At certain times a team leader needs to facilitate rather than direct. However when a leader acts too much as a facilitator or a facilitator starts to try to lead a team you get problems. Enjoy what happens when the Red Dwarf crew get themselves in a real mess over this point.

When the Red Dwarf crew have all their negative emotions sucked out by an alien poor old Rimmer loses his anger and turns into a "facilitative leader".

But does Rimmer win the support of the team for his proposed solutions to the crisis at hand?

How does a team leader judge when facilitation is required rather than direction?

Which member of the Red Dwarf crew shows most leadership in this clip?

Watch the clip Red Dwarf: The Meeting

The defining difference between Leadership and Facilitation is really the difference between (detached) involvement and (active) commitment.

My favourite illustration of this difference is the role of the pig and the chicken in delivering the bacon and eggs for your breakfast - the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

Further Reading

Collective stupidity and the madness of crowds

Leadership under pressure: the two worst mistakes

About Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson delivers keynote conference speeches, workshop facilitation and in-house consultancy in four key business areas:

1. Creating High Performing Teams in enterprises including Virtual and Mobile Teams (based on the Bioteams Book)
2. Establishing effective Collaborative Business Networks enabling companies to co-operate effectively in areas such as sales and product development (based on the book - The Networked Enterprise)
3. How to use the latest social media technologies including blogging and online communities to promote enterprises, brand, organisation or event
4. Development of graphical on-line interactive Business Dashboards and What-if Simulators for organisations to support Performance Improvement, Strategy Development and Executive Team Development.

   
   Tags: facilitation, leadership, videos

 

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