. Planfully. Even in the mess of a system.
Jonas:
And I’m still surprised you do. You’ve worked in them as long as I have. You’ve seen how plans unravel the moment they meet real life.
Elena:
Of course. But the fact that plans don’t go as intended doesn’t make them futile. It just means we need better ways of planning. More alive to emergence. More iterative.
Jonas:
But that’s not planning as people mean it. What you're describing is attunement. What they fund is delivery. A plan is a blueprint. It assumes control. It turns leadership into project management.
Elena:
And yet, people crave direction. Coherence. If we abandon planning altogether, aren’t we just wandering? Reacting? We have to intend something, Jonas. Otherwise leadership becomes passive.
Jonas:
No, not passive, responsive. Intention, yes. But not imposition. There’s a difference between setting a course and trying to engineer the sea. Most leaders I see aren’t navigating, they’re trying to dam the river.
Elena:
But without some vision, some shared picture, how do people move together? Isn’t planning also an act of care? A way of saying: “I have thought deeply about what matters. Let’s tend it together.”
Jonas:
Only if the plan can breathe. Only if it listens. The moment the plan becomes fixed, it stops being care and becomes coercion. Systems don’t yield to templates, they respond to presence.
Elena:
Then perhaps we’re arguing about what kind of planning is possible. Not whether it’s possible at all.
Jonas:
Perhaps. But I still worry about the seduction of the map. Once it’s drawn, people stop looking at the landscape. They follow the lines. Even when the path no longer makes sense.
Elena:
And yet, maps can be re-drawn. They don’t have to be prisons. They can be invitations. A way of seeing together, just long enough to move, to act. Not forever. Just for now.
Jonas:
Then draw maps in sand, not stone. Make them with others. And be ready to lose them.
Elena:
Agreed. But don’t abandon the craft. Systems may be wild, but they still respond to intention. To rhythms. To patterns. If we stop trying to lead with care and foresight, the void will be filled by those who lead with fear and force.
Jonas:
That’s true. But perhaps leadership in systems isn’t about foresight, it’s about sight. About seeing freshly, again and again. And about resisting the urge to see what we want to see.
Elena:
So… not leading in the system, then, but leading with it?
Jonas:
Yes. With the grain. With the flow. Like a mycelium, hidden, slow, connective. Not strategic in the traditional sense. But transformative.
Elena:
Then perhaps we’re not so far apart. I still believe in deliberate leadership. But not in controlling the dance. Only in listening to the music, and inviting others to join the floor.
Jonas:
As long as we remember, we are not the composers. At best, we’re improvisers. With a duty to the whole.
And perhaps we are being sung too…