Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
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Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization'
Reviewed by Major Joshua Wolff
I. Introduction
Virtually every Soldier aspires to be a great leader.
After all, according to the Army Chief of Staff, [l]eadership
is paramount to our profession.2 Countless books and
essays propose hundreds, if not thousands, of theories and
11 3
rules of leadership. No single text can contain all one
needs to know to become a good leader, but those worth
reading provide tools or guiding principles to apply when
leadership opportunities and challenges arise. Tribal
Leadership is a worthwhile read for the Army leader because
it provides a thought-provoking framework to assess the
culture of a unit and, most importantly, practical and specific
guides to help improve it.
Tribal Leadership-like all other leadership books-
does not provide a magic formula so that anyone can turn a
poorly performing unit into a great one overnight. The book
is imperfect. The research behind the theory may not be as
conclusive as the authors purport. As a model derived
largely from research of corporate organizations, the book's
template simply will not fit very well within any given Army
organization. The book is nonetheless valuable to the Army
leader because it provides an informative supplement to
current Army leadership doctrine. While Army leadership
literature tends to focus inward-on what leaders should be
and how they need to act, Tribal Leadership provides tools
for the leader to look outward at her organization's culture.
The result is fun-to-read, interesting material, which is
valuable to anyone desiring to serve in leadership positions.
which defines the organization's success and productivity.5
The leader's responsibility is to assess and upgrade the
organizational (tribal) culture by using leverage points
appropriate for the organization's stage of development.6
The authors conclude there are five discernible stages,
each with its own rhetoric and types of relationships, which
they helpfully summarize in Appendix A.7
The trio bases each concept, tip, and principle in
Tribal Leadership on their own organizational study
covering twenty-four organizations over an eight-year
period, with more than 24,000 people.8 The research is
somewhat explained in an appendix, but the authors
deliberately omit statistics and methodology from the main
text in favor of various anecdotes and individual profiles to
describe their theories.9 This approach yields an interesting
and easily digestible book consisting mostly of theory and
real-life examples.
The authors began collecting data by issuing members
of an organization a pretest designed to measure language
themes and organizational relationships because the authors'
early research indicated these were critical indicators of
organizational culture.'0 The respondents then received
training on ways to improve the functionality of their culture
using upgraded language and relationship structures.
Following the training, the authors allowed a period of nine
to sixteen months to pass before re-evaluating the same
organization.12 This approach seems straightforward, but a
closer look at the research raises some questions regarding
the methodology and conclusions.
II. Questionable Research
Tribal Leadership is co-authored by Dave Logan, a
business professor; John King, a consultant and nationally
recognized . . . senior teacher, coach, and program leader;
and Halee Fischer-Wright, a physician.4 The book's central
theme is that each organization has a dominant culture,
Judge Advocate, U.S. Army. Student, 63d Judge Advocate Officer
Graduate Course, The Judge Advocate Gen.'s Legal Center & School, U.S.
Army, Charlottesville, Virginia.
' DAVE LOGAN, JOHN KING, & HALEE FISCHER-WRIGHT, TRIBAL
LEADERSHIP: LEVERAGING NATURAL GROUPS TO BUILD A THRIVING
ORGANIZATION (2008).
2 GENERAL RAYMOND T. ODIERNO, Foreword to U.S. DEP'T OF ARMY,
DOCTRINE PUB. 6-22, ARMY LEADERSHIP (1 Aug. 2012) (Cl, 10 Sept.
2012) [hereinafter ADP 6-22].
3 A query of Amazon.com's Books Department for leadership yields
121,681 results. See Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com (last visited
Sept. 5, 2014).
4 LOGANETAL., supra note 1, at 281 83.
Id. at 4.
6 Id. at 36.
' Id. at 253 64. The author's gauge to assess a tribe's stage based on their
language is simple and will resonate with any reader with leadership
experience. Language expressing an attitude of life sucks characterizes
stage one; my life sucks is stage two culture; persons at stage three
culture use I'm great [and you're not] language; stage four is We're
great [and they're not] is stage four; and Life is great is stage five
language.
' Id. at 6.
9 Id.
1o Id. at 18.
Id. at 266-68. See also supra note 7 and accompanying text (describing
the kinds of language themes associated with various stages of
development).
12 LOGAN ET AL., supra note 1.
NOVEMBER 2014 - THE ARMY LAWYER - DA PAM 27-50-498](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/armylaw2014&div=113&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
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