Bottom-up+&amp;+top-down

Recurring Themes and Terms - Bottom-up & top-down
In complexity, order emerges from interacting agents and their interaction with the environment. Order is not imposed exogenously, but at the same time, the order that emerges is in some sense shaped by external constraints. The "container" shapes the things that might possibly happen inside. Therefore, since leadership is a system function that unifies the system and enables performance and adaptation, and thus the "ordering" of the system, leadership cannot only be top-down; it must also be bottom-up. Leadership is certainly present when constraints are placed on the system to contain it human interaction dynamics (HID), but it must also be present to shape the "rules of interaction" at work as interacting agents act as catalysts for //bottom-up// emergent structures & organizing patterns


 * Human interaction dynamics (HID)** is a generic term for the sharing of resources and information that occurs in human systems as individuals interact withone another under conditions of mutual influence. Due to mutual influence, the outcomes of HID have a property where a level of unpredictability remains. Thus HID creates information as events unfold, a process that can be measured using the concept of information entrophy (Cover & Thomas, 2006).


 * Emergence** is a characteristic of complex systems whereby aspects of the whole system cannot be fully anticipated simply by knowing the parts or components. This is often summarized as "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" although such a characteriziation can be misleading. Understanding emergence remains a core area of research in the complexity sciences.


 * System properties** are aspects of system that can be modeled and to some degree predicted using various kinds of models, including dynamical systems models or agent based models. A new property that cannot be anticipated by simply knowing the components that make it up is called an //emergent property//; these are a key area of study in the complexity sciences. The relationship between leadership, both as individual actions and as a system function, and system prperties, particularly //emergent properties// is a key area of study. For example, innovation might be considered an emergent property of a system: How does leadership relate to innovation? It cannot simply be top down, but it is not only bottom up either. The same conundrum characterizes other emrgent properties such as performance, identity, and so forth.

Key Insights
Let us see different forms of leadership not restricted to formal (managerial) roles but rather as a process that emerges informally & bottom-up in a complex interactive dynamic embedded in context.

This informal, emergent leadership interacts with administrative (managerial, bureaucratic) leadership in a manner that has been called by some researchers "coupling."