Horizontal Leaders – The Power of ‘Thinking Outside the Building’

Everyone has heard of ‘thinking outside the box’, and engaging with the challenges and opportunities that exist there.

However, according to Canadian author and leadership expert Michael Jones, ‘horizontal leaders’ are able to ‘think outside the building’.

And it is these leaders who also have the ability to shift their span of vision even more broadly to the ‘space in between’.

This is the area beyond the status quo: and between the challenges and opportunities that exist in this ‘third place’.

It is a world beyond normal borders and boundaries, and traverses a line many leaders fear to cross.

However, says Jones, in a recent article on the management-issues website, horizontal leaders don’t just look ‘far ahead and to the front’.

They must also look sideways, to ensure their organisations are situated in the best possible position in the marketplace.

To become a horizontal leader, Jones advocates:

1. Being expressive

To become the best leader you can be, involves being both a good storyteller and a good listener. When you express yourself powerfully, you can reach across the boundaries of conventional thinking. Thus, horizontal leaders know how to clearly express themselves; even when dealing with the most difficult of topics or situations.

 2. Being visionary

To be able to lead and think ‘outside the building’, leaders need to possess a strong sense of vision and destiny and an innate ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. This ‘leading without a script’ is something few leaders are good at, but many aspire to. It is being literate, but in an expressive, rather than technical, way

3. Standing firm

In a hostile and unfamiliar world, horizontal leaders can negotiate the pitfalls effortlessly by recognising the significance and power of place. By standing firm in the face of adversity, horizontal leaders work from strong foundations to use their wisdom and knowledge to achieve success, no matter how difficult the situation

 4. Respecting difference

Leading across boundaries, (or ‘the spaces in between’), is a particular talent of horizontal leaders. They know instinctively how to find the strongest point of connection between two places, and how to navigate between disparate worlds and cultures; while also respecting paradox and difference.

Another area embraced by horizontal leaders is where they work.

Indeed, the power of the building and your working environment can be hugely impactful on a leader.

Apple founder Steve Jobs was a passionate devotee of these ‘third places’ and place-based leadership.

In terms of culture and design, Jobs believed in simplicity and informality in the workplace, and this was reflected in the functional simplicity of his working environment.

Jobs was a powerful advocate of building designs and layouts that encouraged random encounters and spontaneous conversation between employees.

Without this Jobs believed, much of the innovation and magic that could be generated between creative people, could be lost.

Jobs’ gift was his ability to ‘build bridges’ between aesthetics and technology, (especially with the Applebrand), to create a ‘place between’ where engineers could work in tandem with designers.

Being ‘unscripted’ and free of ‘the daily grind’ is one of the main reasons Apple has become the world’s foremost computer maker.

Finally, Jones sums up horizontal leadership very succinctly in his article when he quotes a line from the poem ‘The Third Thing’ by DH Lawrence.

The line reads:

“The atom locks up two energies but it is the third thing present which makes it an atom.”

As Jones says, it is this third thing cannot be explained.