Evolving Leaders: A Model for Promoting Leadership Development in Programs

Charles J. Palus, Wilfred H. Drath

• Editorial: Center for Creative Leadership Press
• Año: 1995
• ISBN:
  9781604918144
• Categoría: Business
• Categoría: Leadership

Although leadership development is widely acknowledged as important, our understanding of it is largely implicit. This has made programs that seek to promote it difficult to design and implement, and challenging to evaluate effectively. The model presented in this report specifies how programs can affect a key aspect of leadership development--the psychological development of the individual.

The Model

The model we offer (see Figure 2) shows a cyclic process of three time-linked categories: readiness for development, developmental processes, and outcomes. At first glance these categories might not seem different from those used in training for the learning of specific content. As we discuss the makeup of these categories and their processes, it should be clear that we are concerned not so much with imparting skills but with the evolution of more encompassing and adaptive meaning structures.⁴

Figure 2. Leadership Development Program Model

Readiness for Development

The term readiness for development refers to a simple and important observation: There are developmental differences among people entering leadership development programs, and within an individual at different points in his or her life. The basic diagnostic question for readiness is, “What kind of developmental work is each person best prepared to do?” Or perhaps, “Where are they at, what do they need, and how do they need it?” Adding to the complexity introduced by this basic observation is a related point: There will be cultural differences in the supportiveness of the home environments (organizational, familial, societal) for these differing developmental positions. And this: Some people will be well-prepared to engage a potentially stressful developmental experience; others will not be ready for additional stress in their lives. Some strategy for comprehending and handling diverse needs within the program context, including screening and sorting participants, is necessary.

We propose four types of readiness factors: trait, state, environmental, and sociocultural. Trait and state refer to a person’s internal condition. Environmental and sociocultural refer to a person’s external milieu. Table 1 lists selected factors we propose for each type. Two cautions are in order. First, although it can be useful to focus on the role of various specific readiness factors—as a diagnostic strategy, in research, or in a process of programmatic feedback—it must be kept in mind that the diagnosis of readiness involves a consideration of the pattern which is emergent from the totality of factors—that is, consideration of the “whole person”—rather than of abstract factors taken one at a time. And, second, there is typically a great deal of interdependence among these four types of readiness factors, and distinctions among the types are not always clear-cut. For example, a person’s age is a state that is laden with sociocultural significance. This typology is meant to be a heuristic device with which to draw more elements into a perception of the patterned whole.

Table 1. A Selected List of Proposed Developmental Readiness Factors

INTERNAL
Trait	State
enduring character	developmental stage
chronic problems	stability of life structure
	life-story
	age
	satisfaction
	acute problems
EXTERNAL
Environmental	Sociocultural
holding environments: work, family, community	developmental norms: age, gender, race, class, ethnicity
job challenges stressful events	social milieu / world events and conditions
fortuitous events

Our present understanding of readiness is far from complete; diagnosis of readiness is still more of an art than a science. The following discussion is selective and often speculative. We invite readers to build on our understanding.

Trait readiness factors. By traits we mean relatively enduring psychological characteristics of the individual. Traits typically don’t change much over time, although the way a trait is expressed is subject to learning and development. For example, introversion/extraversion is an enduring trait dimension, and introversion is identifiable in infancy and tends to persist throughout adulthood (Kagan, 1971; McCrae & Costa, 1984). However, an introverted person may learn to moderate introverted behavior as appropriate, and may become adept at, and more valuing of, extraverted behavior.

What “character” is and how enduring it is is a matter of many alternative definitions and much debate. William James (1890) saw it as that which is “set like plaster” by about age 30. Freud held the die to be cast by age seven or so, the routine fate of adulthood being to relive early patterns. Much developmental theory is at odds with the more extreme versions of “plaster theory.” What we are interested in is how a person’s character traits affect the development of meaning-making—the substantial aspect of a person which need not harden.

