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Leadership development is a lifelong journey that commits to growing all aspects of the leader’s being: the intellectual knowledge in our heads, emotional competence and values in our hearts, and behavioural skills and competencies in our hands. The choice to embark on this journey raises complex challenges and often offers more questions than answers.

In this series of nine monthly articles, we explore the key dimensions of leadership, from organisational leadership to the leadership of teams and others, and ultimately, the leadership of self. The views presented are based on the practical implementation in organisations of our flagship intervention, the Nine Conversations in Leadership™, which brings groups of leaders together to explore and grow their leadership through a series of conversations. This first article in the series asks – what do we understand leadership to be? And what implications does that have for how we approach and grow leadership in our organisations?

The average person today faces far more complexity and change than we did 5 or 10 years ago. And for our leaders, this applies even more. In a world where new stakeholder groups add their strong voices to the global dialogue, where the only constant is constant change, and where a new generation demand a different relationship with the organisation – leadership is needed even more than ever before.

Our work in leadership and organisational development brings us into conversations with leaders at the proverbial coal-face, juggling the daily demands on their time. As partners to these leaders, as they try to transform their organisations to thrive in the world of the future, we grapple with a key question… what is leadership today, and how can we best grow the leaders in our organisations?

When we begin to define leadership, we create a complex picture of attitudes, behaviours and competencies – all of which take time to develop. In this sense, leadership is more like a trade or a craft than a profession - an ongoing, lifelong apprenticeship from which a leader never qualifies or graduates. Like an apprentice, the leader grows through meaningful conversations and interactions with peers and mentors, driven by the choice to engage and develop their skill, and encompassing the whole leader, in head, heart and hands.

Choice

Fundamentally, we need to recognise that leadership is a choice. Not merely a position, but a choice to be and act as a leader in all ways, at all times. This simple philosophy immediately opens up a new way of seeing – creating the opportunity for all people to lead, at all levels of the organisation – rather than an elite few.

Viewing leadership as a choice means that all employees can decide to exercise personal leadership in everything they do, taking accountability for the impact of their choices on themselves and others. We also support the idea that leadership is really a process of influence - the ability to influence the thinking, feeling, acting and being of other people, creating changes that otherwise may not have occurred. Combining choice and influence in our concept of the leader immediately highlights the idea that individuals who might not occupy a formal position of authority, but who influence others, are powerful leaders.

The Nine Conversations in Leadership™ intervention embraces these philosophies, to open the catalytic role of leadership to all. This ‘democratisation’ of leadership may threaten the status quo, but the benefits are evident in the stellar results of the organisations that get this right – the learning organisations, the organisations that empower their people to create results, those that can go from good to great. A growing critical mass of thoughtful, influential leaders throughout the business immediately creates opportunities for dynamic, competitive and sustainable organisations.

A holistic approach

A second fundamental in our approach to leadership is the idea that we should see a leader as a whole person, who is most effective when drawing on all levels of their being. Our understanding of leadership reflects the fact that knowledge alone is not enough, looking at leaders in a holistic framework that works with levels we call head, heart and hands.

Classroom training and teaching meets certain needs of organisations, to train leaders in transferable skills such as reading financial statements, negotiation, etc. But the ‘teaching’ approach to leadership development typically addresses needs only in the ‘head’ realm of growing knowledge. Leadership development must also address the ‘being’ of the leader in the heart realm, and the ‘doing’ of changed behaviours, taking action and creating results, in the hand realm.

Some leaders are driven by deep knowledge and rich education, while others are powered to success by their values and relationship skills. But all leaders, having made the choice to develop their leadership, can grow in all areas. Choosing to lead people in pursuit of a purpose requires that the leader is able to align their head, heart and hands towards that purpose.

Moving beyond the analytical ‘head’ realm immediately demands that we look at different ways to develop leadership – moving beyond the teacher-learner relationship or one-way communication of many development approaches. To engage the whole leader in self-driven development, we look to conversations as a key method of development.

Conversations

Leaders, practitioners and academics are increasingly recognising that conversations are, in fact, a core organisational management process – arguably even the single most important strategic process within the organisation. At the same time, the pace and demands of most businesses mean that our leaders are having fewer and fewer meaningful conversations about leadership issues.

Both formal research and anecdotal feedback from leaders reflect the fact that the best method of developing leadership competencies is through relationships and conversations with peers and other leaders. This process of discovery and learning with peers, if it is practiced within an organisation, has the added benefit of building leadership teams, creating relationships across functional areas, and developing a common understanding and philosophy of the way to lead the business.

Opening up the conversation

The decision to open up leadership to all members of the organisation, and to engage in meaningful conversations that recognise our leaders as whole beings, is a courageous one – but one that can have catalytic effects. When we engage in conversations, we create a space for organisational learning, for accelerating the effectiveness of our leaders, and for exploring how we can achieve our visions.

The leader’s vision, and the challenge of igniting the organisation’s passion behind it, is the subject of our next conversation.

This is the first of 9 articles published in Management Today in July 2007

Donna Kipps Glanvill

About Donna Kipps Glanvill

Donna’s focus on organisational change and her ability to think outside conventional wisdom position her as a change agent and strategic contributor. A specialist in future strategy, culture, governance and leadership, she partners with individuals, teams and organisations on their unique transformational journeys. She brings her passion for sustainable, future-orientated strategic evolution to bear on unlocking the energy and potential of client organisations.