A Process-Driven Approach to Modeling Leadership

Abstract

This article proposes a new approach for defining and categorizing the activity of leadership with a strong orientation towards the definition and primacy of management and strategy layers of activity when seeking to attempt to understand and design new and emerging patterns within the enterprise. The specific model type within the emerging Next-Gen EA framework that talks to the concept of leadership is that of Organizational Capability that lies within the Business Function Layer. This new functional category also links to subordinate process models which define the specific activities from which the function is characterized. Together, the Function Type and the underlying process flows can be grouped to be termed a Reference Model of Organizational Behavior (RMOB). Together, this functional component and supporting process flows are fully conformant with the requirements for Process Reference Models, as prescribed by ISO ISO/IEC TR 24774:2010 and ISO/IEC 15504: 2004. This RMOB therefore has all the strength and flexibility of a robust software engineering tool, yet it is coupled with generic ability to describe a core function within the modern organization that has, to date, defied rigorous or quantifiable definition. This ability to describe, model, and capture „capability sets‟ supported by underlying process, information, and technologies within an organization fulfils one of the key determining factors within the Next-Gen EA framework, namely the ability to model the modern organization at all levels and add further sophistication to the model types provided by enterprise architecture in the quest to solve senior management business and strategy problems.