Kaplan (1990, 1991) and his colleagues (Kaplan, Drath, & Kofodimos, 1991) have described a trait that is apparent in high-achieving executives called expansiveness: an aggressive need for mastery and the urge to “expand” one’s domains. A kind of readiness is revealed in the observation that expansive executives tend to become elevated and isolated by their position, such that they become insulated from valid and useful feedback from others. Thus, an effective intervention has been to flood the individual with data in a supportive yet challenging program context so that any case for change is made comprehensively and convincingly.

Drath (1990) argued that expansive executives tend to be in what Kegan (1982) has called the “Institutional Stage” of development (a stage that features a strong sense of individualized personal identity). Thus strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth derive from a developmental logic that includes “expansive character” as but one element. In this view, some aspects of character that appear to be set in plaster are in fact plastic, and there is the potential for further development.

Palus and his colleagues analyzed the case of Dodge Morgan, a CEO who quit his job in order to pursue his dream of sailing around the world alone. The authors looked at the circumstances that led this consummate expansive into—and then away from—meaning structures oriented toward individual achievement (Palus, Nasby, & Easton, 1991). A life-story perspective (mentioned below) was used to examine readiness in this case study.

A trait that shows promise as a readiness factor is called openness to experience (hereafter referred to as openness). High openness is characterized by a flexible and inviting (hence “open”) approach to new ideas and new experiences. Costa and McCrae (1978) described openness as “marked by toleration for and exploration of the unfamiliar, a playful approach to ideas and problem solving, and an appreciation of experience for its own sake” (p. 127). Openness has been shown to be moderately correlated to the ego-developmental stage as measured on Loevinger’s scale (McCrae & Costa, 1990), and to the stage of moral reasoning as measured on Rest’s (1979) scale (Rybash, 1982). The trait of openness, at least in some modest amount, would appear to be favorable to the evolution of a person’s meaning structures.

Musselwhite (1985) described a constellation of traits, quite similar to openness, which contributed to increased “readiness for learning” in a study of outcomes of a leadership development program. He used the descriptor “facilitator of change” to describe a person who is “innovative, ready to explore, plow new ground,” “not a defensive person who hopes to maintain the status quo” (pp. 79, 106).

But high openness is not necessarily desirable: “Individuals [with] excessively high levels of openness may be so easily drawn to each new idea or belief that they are unable to form a coherent and integrated life structure” (McCrae & Costa, in press, p. 31). It does appear that some capacity for openness—and a modest capacity may be sufficient—must be mobilized or “spoken to” during a leadership development program.

Interesting research questions abound: Can openness itself be changed by a transformative experience (Palus, 1993)? Does openness promote the examination and revision of imperatives from childhood (Gould, 1978)? Are open individuals more likely to periodically reshape their life structures (Levinson, Darrow, Klein, Levinson, & McKee, 1978)?

The literature of psychology is filled with descriptions of afflictions that often prove to be more-or-less enduring traits—one might consider these chronic problems—which play havoc with the individual evolution of meaning structures. Chronic schizophrenia is an extreme example of a persistent impairment that is likely to interfere with leadership development. A discussion of this literature, however, is beyond the scope of this paper. Some screening method for severe psychological problems (such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, interpreted by a trained clinician) is appropriate when the methods of the program are particularly stressful, prolonged, and intrusive.

We have just scratched the surface with respect to traits and readiness. Any dimension purported to be an enduring psychological trait may conceivably be viewed in relation to readiness—that is, in relation to where the person is and what he or she needs developmentally. However, the research relating traits to developmental readiness is sparse. The best approach may be a clinical one in which rich data is collected with an effort to understand the whole person, including how one’s enduring traits affect evolving structures of personal meaning, as well as the collective meanings in which the person participates.

State readiness factors. State readiness factors are changing characteristics of the individual that influence readiness for development. While the term trait emphasizes the “entity” or constant aspects of individual being, the term state emphasizes the “process” or changing aspects of individual being. Because development is itself a process, it is more directly dependent upon state than trait readiness factors. Indeed, as Table 1 indicates, there are more state factors than trait factors that can currently be identified as pertinent to developmental readiness.

Developmental stage is itself an important readiness factor. There is merit in the idea of targeting a program to a stage-homogeneous (or roughly so) audience, so that common issues can be addressed directly. Alternatively, deep differences in sta...