We talk a lot about ‘transformational leadership’ as being the kind of leadership necessary to transform organizations but the term is still not commonly understood.  In this post we talk about the key components to consider when discussing, assessing and developing leaders.

Based on years of research, consulting, and coaching, we have developed a model identifying five key elements that work together to deliver exceptional results.  A leader who can effectively transform organizations must have all of these elements functioning in alignment.

Here is the story of a leader who over-emphasized a few elements while under developing others:  meet Dave.  Dave is an exceptionally talented man and has built strong skills in his area of focus.  He rose quickly in the ranks of a large consulting firm on the strength of his intellect, his charisma, and his presence.  He then bought a division of a smaller company and was faced with the challenge of creating a new market and building a company.  He failed and closed the company, losing the company and most of his personal wealth.  His largest mistake was his over-confidence.  In order to create a differentiated offering, leaders and entrepreneurs have to have the confidence to take on what many others would not.  At the same time, they need to be keenly aware of their environment and know when to make changes.  If the leader is too confident, he will miss the subtle cues.  Dave missed them.  Dave had too much hubris and discounted the cues that he was missing the mark.

We introduce all five elements briefly in this post and will go into greater detail about each one in subsequent blog posts.

What are the components each leader must have?

• Character/type – each of us has a type.  This is what we commonly call personality – qualities like introversion or extroversion.  We would measure this using something like the Enneagram or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.  Leaders benefit  from understanding themselves and working with their gifts and limitations.  Self-awareness is key.
• Developmental level – we move through developmental levels as we mature and grow.  This can be deliberately changed with attention and work.  When we are talk about “Level 5” leaders, we mean individuals who have moved up the developmental ladder.  Leaders can progress through higher levels and doing so increases their effectiveness.
• Leadership behaviors – these come in two categories. 
  • Leadership specific competencies involve knowing how effective leaders behave and measure behaviors like mentoring and developing staff.
  • Business skills and acumen is the other critical part of leadership behavior that evaluates industry acumen, skills required to run a business and to make solid business decisions.
• Situational Awareness – in dynamic environments, it is critical for leaders to understand the situation or context they are working in and to make decisions that are appropriate to that situation.  A leader in a bank may make very different decisions after the financial crash in 2009 than before because the situation has changed.
• Resilience – is the ability to adapt and thrive and to take a positive attitude toward the challenges we face as leaders.  Resilient leaders navigate challenges and inspire others to move forward toward success.

The most successful leaders perform well in all of these categories.  A significant deficiency in any of the areas could derail an otherwise talented leader.  When considering how to invest your development time, we recommend spending about 80% of your time building on your strengths and the remaining 20% addressing areas that could be deficiencies.  The exception to this rule is if there is an area that is derailing the organization.  Additionally, if you are overusing a strength to the detriment of developing others, attending to the under-used strengths will also pay dividends.

It is not enough to be an exceptional level five leader; you must also work effectively with others. Even super heroes work together just like Batman and Robin.

A key differentiator for professional growth is how well you work with others. We can all think of times where we could have accomplished a task easier alone but still needed to work with others. We can probably also see where there was some benefit to the organization by our working with someone else, like they got to learn from us and from the experience.

I worked with a client who saw himself as the expert at everything he did. He was frustrated by working with teams because it got in the way of doing the real work and no one knew as much as he did. This team stuff slowed the work down and frustrated him. He also thought he should be promoted because he could certainly accomplish the work more effectively than anyone around him.

If only he knew and focused on the 5 key behaviors that would have made him a better team member.
In the spirit of being a team player, the balance of this post is located at the blog of our good friend and strategic partner - thoughtLEADERS, LLC. Click here to read further about being a better team member.  By Maureen Metcalf at Metcalf & Associates, Inc.

This blog post is the first in a series of posts that explores my work with MT Business Technologies during our second year of work.  To learn more about the first year, please read the article published in Integral Leadership Review in January 2010.

I met the client at a leadership workshop on developing transformational leadership.  During our first meeting at his office, I met several members of the team, and realized, like many organizations, they were not ecstatic about working with another consultant.   The client is a successful mid-sized business that is focusing on making the changes necessary to maintain their legacy of success well into the future.  This organization will undergo significant changes from a position of strength and success.

About a year ago we had our initial vision setting workshop.   While this blog series is about the yearlong transformation process, this step actually happened prior to the workshop series during our first year of work together.  I wanted to talk about it because it sets the tone for the decisions we made and the actions that guided our first year.

