Practically everyone agrees that leadership is an essential ingredient for business success. How to achieve great leadership is a matter of debate.
Millions of dollars are poured annually into leadership development programs, coaching, and training, yet there is a gap between where weâd like our leaders to be and where they actually are today.
Thatâs because weâve been looking in the wrong places and measuring the wrong metrics to assess leadership success. Two pivotal factors have been overlooked:
These two factors require specific leadership processes and mindsets.
How do leaders shift from swimming with their heads full of good intentions to the place where they have the ability to release the full capacities of their group and deliver results? Letâs start by identifying the main causes of disengagement and focus on what leaders can do to gain alignment.
Having the top job doesnât make you a leader. The social identity of a leader such as mechanic, doctor, nurse, teacher, marketer, African American, IT specialist, woman, banker, etc.âor any mix of these identitiesâgives no hint of the value and leadership capacities of that individual. Job titles may help people choose whom to consult for a specific matter and the types of decisions that person might make, but they donât convey leadership ability.
Many of us have naively expected that shared social identity would create unity. This helps to explain our penchant for conferences for the meeting of minds and sharing of experience. But, in fact, differentiating people by their social identity is one of societyâs most divisive tools. Continuing to differentiate by race, gender, ethnicity, or professional identity invariably leads to destructive behaviors, social and business exclusion, and restricted access to services rather than expansion.
Thatâs because defining and separating groups by social identity attracts strong feelings from stereotyping and assumptions. Differentiating and creating hierarchies among groups by social identity underpins our social failures. As it turns out, academics, business schools, and leaders have been looking in the wrong place for unifying forces within society, organizations, and the groups we lead.
Looking for Eggs in a Shoe Shop
Itâs as if weâve been looking for eggs in a shoe shop. No matter how carefully we look, itâs unlikely weâll find them there between the sandals and the boots.
The real success of any leader lies in their identityâhow they enact their role through their personal qualities. This deeply influences how people experience working with them, and impacts the results they achieve within their organization. The same is true for everyone else within the organization. Regardless of your appointed position, you can lead and be dramatically effective.
Organizations invest millions of dollars in training and development each year to provide leaders with skills and expertise in strategic and business planning, business analysis, performance management, and negotiation. Yet itâs the leaderâs capacity to produce progressive interaction among people and release both the known and hidden talents of others that is key to that leaderâs success.
Our commitment to linear solutions to leadership development has not produced the results envisioned, yet we have persisted down that path as if we are still looking for those eggs in that shoe shop. Business schools, academia, and leadership advisors still hold onto the belief that a focus on developing specialist content, logic, and information will help leaders align people. It doesnât. These activities may fill leadersâ minds, but they do little to help them develop inspiring relationships that bring the best out of people.
Early in my career, I was program manager, then course director, for the New Zealand College of Management. My function was to design (and at times lead) month-long leadership development programs.
The Advanced Leadership Program emerged from war times at an administrative staff college in the 1950s. By the mid-1980s, the program was tiredâso much so that the retired CEOs who were the course directors were known to fall asleep during working sessions. Forty middle and senior executives would attend the month-long program and endure a series of presentations. Working groups met in the evenings and proceeded to run up horrendous bar bills.
After enduring one of these programs, I implemented changes. First, I modified the welcome meeting to focus on building connections among participants. Each executive set personal learning goals. We formed and embedded peer groups of six to seven participants based on the criteria, With whom here would you choose to solve complex problems? The self-selection of peer group members was a critical success factor.
Each session leader was invited to implement an interactive two- to three-day session using a variety of learning methods. During the final three days, I embedded a current case study with a nationwide organization, which concluded with a live report back to the CEO.
Remarkably (but not unexpectedly), alcohol consumption dropped below 50% of previous programs. Evenings were largely working sessions and peer-group interactions. Life-long collegial friendships were formed.
Over successive months, I introduced 360-degree feedback, two-day looking glass business simulation from the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina, and personalized coaching.
These innovations in the 1980s dramatically expanded the Collegeâs reputation. I saw firsthand how the power of relationships among participants contributed directly to the development of these senior leaders, their participation in the program, and their subsequent professional contributions. Month-long intensive leadership development programs have long since disappeared but the lifelong collegial relationships made in those times did not.
How often have you gone to conferences only to find the real source of learning, insight, and vitality was found during breaks and mealtimes?
Interpersonal connections, happenstance meetings, and complementary experiences are discovered within personal interactions, rather than during the sessions that impart content and knowledge. A simple question like, What brought you here? might well begin a lifelong collegial friendship. I nearly didnât come, my Dad is very ill might create an empathetic response and simple human connection. I wanted to discover how to bring relevant human connections into working sessions, where participants got to know one another rapidly and relevantly, and could bring their authentic selves to the work of the group.
I was determined to make this the emphasis of my work with clients. I wanted to help leaders get the best from those with whom they were working. I wanted leaders and presenters to give up the relentless one-way delivery of informationâeither verbally or by endless PowerPoint slidesâwith participants having no way to integrate or apply that information. From international regulatory standards agencies to community medical centers, leaders madly hoped that giving information and ideas was the best way to generate participation and alignment among participants. They thought this would ensure changes are implemented and innovative developments flourish. But there was a problem: one-way communication just doesnât work.
Gillian Mylrea, veterinarian, Head of Standards Department at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), grappled with this. She was facilitating a three-day seminar with participants from 24 countries to ensure they took on:
- Understanding their responsibilities as a Member of the OIE
- Improved animal health and welfare worldwide
- Prevented the spread of pathogenic agents via international trade
- Enhanced access to global markets for animals and animal products
- Avoided unjustified sanitary barriers to trade
- Participated in the OIEâs standard-setting process
This was no mean feat. This particular session was held in Nairobi, Kenya. Gillian and I discussed her strategy. Having worked previously with me in New Zealand, she wanted participants to truly engage with one another as they grappled with their broad agenda. She had researched how adults learn and was convinced that her organization would have a stronger and more consistent uptake of new policies if delegates engaged with one another rather than merely absorbed information.
Historically, the seminar format included many presentations and little time for interpersonal interactions. Gillian had noticed few people interacted in the breaks. We settled on a different approach.
To begin the seminar, Gillianâs invitation was for participants to meet one another. They were invited to stand in a large circle and introduce themselves with their name, role, and country. Gillian then asked, Who has been to five or more of these events? Please step forward âŚ, then step back again. Then, Who has been to between two and four of these events? Please step forward âŚ, then back again. Finally, Who is here at their first OIE event? Immediately, everyone had a picture of the groupâs depth of experience with OIE events, and also who the newcomers were.
Delegates were then invited to choo...
