Research, Technology, & Teamwork blog by Susie Wee

I think your comment here is similar. Use the classifications to better understand yourself and others, but always remember that every person is a learning organism, so don't use it to accept who you are or who someone else is and don't use it to expect who you or someone else should be. Did I capture your guiding principle here?

Also, I like how you simplified leadership into "common sense" and "intelligence". This does go far. But I guess one question is to what extent can good management/leadership be taught or do you need to start with a person with lots of common sense and intelligence and have them figure it out?

Thanks for you insightful comment as it reminds me of our past conversations which I really enjoyed and learned from! This is the reason I was so excited about you creating your own blog!

Posted by susie.wee on 10/23/2007 9:58 AM
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1. Most people's leadership behaviours (and cumulatively their style) are deeply engrained. Many people fail to appreciate just how hard it is to actually develop new leadership behaviours sustained over time. It is easy to raise awareness and gain knowledge about leadership, but changing behaviour takes focus, pratice and persistence more akin to learning a musical instrument than attending a single course.

2. Therefore, as the late Peter Drucker highlighted, the first step in developing leadership should be about positioning leader roles in such a way that it is their strengths that are called for the majority of the time.

3. Leadership is also a collective endeavour, and the development of leadership is increaisngly looking at ways to enhance the collective impact of leadership teams. Building on point 2; rather than trying to find the right mix of styles, or to change people's styles to create this so called 'right mix', leadership teams should reflect on the strengths of each member and ask themselves the question, 'How can we enhance our collective impact by taking advantage of the strengths we do have, offsetting each other's weaknesses with each other's strengths where possible?'

4. Points 2-3 take a small amount of time to dicuss and can be implemented easily as people are only being asked to make a more conscious use of their preferred ways of operating. Now it is time to look at developing competence in non-preferred behaviours (or styles) only in areas that have not been adequately covered by points 2-3 above. As sustained development is really hard work, it is important to focus it on only a few critical areas for each person.

Kindest Regards

Shaun Killian

Director

Australian Leadership Development Centre

http://www.leadershipdevelopment.edu.au/

Posted by Australian Leadership Developm... on 12/12/2007 5:52 PM
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* No single list of traits was found to hold true as an absolute guarantee of success (or failure if one was missing) 100% of the time.

* Behaviorism took hold as the dominant form of psychology for a large period in the US

* Cultural pressure abounded re equality in the workplace

However, more recently researchers have accepted the key role innate characteristics play in determining who will emerge and succeed as a leader. The idea that we all have an equal ability to lead well is a myth, just as the idea that we can all play soccer like David Beckham or sing like Pavorotti is a myth. We accept this in areas such as sport, music and academics in children yet we are more reluctant to do so with leadership ability (yet it is there with captains formal or not in little kids sports teams). I believe (but no evidence on this one) that his is because we don't see leadership as a role or a job, but rather as 'better' person; hence we take offense at being told we may not be as naturally good at leadership as others. In short - much of our engrained leadership behavior is not learned at all.

That said leadership can be developed just as we can learn to be better soccer players and singers. The sport and music metaphor is useful as it mirrors how development is constrained by natural ability and the focus, practice and persistence needed to achieve it. To date, the most successful leadership development processes help people to move from conscious clumsy competence (eg like when learning to drive a car) to unconscious competence. Advances in neuroscience have shown that this process actually involves forming (through repeated focussed attention) new neural circuits in the basal ganglia, which handles semi-automated, 'subconscious' behaviors. The failure to do so is why we have research showing that less than 15% of leadership development training resulting in sustained changes in leadership behavior. It is interesting to note that such change does not require spending a lot of time and money on huge leadership development. The simle act of choosing 1 behavior you want to develop and reflecting on it for 5 minutes each day in a leadership journal over a period of 3-6 motnhs has a great success rate. You can use 'daily habit helper prompts' in our leadership journaling software as an example (you can download a free trial of the software in the NEWS & EVENTS: Nuerocience Scheds Light' article on the front page of the website. I'm not trying to sell here - you can check out the reflective processes used in the journal software and simply write them down and apply them in a pen/paper journal if you like or after 30 days uy the sofware for $49US. The point is such proven techniques are cheap yet organizations continue to spend tens of millions of dollars in 'event' and academic style programs that simly don't deviver anything othe than good intentions, enhanced awareness and at best some short term changes.

Re subconscious learning. This is a relatively new field and I am tentative about endorsing any such processes as yet. That said I am very interested in them and seing where the research leads in the future. Again neuroscience shows us that there is a difference between being consciously good at something (eg reading emotions in others through reading of various cues) and subconsiously good at the same thing without any readingof cues. Whilst subconscious skill for most people is innate, work by people such as Dr Paul Ekman www.paulekman.com (nothing to do with us) on microexpression training (METT) looks at educating directly into the subconscious aspects of the brain.

On another point - collaboration. We do a lot of work in that area. A few points to note: * Collaborative decision-making and problem solving, done well through dialogue and consensus has been shown to consistently produce better results than any indivdual in the group could achieve on their own. This often surprises 'smart and savvy' leaders who believe they know best and collaboration is tolerated merely to get buy in through allowing a little bit of change around the edges of their ideas.

* Collaboration done poorly leads to watered down compromises and worse outcomes than simply letting one person decide and going with that.

* Whilst well handled collaboration always leads to a better outcome, the degree of difference is not always worth the cost in people's time.

Have a look at the 'normative model' in our Overeview of Leadership Theories' link at the very bottom of our homepage. It outlines in simple terms when leaders should just decide things themselves, when they should consult, when they should decide as a group and when they should delegate. Two versions of the model exist. You usethe first when time is tight and the other when time is not, and you therefore want to take the time to develop others' competence as well as getting the best result. Sorry for the essay - went on a bit there. I'm on holidays for eight weeks and enjoy and hour each day discussing things I am passionate about but don't normally get the time. Kindest Regards Shaun Killian

Posted by Australian Leadership Developm... on 12/13/2007 5:45 PM
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