Bill, here are top-of-my-head thoughts:
1. A leader's role (as distinct from other members of the team) is to be
responsible for the "system" within which the team functions. By
"responsible for the system" I mean, at least, responsible for
understanding what the system is [dynamically -- i.e., how it functions;
what the time course of its actions look like] and how the system either
helps team members or interferes with them as they attempt to work toward
achieving team goals and vision.
2. The leader, who understands the system, is then responsible for seeing
that the system's structures ("infrastructure") are made more helpful to
team members and to the achievement of team goals and vision. This, of
course, doesn't mean doing it oneself. It does mean, though, putting in
place structures for the "movement" (or flow) of information, material,
orders, money, people, and capital equipment. Look at any good system
dynamics model of business processes to see one way of representing and
understanding these flows (e.g., in Forrester's classic book, "Industrial
Dynamics.")
3. Finally, to get around to responding directly to your question, as the
team puts in place structures for dealing with the flows of information,
material, orders, money, people, and capital equipment, technology will be
useful in many different ways. The ways that technology helps manage the
various flows within a business process are ways that technology enhances
leadership. Because it is in the control of these flows that leadership
is actually felt within an organization; it is the policies (decisions)
that regulate these flows where leadership has any effect on an
organization. Anything that helps leaders establish better policies and
make better decisions can be said to "enhance leadership" I would think.
Does this help at all, Bill?
Also, our fearless list moderator, Rick Karash, helped the people who
worked on the new book, The Dance of Change, hold an email dialogue about
technology. The complete roundtable is available at
http://www.fieldbook.com/online.html
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>