The Truth About Leadership Development
August 14th, 2008 by David Utts
In my last entry, I highlighted the key engagement or competency areas that an executive must focus on as they are enhancing their mastery as a leader (Personal Engagement, Interpersonal Engagement, and Organizational Engagement). Clearly having a solid understanding of what leadership is from a competency basis brings into focus is what we must develop to enhance leadership in our organizations. Yet, there is a down side to this overemphasis on leadership competencies.
This competency focus can generate a false assumption that developing leadership means we merely need to train people in the skills implied by these competencies. Experience and research has shown that nothing can be further from the truth. Until an individual has the mindset necessary to adopt leadership competencies they will not be effective at manifesting them.Embracing the leadership development process involves:
- Creating a personally compelling vision for your legacy and impact as a leader.
- Creating a “burning platform” within yourself pulls you towards your vision and generates conviction to change what is necessary to succeed.
- Assessing and expanding your self-awareness about your strengths as well as blind spots.
- Being willing to embrace new approaches and let go of old compulsive beliefs and habits that stand in your way.
- Learning the value of discomfort inherent in the learning and change process.
The last bullet merits some further explanation. For most of us, changing habits, compulsive reactions, and underlying beliefs requires that we enter uncharted territories. Most executives are in leadership positions because they achieved great success and had a positive impact for their organizations. Certainly, many core habits and beliefs held by an executive will continue to support their success in leadership. However, there will be other habits and belief systems that may be outdated and unsupportive to success in a leadership role. For example, if you are a person who is a driver or value being in control you likely have tremendous confidence that you can accomplish just about anything – yourself. While the results-focus inherent in this style is essential for a successful leader, certain “driver habits” can undermine your success. This proves especially true if you have a hard time letting go of things being done your way or if you are unwilling to delegate responsibilities to others and tend to micromanage your directs.
Understanding which habit and beliefs to embrace and which to let go of can be confusing and challenging. The power of a guided development is that it allows one to traverse the personal development journey and the ensuing discomforts with greater ease. In our experience, a leader’s results will suffer if they do not take personal responsibility for this journey and enter some conscious process of development.
