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  "release": "0.35",
  "citation": "Taylor, B. P. (2026). Systems leadership. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/approach_family_systems_leadership/",
  "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0 for original atlas text and data; linked works retain their own terms",
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    "id": "approach_family_systems_leadership",
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    "description": "An overloaded family of approaches ranging from leading an institutional 'system' more effectively, through creating more legitimate authority, to helping people develop new ways of organising. The phrase does not by itself specify the system, the leadership relation or whose purposes count.",
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    "reviewed_at": "2026-08-10",
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    "title": "Systems leadership",
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    "canonical_definition": "An overloaded family of approaches ranging from leading an institutional 'system' more effectively, through creating more legitimate authority, to helping people develop new ways of organising. The phrase does not by itself specify the system, the leadership relation or whose purposes count.",
    "summary": "Systems leadership is not one approach. It can mean better leadership of a set of institutions, better systems thinking by leaders, more legitimate shared authority, facilitation of system development, or support for new possibilities. These aims can conflict.",
    "why_it_matters": "The label often creates false agreement. People may support 'systems leadership' while imagining very different distributions of authority, legitimacy, accountability and control.",
    "key_distinctions": [
      "leadership of an institutional system vs leadership informed by systems thinking",
      "improving system effectiveness vs challenging the legitimacy of existing power",
      "leading change vs helping a system explore and develop itself",
      "formal authority vs influence without authority"
    ],
    "historical_lineage": [
      "public-service partnership and place leadership",
      "systems thinking and organisational cybernetics",
      "collective, adaptive and facilitative leadership traditions",
      "systems-change movements and social innovation"
    ],
    "logical_antecedents": [
      "Boundary",
      "Purpose",
      "Power",
      "Legitimacy",
      "Systems practice"
    ],
    "dependent_subsequents": [
      "Shared governance",
      "Place leadership",
      "Collective action",
      "Systems change"
    ],
    "practice_connections": [
      "state which system and purposes are in focus",
      "make authority and accountability explicit",
      "distinguish coordination from genuine redistribution of power",
      "test effectiveness and legitimacy together"
    ],
    "espoused_lineages": [],
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    "common_misreadings": [
      "that adding 'systems' makes ordinary leadership systemic",
      "that collaboration removes conflict or hierarchy",
      "that one leader can stand outside and lead the whole system",
      "that all six meanings point in the same direction"
    ],
    "open_checks": [
      "develop rival classifications and international usage",
      "add cases where systems leadership improved coordination but damaged legitimacy, and vice versa"
    ],
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    "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
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    "editorial_note": "A developed working distinction for this release. The term remains contested and should be tested against rival usage and practice."
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