What's Missing from Leadership Development Programmes?

What’s missing in leadership development programmes?

There is one area that has not been covered in leadership development programmes very well. It’s what Otto Scharmer calls the Blind Spot of Leadership, and he’s referring to what goes on inside the leader. Most leadership development programmes only address what goes on outside leaders – that is their behaviours and the knowledge and skills that is it thought guide the leaders actions.

Typical leadership development programmes might contain the following elements:

• The essential profile: what makes a successful leader? Develop key attributes and abilities to balance leadership and management • Choose and adapt your leadership style: different people and different situations need different styles of leadership, learn to increase your flexibility • Intelligent leadership: a 360° model gives you a profile of your strengths and areas for development • Coaching skills: how to coach others, give effective and challenging feedback and understand how individuals and teams learn • Motivation: link theories and practice of motivation and use them in leadership and change situations • Managing performance: how to monitor and assess performance, identify and deal with poor performance, understand performance challenges • Creating high performing teams: identify the secrets of teams that excel As you will see, these are generally focused on imparting knowledge and skill development. Part of the challenge is that we have no good ‘maps’ of the interior landscape of a leader. We know that the interior is made up of beliefs, attitudes, opinions, values, expectations and aspirations. Our current world view does not give us a whole picture of what is needed.

To get a more holistic view, we need to draw from ancient wisdom because this tends to have a much deeper understanding of what it is to be human and the qualities needed for leading the self and others.

"...we confront two critical challenges: how to address deep problems for which hierarchical leadership alone is insufficient and how to harness the intelligence and spirit of people at all levels of the organization.

“Our responses may lead us, ironically, to a future based on more ancient - and more natural - ways of organizing.”

Peter M. Senge, Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct 1997 The following ‘map’ of eight ‘leadership intelligences’ is adapted from a body of ancient wisdom teachings that have their root in the Mayan and pre-Mayan cultures that I have studied, practiced and taught for many years. In this old way a different approach to development was used. Today our approach in leadership development programmes tends to be to look for what’s missing and then fix it. But if we don’t have good maps of the interior landscape it is difficult to know what is missing!

A more powerful approach is to paint an image of what is possible, the highest potential for a leader, and then decide how to move towards it. We usually end up with a life long journey of ‘coming to knowing’ rather than a discrete short term programme.

The Eight Leadership Intelligences Leadership development programmes that aim to develop the whole person could value from including the following:

Creation Intelligence The capability of a leader to access his spirit of boundless creativity and self-expression in developing the business. What business is not looking for more creativity, imagination, innovation and inventiveness today?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I free to express to myself and others who I truly am?

• Am I highly imaginative?

• Am I expressive and articulate?

• Do I evoke the creative fire of self and other ?

• Do I create and communicate my vision?

Perceptual Intelligence The capability of a leader to be fully aware of what is happening within herself and in the business and be able to communicate this without blaming or judging. In the busy-ness of today’s organisations, who would not benefit from a few minutes stillness now and again to really pay attention to what is going on and to ask what is needed?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I consciously aware of what is happening inside myself now and in my environment?

• Do I communicate well?

• Am I able to bring people into the present?

• Am I appreciative and non-judgemental?

Emotional Intelligence The capability of a leader to ensure the business is open and trusting in its power and alert to internal and external conflict than might threaten its well-being, particularly in times of change. Emotions are a valuable source of information but too often they drive unconscious behaviour that creates conflict and wasted energy in businesses.

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I open to the adventure and discovery in my life?

• Am I open and trusting?

• Do I use emotions as a source of energy or do I get trapped by them?

• Am I alert to the dangers and stable under fire?

• How well do I deal with change in my life?

Pathfinding Intelligence The capability of a leader to keep everyone aware of the business purpose, clear about their identity, mindful of the learnings from their experience and focussed on their direction. In these unpredictable times, organisations need leaders who can find the path ahead and keep the organisations actions aligned with it.

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I able to focus my attention amidst many distractions and stay on my purpose?

• Can I access the memory of past experiences?

• How well do I create focussed targets for myself and others?

• Have I developed a deep sense of my own identity?

• How well can I access a true sense of direction?

Sustaining Intelligence The capability of a leader to ensure the sustainability of the business by identifying what’s needed for the balance and maintenance of structures and processes that will ensure regeneration, strengthening and growth. For an organisation to be healthy and strong then all its members must be equally healthy and strong. How well do leaders balance the care for the people with the need to get the next task done?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I maintaining balance in all areas of my life?

• Do I care for myself and others?

• Do I see what is needed to maintain what has been created?

• Do I maintain my health?

• Do I care for what needs healing?

Predictive Intelligence The capability of a leader to ensure mindfulness of the rhythms and cycles of the business and of the web of cause and effect that shapes the future. How able are leaders to forecast the consequences, both positive and negative, of their actions?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I seeking to learn from all experiences in my life?

• Do I make connections that others don’t make?

• Do I see the cycles and rhythms in my life?

• How well can I predict what is coming?

Decisive Intelligence The capability of a leader to foster courage and clarity among people and to draw upon their resources to take the necessary clear action. How courageous are leaders engaging more of the collective genius of their organisation to develop and implement strategy?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I using resource and strategy to take clear action in my life?

• Am I clear about my resources?

• Am I decisive?

• Am I courageous?

• Do I create simple strategies that engage others?

Energia Intelligence The capability of a leader to make certain that all the voices are heard and to ensure a vitality and energy of enthusiasm exists among the people. How well do leaders inspire others and call them to right action though their words and actions?

To further explore this intelligence, you might ask yourself:

• Am I interested and involved in all aspects of my life?

• How enthusiastic am I?

• Do my actions match my words?

• Can I transform my energy and that of others, when needed?

• Am I sparkling and arousing?

Every one of us has the potential to develop each of these intelligences and use them in a balanced way to build thriving and sustainable organisations that avoid the following potential pitfalls of current leadership development programmes:

• The leader who has brilliant visionary ideas, but who cannot communicate in a way that engages others to implement them • The leader who is working all hours yet is unaware or insensitive to what is going on in and around them • The leader who champions change but avoids the emotions and conflict that results • The leader who communicates the mission and purpose but get’s too absorbed in the detail and ends up taking the business off track • The leader who cares deeply for people but can’t challenge poor performance • The leader so focused on the short term that they miss the disastrous yet predictable long term consequences of their actions • The leader who creates great strategies and then is indecisive in their implementation • The leader who performs strongly, but overwork and stress create burn out Now is the time to recognise the blindspot and design leadership development programmes that develop our fullest potential as leaders.

Mike Bell 2008

What's Missing from Leadership Development Programmes? - To learn more about this author, visit Mike Bell's Website.

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