To compare and contrast, I worked with a client organization that did not have a vision, just good people working hard.  What I learned over the short time I worked with this organization was that yes, they did have generally good people and yes they did work hard.  What they also did was work for differing and often competing objectives.  Some people believed their job was to provide basic service at the lowest cost.  Others thought their job was to create a competitive advantage for their company.  The result was a leadership team that did not work well together – no shock – that they thought the others were making poor decisions.  Since they had different goals, everyone was making decisions based on their view of the world. When they took a 360 degree leadership assessment, they ranked each other very poorly.  The composite score for the leaders on “achieves results” was below 10% on a scale of 1-100.  The reason this is important is individually, each of these leaders could produce solid results.  Together, they had differing views of the organization’s goals so they were at odds as a group. 

To move beyond this misalignment, the first step is to create a clear picture of the future – to look out on the horizon and identify what the company aspires to be and how they will get there.  The first questions we asked were:

1.    What is our vision?  What will we strive to become?
2.    What is our mission?  What is the clear goal we are trying to achieve by when – this is a stretch.
3.    What are our guiding principles?  What are the core beliefs and values of the organization that guide how we work together?
4.    What are the impacts and outcomes we will deliver?
Once the leadership group agrees on these items the team can move forward.  For this group, the CEO created his initial list and then worked with the company President to refine it and then worked with the leadership team to gain buy-in.  One of the key initiatives was working towards team alignment as they are refining their direction as an organization in this changing environment.  When they decided to change in vision and guiding principles, in some cases they were also committing to run their business differently. 

An example for this group is a focus on standardization.  In the past they functioned with unique processes by location.  With the implementation of an enterprise software system designed to gain efficiencies, the group also recognized the need to standardize some processes.   This type of change often means a shift in control from autonomous business leaders to a centralized corporate function.  The team carefully weighed each guiding principle and will continue to experiment over the coming year with the implications of the decisions they made up front. 

We look forward to sharing a monthly installment on the journey.  While they have been working over the past year, they are now implementing the changes across the enterprise using a series of monthly workshops that include all senior leaders.  These sessions are designed with an educational component and to generate specific deliverables required to run the business.  Our goal is to make these sessions productive as well as build on the team alignment identified with the new vision, and with each session, placing another foundation stone in the organization renovation.

We do not have "right answers" we have hypotheses to be tested and refined.

In our exploration of Leading in Uncharted Territory, rule 10 is: Keep an attitude of experimentation - we do not have "right answers" we have hypotheses to be tested and refined.

As we think about our current environment where the old rules no longer work and the new rules are not yet tested, we become the scientists proposing new ways of operation and testing them.  It is through our experimentation that we learn what works and what does not.  This means we let go of the idea that we should not make mistakes, rather, like we did in science class, we designed “safe experiments” where we can learn and refine our approach.

If we are paralyzed by “failure” or getting it wrong, we are likely to move slowly and be passed by competitors who have adjusted their thinking and risk tolerance to seek out small experiments and determine in advance acceptable risk.  By changing this orientation, we position ourselves to excel in uncertainty.  It gives us the impetus to explore new ways of doing business, improving our products and services, and revamp our service.  

I want to share a personal story in this area.  2008 was a challenging year for our leadership consulting business.  Our team’s concerns about our future direction caused us to really consider a basic SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats).  We identified several opportunities we had not previously leveraged.  One of these ideas was to teach introductory leadership development classes at little to no cost to gain greater exposure to potential clients.  We tried several configurations and changed them pretty dramatically for the first few times.  We went from a 2 day class to a 4 hour class.  We went from market rate to break even with no compensation for our time.  This latter model worked.  During the past year we added several clients and also a critical member of our team.  We measured leads, relationships developed, clients developed, colleagues developed, strategic alliances developed.  

This experiment tested my courage and willingness to present material I was not completely comfortable with.  I was faced with the idea that we could have a class that people would not attend.  What if I build it and they do not come?  I did test with friendly clients first then moved to a broader audience.  I also had trusted colleagues attend each session and give very discerning feedback.  We wanted to know what worked and what did not so we could learn from our experiments and improve.  While I wanted people to say I am wonderful – I wanted even more to tell me where I need to refine my experiment.  

Experimentation is an important quality of later stage leadership (Level 5 Leaders).  Leaders at the Individualist and later levels seek feedback aggressively.  This is one quality that allows us to learn quickly and take corrective actions.

