Mapping institutional impacts of lean communication in lean agencies - Information technology illiteracy and leadership failure

Information technology's (IT) influence on formative contexts and on requis ite leadership roles is conceptualized both as an enabling force for organi zational networking and a reducing force for diversity in leadership functi ons and cultural contexts. The contemporary "New Age" leadership literature calls for personal and ideological leadership unencumbered by issues of cu ltural context, communicative complexities and the need for more comprehens ive and sophisticated global social analysis. At the same lime, this litera ture punctuates a noticeable indifference to the issue of strategic IT lite racy on behalf of agency elites. A preoccupation with "lean and mean", unbr idled managerial prerogatives competitive rhetoric overstressing means at t he expense of legitimate ends, business process re-engineering, downsizing and IT-mediated globalization can be construed as an abject failure of agen cy elites to understand and protect distinctive competencies in governance and in organized action. Administrative theory urgently requires a renewed understanding of vulnerability and resilience in agency behavior and the ne ed for renewed institutional and IT-literate leadership.