ENGAGEMENT AND LEADER LOGICS 89Collaborative engagement is complex. Many agendas are
operating simultaneously, yet they are seeking mutual integra-
tion. Individuals are engaged in their own deeper cycles of learn-
ing. And at the same time, group interaction centers on opening
up the subject at hand and reaching multiple right answers that
can be advocated, integrated, and prioritized.
Our CCL colleagues speak of “ putting something in the
middle ” as part of collaborative process. This is a method of
turning a problem into an opportunity by placing the subject of
discord or confusion in the middle of a dialogue and therefore
objectifying the inquiry for a more conscious, refl ective result.
Signaling that the subject is being put in the middle indicates
that the interchange will be one of sharing and inquiry rather
than debate and advocacy. Our colleagues also see the value of
striving for an emergent, interdependent leadership logic even
while the overall organizational culture is in a Conformer - to -
Achiever transformation (Palus and Drath, 2001).
As we said earlier, you don ’ t necessarily need to be at the top
Interdependent - Collaborator level of leadership logics. But your
leadership culture and logic does need to be at whatever level is
right for implementing your new business strategy. A leadership
culture can ’ t pull off a strategy that is beyond its level of ability
to engage and learn.
Engagement and a Leader ’ s LogicThe second column in Table 4.1 lists the logics that individual
leaders can adopt and groups them in the three broad cultures
and the transitional stages between them. The seven leader log-
ics are Dominator, Moderator, Specialist, Performer, Freethinker,
Collaborator, and Transformer. A good way to see how these
leader logics connect to engagement is by considering a few
examples, mainly drawn from other cases we have studied and
will be introducing here. We gratefully acknowledge the work of
Rooke and Torbert (2005), refl ected throughout this section on
the seven leader logics.