In addition to organizational transformation workshops, we launched this blog, developed a structured marketing plan, published several papers, and began expanding our alliances.  Some of these had a quick pay back like the classes and others did not have a visible pay back but we believe they will have a longer term payback. 

For me, I needed to try new approaches to business development.  First I evaluated cost in time and money and determined what I was willing to invest.  I measured the impact where I could and took a ruthless approach to evaluation and refinement.  This approach allowed me to make small experiments that we could afford.  Some of them were very effective immediately and others needed significant modification.  The experiments worked. We grew the business significantly and also increased our credibility.  

Where are you experimenting with your business?  Are there any areas you could benefit from additional experiments?  Do you encourage curiosity?  

Photo Credit:  Jose Kevo

By Maureen Metcalf of Metcalf & Associates

I am making this post on Thanksgiving Day 2009 so I want to talk about gratefulness and the role it plays in my professional life. It is an important part of my personal and leadership practice (practice - something I continue to do because it is never complete), By thinking about what I am grateful for when I wake in the morning, when I go to sleep in the evening, and during the day; I improve my ability to put the daily challenges in perspective. I can not remove challenges from my life but I can meet them with grace. By showing grace during the difficult times, I improve my emotional intelligence and improve ability to lead others effectively.

As a leader, people look to me to set the tone for how we work. I often struggle to manage all of the tasks at hand and still make time to take care of my self. This simple practice allows me to quickly "reboot" when I face a challenging situation. “Gratefulness enables us to find peace in all circumstances by freeing us from resentment. As long as we are merely thankful, we give thanks for what we perceive to be beneficial, yet we retain the lurking fear that something harmful may come our way instead. To be grateful is more. It is our courageous trust that life itself – kind or harsh, happy or sad – is good, if only we receive it as gift. The gift is the opportunity either to fully accept or to change what the moment brings. The moment we trust in this truth, we are at peace.” From http://www.gratefulness.org/. Consider subscribing to the daily gratefulness email. We believe the act of being grateful is one powerful and simple practice associated with later stages of leadership development. It provides the individual an opportunity to reflect on the good in their lives even when what is happening in the moment may be very challenging. A few basic recommendations:

• At the end of each day take 5 minutes to review what you are grateful for,
• Take 5 minutes to write what you are grateful at the beginning or end of the day,
• Take a minute to think about what you appreciate about a person before you enter a challenging conversation with him/her,
• Tell your family and friends what you appreciate when they do something you like - be very specific. An example from my life this week: Carlene, when you walked my dog on last minute notice I was so grateful. My plans changed at the last minute and I found myself distracted and thinking about my dogs sitting at home. Your letting them out allowed me to focus on my work and stop feeling guilty.

The act of gratefulness seems so simple yet many of us do not make it a daily practice. It is free, quick, easy and available to absolutely everyone who wishes to practice it. So, as we enter the holiday season and bring 2009 to a close, I encourage you to consider what you are grateful for, especially if this was a challenging year.

I want to share a partial list of what I am grateful for today:

• faith that sustains me and helps me keep all of life in perspective - successes and challenges,
• friends who support, challenge and encourage me,
• family who has always believed in me no matter how silly I was (and continue to be),
• clients- I am really fortunate to work with amazing clients who are using leadership development programs to make a major impact on the world,
• graduate students who work diligently to become more effective transformational leaders,
• pets, Sabina and Beau the dogs and Boone the cat,
• challenging and rewarding work - I really love what I do,
• amazing colleagues - I am really fortunate to work with very talented change management consultants and alliance partners,
  
• physical and emotional health,
• non-profit board work - I am very fortunate to have the resources, skills and energy to give back to the community,
• network of talented people across the globe who shape my perspective and make me a better person,
• great neighbors - I live in a community of caring people who support and encourage one another,
• earth and natural resources - that gives us what we need to survive including: food, shelter, and beauty,
• artists - they make our world more beautiful and meaningful,
• philosophers, researchers, and scientists who make our lives richer, more productive, and philosophically deeper.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we at Metcalf & Associates would like to express our gratitude to all of our clients, colleagues, and friends for all you have done to make us successful. We trust this holiday season and coming year will find your lives filled with reasons to be filled with gratefulness. Photocredit: alicepopkorn

By Maureen Metcalf at Metcalf & Associates, Inc.