University of San Diego Digital USD Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1999 Games Leaders Play: Collaborative Leadership Development through Simulations in Knowledge-Based Organizations John Paul Dentico EdD University of San Diego Follow this and additional works at: https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations Part of the Leadership Studies Commons Digital USD Citation Dentico, John Paul EdD, "Games Leaders Play: Collaborative Leadership Development through Simulations in Knowledge-Based Organizations" (1999). Dissertations. 652. https://digital.sandiego.edu/dissertations/652 This Dissertation: Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Digital USD. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital USD. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GAMES LEADERS PLAY: COLLABORATIVE LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SIMULATIONS IN KNOWLEDGE BASED ORGANIZATIONS by John Paul Dentico A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education University of San Diego 1999 Dissertation Committee Joseph C. Rost, Ph.D., Director Edward F. Kujawa, Ph.D. Mary M. Williams, Ed.D. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © Copyright 1999 by John Paul Dentico Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Games Leaders Play: Collaborative Leadership Development Through Simulations in Knowledge Based Organizations. John P. Dentico, Ed. D. University of San Diego, 1999, pp. 248. Director: Joseph C. Rost, Ph.D. New concepts of leadership and new methods of imparting these concepts to individuals are needed in the knowledge society of today. This study presented a practitioners model of collaborative leadership and a new experiential simulation methodology called LeadSimm as a way in which organization members could learn this new model of leadership and develop confidence in its ability to engage complex issues. Using the LeadSimm simulation method, two scenarios were developed and two simulations were played. The San Jose Police Department played one simulation and the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank played the other. The researcher conducted eighteen interviews from the 54 participants in the two simulations. These interviews dealt with participant learning, shifts in the participant's mental model of leadership, the willingness to put collaborative leadership to work, and observed qualitative or quantitative changes in the organization as a result of using the collaborative leadership model. LeadSimm demonstrated its ability to immerse participants into a leadership dynamic and to engage 50% of those participants in mental model shifts. As a result of playing in the simulation, four participants used collaborative leadership which resulted in higher work group morale, greater community participation, cost savings, and directly transferable knowledge on a press interview. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATIONS .................................................................................................... vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. viii CHAPTER ONE USING SIMULATIONS IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT ................................. 1 Introduction ...........................................................................................................1 Background ...........................................................................................................2 The Current State of Leadership Development.. ............................................ 2 The Failing Leadership Myth ..........................................................................4 Leadership Thought and Practice .........................................................................6 The Contextual Praxis of Leadership .............................................................6 The Genesis of Collaborative Leadership ...................................................... 8 The Need for Power ..................................................................................... 10 From The Case Study to Simulations ........................................................... 12 Purpose of This Study ......................................................................................... 16 Research Questions ............................................................................................ 17 Terminology ........................................................................................................ 17 Organization of This Dissertation ........................................................................ 19 CHAPTER TWO THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY AND A NEW PERSPECTIVE OF LEADERSHIP ............................................................21 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ii Introduction .........................................................................................................21 From an Industrial to a Postindustrial Perspective .............................................. 24 Foundations of Modernity: A Brief Review ................................................... 24 The Iron Cage of Bureaucracy .....................................................................27 A Time of Great Paradox! ............................................................................29 A Postindustrial Perspective ........................................................................30 Leadership-The Debate Rages On ...................................................................32 The Leadership Debate: An lntroduction ...................................................... 32 Collaborative Leadership: An Integrated Model ........................................... 33 Collaborative Leadership and the Learning Organization ........................... .40 Changing the Dynamics of Power .......................................................................44 Changing the Notion of Power .................................................................... .44 Power With: The Basis of Collaborative Leadership .................................... 48 The Leadership Interdependency Scale ....................................................... 50 Knowledge and Learning-The New Power for the Next Millennium .................. 55 The Epoch of the Knowledge Worker ........................................................... 55 Towards More Democratic Organizations .................................................... 60 The Efficacy of Social Capital ......................................................................61 The 21 st Century Organization, An Essential Need to Learn ............................... 63 Learning to Learn Together ..........................................................................63 Stories as the Basis for Learning ................................................................. 66 Stories Can Transform Organizations ..........................................................68 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii A Brief History of War Gaming and Simulations ........................................... 71 Simulations as an Instrument for Leaming ...................................................74 Play as a Tool for Leaming ..........................................................................76 Summary ......................................................................................................78 CHAPTER THREE SIMULATION PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION ................... 80 Introduction .........................................................................................................80 Background into Leadership and Business Simulation Methods .................. 81 LeadSimm: Prototype of a Simulation Process ................................................... 82 Introduction of the Simulation Concept ........................................................ 82 The Lead Simm Prototype ............................................................................86 Part One: Research Design and the Two Simulations ........................................ 93 Overview of Research Design ......................................................................93 San Jose Police Department.. ...................................................................... 94 Economic Development lnstitute .................................................................. 96 Part Two: Evaluation of the Simulations .............................................................. 98 General Evaluation Structure .......................................................................98 Using Qualitative Research Methods in This Research ............................... 98 Reporting and Analyzing the Research Data ............................................. 100 Limitations ......................................................................................................... 101 Protection of Human Subjects ........................................................................... 101 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iv CHAPTER FOUR THE LEADSIMM