62 TRANSFORMING YOUR LEADERSHIP CULTURE
perspective. The Freethinker understands the logics of others
and can be an excellent facilitator in group settings. But this
person also feels free to make up new rules and construct new
organizational orders — for example, actions that are good for
the whole organization, even when others in earlier logics may
have a hard time discerning the benefi t.
About 40 percent of all organizational leaders are Performers
or Freethinkers. Many (but not all) adults make the transition
to this stage during their middle to later years.
From an educational perspective, people at this stage see
teaching as coaching. Learning is a dialogue, a two - way street,
but the coach is seen as having more expertise than the learner.
However, Freethinkers are well on their way to experiencing a
coach more as a guide who offers multiple alternatives to con-
sider and discern.
Interdependent - Collaborator
In this latest stage of development, we label leaders as Collaborators
or perhaps Transformers (Table 3.1 ). Collaborators are excellent
strategists, and their strategic infl uencing skills are extraordinary.
Those skills make them powerful change agents. They are compe-
tent at learning in complex environments because they make
connections at multiple levels and across systems simultaneously.
Collaborators are energized by these multiple levels of interplay at
personal, organizational, interorganizational, and all other manner
of intersystemic levels.
Transformers are rare. They are able to reinvent themselves
and transform their organizations through an unusual capability
to simultaneously deal with multiple situations at many differ-
ent levels. A Transformer can take care of tactical tasks while
keeping strategy (the big picture) in mind. Transformers are
also truth tellers, because they have advanced beyond the com-
mon fears of personal worry and onto a plane of concern for the
whole enterprise and everyone in it. A Transformer leader works