From his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese in Singapore, James Clavell wrote his first novel, where the main character establishes himself as the undisputed leader of the camp. He is just a simple American soldier but becomes a reference point for both the prisoners and their guards. He saves many lives with his ingenious rat farm (a useful source of protein) and even decides who should be prominent among the prisoners and the Japanese. The novel is aptly titled King Rat. However, when the war ends and the camp dissolves, this soldier returns to being a mechanic in a small town in the United States. This powerful book on survival at the limits of humanity also provides other perspectives on contextual leadership, or emerging leadership. 

Much management literature on leadership uses expressions like “being a leader” that lead to the belief that leadership is a skill that some have, and others develop, while others simply do not possess it. Management schools offer programs and courses on “leadership.” Prominent experts like Sinek, Kotter, Maxwell, or Helgesen publish on what characterizes a leader and what one should do to become one, as if it were an intrinsic competence of the individual called to be a leader. 

On the other hand, formal leadership in structured organizations—the organizational chart in companies—is losing importance due to the acceleration of decision-making and the greater agility required for various tasks within the group. 

It is in recent sociology literature, rather than management, that I found deep research and analysis on the effect of context on the development of leadership [1].. To conceptualize leadership, model, and test its hypotheses, the research begins with understanding leadership as a relational phenomenon and leadership structures as networks of leader-individual connections. Although the scope of application is broader, this approach closely aligns with our experience in transformation processes in companies from a consulting perspective, such as Montblanc Consulting. 

In very brief terms, recent sociological perspectives and experiments explore the social context in four dimensions: 

1. Social Networks – The set of bilateral relationships between individuals, characterized by their degree of reciprocity, repetition or frequency, and clustering (or concentrations in certain individuals). 
2. Characteristics of the Population or Team – Degree of homophily (preference for similar individuals) and tendencies toward stereotypes. 
3. Patterns of Opportunities for Demonstrating Vision, Communication, Initiative, Empathy – Opportunities for showcasing clarity of vision, effective communication, taking initiative, and demonstrating empathy. 
4. Local Culture – The weight of hierarchy in individual decision-making, relative to perceived technical competence or communication skills, and the degree of individualism versus group conformity. 

In James Clavell’s novel, the American soldier arrives at the camp at the beginning of the war and develops multiple commercial transactions with Japanese guards, American and European prisoner-of-war officers and soldiers. He first offers (assistance, protection, food). In a shattered population, where military hierarchy is part of the culture, its breakdown among prisoners opens space for emergent leadership. The British officer has no more authority than a third-class American soldier, and clearly, the Anglo-Saxons seek each other more than they seek the Japanese. Ultimately, the American soldier’s repeated commercial interactions and assistance, which allow many prisoners to survive the camp’s brutal treatments, provide him with opportunities to showcase or simply demonstrate his clear vision for survival. 

In our transformation projects, far from the World War II prisoner camps, we observe the emergence of new leaders. Change—whether in strategy, value proposition, processes, or organizational structure—and the project implementing it, creates a context where networks among employees shift in content and frequency. As external consultants, we witness and sometimes help shape the birth of new leaders. For example, a procurement manager who genuinely leveraged certain changes and her internal social network to offer new interactions to her users ended up leading the change across the entire department. Similarly, a sales analyst capitalized on his understanding and the new need for data and analysis in a digital transformation to create and lead a Performance and Analytics area. In both cases, we saw how internal social networks, the breakdown of stereotypes, and the exploitation of new interaction opportunities helped promote these leaders, who, before the change project, were not on the radar of potential future leaders. 

Making a bold conceptual leap, perhaps leadership literature could incorporate more considerations of “emergent leadership” in the same way business strategy literature considers the weight of “emergent strategy.” Recent sociological literature provides some tools to identify and potentially promote emergent leaders in times when they are most needed. 

 
References:

• [1] Kirkman and Harris, 2017; Acton et al., 2018; Hanna et al., 2021; Philip Roth Leadership, 2022; Marya Tabassum et al., 2023
• Roth, P. (2022). How social context impacts the emergence of leadership structures. Leadership, 18(4), 539-562. https://doi.org/10.1177/17427150221090375
• Tabassum, M., & Raziq, M. M. (2023). Toward an overarching multi-level conceptualization of emergent leadership.
• Hanna, Andrew & Smith, Troy & Kirkman, Bradley & Griffin, Ricky. (2021). The Emergence of Emergent Leadership: A Comprehensive Framework and Directions for Future Research. Journal of Management. 47. 74-106. 10.1177/0149206320965683.
• Acton, Bryan & Foti, Roseanne & Lord, Robert & Gladfelter, Jessica. (2018). Putting emergence back in leadership emergence: A dynamic, multilevel, process-oriented framework. The Leadership Quarterly. 30. 10.1016/j.leaqua.2018.07.002.
• Kirkman, B. L., & Harris, T. B. (2017). 3D Team Leadership: A New Approach for Complex Teams. Stanford University Press.
• Kirkman, Bradley & Harris, Thomas. (2017). 3D Team Leadership: A New Approach for Complex Teams. 10.1515/9781503603233.