Surely a leader should know what to do? But what happens when complexity means they cannot know which path to take? We answer this question with an ethnographic study of distributed leadership (DL) in an organisation grappling with inherent tensions within its mission. The article makes a counter-intuitive argument for the value and utility of unknowingness, defined as a state of awareness of both an absence of knowing and one’s inability to know. Three inter-related aspects to unknowingness are developed – acceptance of not knowing, tolerance of the discomfort of not knowing, and distribution of unknowingness – leading to an innovative theory of unknowingness. We reveal how unknowingness and DL are bound with each other in the sense that not knowing can enable distribution of leadership within the organisation, whilst DL addresses challenges in complex organisations associated with not knowing. We thereby provide an illustration of the interplay between those with hierarchical authority and others dispersed throughout an organisation. In sum, we provide an alternative perspective to the heroic, all-knowing individual leader.

中文翻译：

---

“我不知道发生了什么”：理论化未知与分布式领导之间的关系

领导者肯定应该知道该做什么吗？但是，当复杂性意味着他们不知道该走哪条路时会发生什么？我们通过对组织中的分布式领导力 (DL) 的人种学研究来回答这个问题，该组织正在努力解决其使命中固有的紧张局势。这篇文章对“无知”的价值和效用提出了反直觉的论点，“无知”被定义为一种对不知道和无法知道的意识状态。发展了不知道的三个相互关联的方面——接受不知道、容忍不知道的不适以及分配不知道——从而产生了创新的不知道理论。我们揭示了未知和深度学习如何相互联系，因为未知可以实现组织内领导力的分配，而深度学习则解决了复杂组织中与未知相关的挑战。因此，我们展示了具有等级权威的人和分散在整个组织中的其他人之间的相互作用。总之，我们为英勇、无所不知的个人领导者提供了另一种视角。