|
Seven Models of Leadership Development
Robert M. Tomasko
1. Intellectual construct-based
Curriculum is based on a set of concepts:
What leaders need to know (knowledge and ideas)
Strategic thinking and planning
Target setting
Performance measurement and control
Organizing the work of others
Systems thinking
Change management
Emotional intelligence (self mastery and relationship skills)
What skills leaders need to practice (behaviors)
Decision making and problem solving
Negotiation
Motivating others
Presentation techniques
Time management
Cross-cultural sensitivity and communication
Effective meeting leadership
Influenced by a theory of leadership
Managers vs. leaders
Transactional vs. transformational leaders
Situational/contingency
Personality psychology topologies
Company-specific norms
2 types of programs:
1. Master a body of knowledge/acquire common skills
2. Assess future leaders against a standard
Develop a curriculum/development plan to close gaps
These are ideal for intellectually curious employees with
available time
2. Learning-lab-based
Simulations of business leadership situations in a controlled
setting
Allow for experimentation with new behaviors
Put participants in touch with personal passions and power
Feedback-rich opportunities for awareness and reflection
Team-oriented
Examples:
"Outward Bound type" wilderness adventures
Emphasis on stressful physical exercises
"Personal growth labs"
Emphasis on emotional intensity
"Management game simulations"
"Perspective-broadening" seminars (classic literature,
poetry, arts)
3. Business issue-based
Identify broad issues of general concern to leaders
Construct programs to deliver a specific benefit
Examples:
Leading corporate renewal
Orchestrating winning performance
Mobilizing people
Managing the innovation process: from idea and technology to
market
Accelerating international growth
Provide updates on latest-thinking
Often from top thought leaders
4. Strategy-based
Curriculum content is mirror image of strategic plan
Very company-specific
Examples:
Grow in consulting - study consulting skills
Broaden employee gene pool - study how to create a multicultural
work force
Grow in Europe - study European cultures and business practices
Grow through acquisition and partnership - study successes
and failures in alliance-creation and acquisition-assimilation
Grow by doing more of the same - study best-of-the-best practices
now in place/spread them
Curriculum changes as strategy evolves
Curriculum development is integrated into strategic planning
Scenario-planning is sometimes taught as a way to "condition"
the thinking of those involved in preparing the strategic plan
Challenge complacency, extend thinking horizons
5. Career stage-based
Some leadership skills are stage-specific
Movement from stage-to-stage requires acquisition of some
new skills and unlearning of some old ones
Two models of career stages:
A. Individual roles
Stage 1: Apprentice
dependent learner
Stage 2: Individual contributor
independent specialist
Stage 3: Manager (or Senior Professional)
assumes responsibility for others
expands breadth of skills
Stage 4: Director (or Guru/Recognized Thought Leader)
exercises power to shape the direction of the organization
sponsors future leaders
B. Organizational transitions
Manage self to manage others
Manage others to managing managers
Managing managers to managing a function
Managing a function to managing a business
Managing a business to managing a group of businesses
Managing a group to managing an enterprise
6. "Leaders-developing-leaders"
(University of Michigan model)
Assumptions about leadership
Must be learned holistically, not by analysis of components
Must not confuse concepts about leadership with leadership
Don't struggle to define and analyze leadership
Instead, consider it something that is present and must be encouraged
in the future
Two premises:
1. Leadership is best learned through coaching, mentorship
and modeling
from recognized leaders
This learning happens through the process of "identification"
with a role model
2. Leadership is best expressed in the act of transmitting
its essence to
future leaders - sign that you know it is that you can teach
it
The mark of a leader able to sustain success is teaching ability
Three components of what is to be transmitted:
1. Beliefs, values, philosophy, tactics, mindset, techniques
(explicit)
2. Tacit know-how and behaviors (implicit)
3. Theory and concepts have more credibility when taught by
practitioners
Five-step cascade model of transmission:
1. Current leaders develop their personal point of view on
the business
Often done through systematic reflection on their experiences
using an advisor to serve as a sounding board
Avoid: mission statements, lists of values, intellectual generalizations,
bullet points. Instead focus on: "here's what I believe
based on these experiences"
Content includes:
Idea generation
Promoting values
Choosing a direction
Mobilizing support (inside and outside the company)
Generating energy throughout the organization
Making tough decisions
2. Bring this point-of-view alive so it can be transmitted
and acted upon
allow it to be understood rationally and emotionally
Use stories to make it teachable
Stories are:
Memorable
Illustrative of underlying hidden dynamics
Reflective of the ambiguity in the real world
Stories answer the most important questions:
Who I am
What we are
Where we have come from
What we are facing
Where we are going
What we need to do
How we will get there
The best stories leave things out
Provide opportunities for listeners to flesh out or even change
the ending
3. Provide a structure to allow future leaders to put in practice
the lessons they derive from the stories and interaction with
the current leaders...
... by solving real-time/real-world business issues
in an atmosphere of coaching and reflection
4. Make heroes out of the future leaders by recognizing and
spreading word of their successes
5. Teach the future leaders how to teach others...
...by helping them find their own personal point of view on
the business
6. Have the future leaders repeat this process with the potential
leaders of their own organizations
Leadership does not stop at the office building door -
these programs frequently include:
Community service and social development components
Consideration of how business leaders can also have a strong
family life
Discussions of the ethical dilemmas involved in making tough
business decisions
7. Pantheon of leaders
Assumptions about leadership
The nature of effective leadership will vary with the situation
Learning only by role modeling current leaders produces clones
Leader's mistakes can teach as much as their successes
Content of these programs goes beyond reflection by current
leaders
Designate a pantheon of leaders whose actions will be studied,
individuals within the company and in other industries, as well
as a range of political, social and historical personalities.
Adjust the characters in the pantheon regularly, as the business'
challenges change.
© Robert M. Tomasko 2002
|
