Taking it personally: small 'l' leadership

Heather Davis

Australia

www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.comSlide 1www.leadershipexcellence.com

TAKING IT PERSONALLY:SMALL ‘l’ LEADERSHIP

Australia

Today’s agenda

Speaker introduction

Leading in a (super)complex environment

The knowledge-era

Small ‘l’ leadership

Interconnectness


Interconnectness

Interaction and Q&A session

Heather Davis Holds a Bachelor of Business, Master of

Professional Education and Training

Is currently enrolled in a PhD program at RMIT,Australia. Longheld professional and researchinterest in leadership development for theknowledge era.

Actively associated with the Centre forLeadership Excellence, LeadCap and Leaders Café


Leadership Excellence, LeadCap and Leaders CaféFoundation

Management and Leadership experience in thehigher education sector in Australia and an Assocof Tertiary Education Management executivecommittee member.

Catch Heather’s PhD blogat leadershipliteracies.

wordpress.com

Professional Memberships include:• British Academy of Management• Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)• International Leadership Association

Spoilt for choice in acomplex world…


How Volatile?

How Uncertain?

How Complex?

How Ambiguous?


Example

Workplace diversity

Generations

Gender

Religions

Nationalities


Nationalities

Cultures

Mindsets

Etc...

Values as a mediatorof VUCA

Perhaps the most important role of valuesis that they help us interpret and act onthe oceans of information that weprocess every day.

They serve as central organizing principles


They serve as central organizing principlesthat help us to decide how to addresscomplex situations and problems as theybombard us.

O'Brien, W. J. 1998. The soul of corporate leadership: guidelines for values-centredgovernance, Pegasus Communications, p. 5

Defining Leadership

Leadership is one of the most observed andleast understood phenomena on earth(Burns, 1978)

Lead people and manage things


Lead people and manage things

Leaders are in the business of energymanagement (ket de Vries)

Energy Management

Leaders are in the business of energy management

- Manfred kets de Vries


Leadership today...


Typical Thinking Patterns…

From Machine-CentricIndustrial Era

To Eco-CentricKnowledge-Intensive Era


Eras…Eras…


Staron, M. et al 2006. Life based learning: a strength based approach for capability developmentin vocational and technical education: a report on the research project"Designing professional development for the knowledge era". Sydney, TAFE NSW ICVET, p. 23

The knowledge era

The knowledge era is characterised byimpermanence, turbulence, multiple competingagendas and priorities, diversity in ideologies,ambiguity, multiple roles, irritations, uncertainty


ambiguity, multiple roles, irritations, uncertaintyand contradictions and a great amount of energyand creativity.

It is also the ‘intangible era’, where instead ofgoods and services the growing economiccommodity is knowledge itself.

Staron, et al.,(2006). Life based learning: a report on the research project"Designing professional development for the knowledge era". Sydney: TAFE NSW.

The Conceptual Age


Pink, D. H. 2005. A whole new mind : moving from the information age to the conceptualage, Allen & Unwin. (Graphically depicted by Garr Reynolds)

It is personal!Small ‘l’ leadership

Leadership is a verb

Moving from a deficit model to a strengths basedapproach to leadership, learning and life Locus of responsibility is now with the individual

Self referential logic


Self referential logic

Leadership is a verb

Leaders have a bias for action

Executives execute


Barriers to action:• Uncertainty• Fear• Dissonance

Moving to astrengths based approach

• Focusing on what is working well and investing inthat

• Enabling individuals and organisations to be the


• Enabling individuals and organisations to be thebest they can be

• From an ecological perspective, does not displacewhat works

Removing Mental Blocksto Action

• The Right Answer

• That’s Not Logical

• Follow The Rules

• That’s Not My Area

• Don’t Be Foolish

• Avoid Ambiguity


• Follow The Rules

• Be Practical

• Play Is Frivolous

• Avoid Ambiguity

• To Err Is Wrong

• I’m Not Creative

von Oech R. (1998). A Whack on the Side of theHead

Maslow’sHierarchyof Needs


Maslow's Self-Actualising characteristics

• creative, inventive and original

• keen sense of reality

• see problems in terms ofchallenges and situations requiringsolutions

• need for privacy and comfortablebeing alone

• accepting others as they are

• comfortable with oneself

• a few close intimate friends ratherthan many surface relationships

• sense of humour directed atoneself or the human condition,rather than at the expense of others


being alone

• reliant on own experiences andjudgement

• not susceptible to social pressures

• democratic, fair andnon-discriminating

• socially compassionate -possessing humanity

rather than at the expense of others

• spontaneous and natural - true tooneself, rather than being howothers want

• excited and interested ineverything, even ordinary things

• seek peak experiences that leave alasting impression

Argyris’s Ladder of Inference


I draw conclusions

I adopt beliefs

I take actions based on mybeliefs

‘Working’ the Ladder


Observable “Data”& experiences

I make Assumptions

I select “data”

I add meanings

I draw conclusions

Assumptions andour ladder of inference

As a mediator against self-referential logic…

“No problem can be solved from the same level ofconsciousness that created it. We must learn to see theworld anew.”


world anew.”

Albert Einstein

“It may surprise people, but I have found that we all have a strongpropensity to hold inconsistent thoughts and actions, and thatwe aren’t very effective observers of our own behaviour: we tendto judge our behaviour by our intentions, while we judge otherpeople’s behaviour by its outcomes”

Chris Argyris interview, 2008.

Leadership literaciesfor the knowledge era

Leaders are in the business of energy management

Leadership as stewardship

Living asset stewardship

Leaders as teachers, stewards, mentors Locus of responsibility has shifted to the individual

Shift to other-centredness

Holistic worldview – interconnectness


Holistic worldview – interconnectness

Triple bottom line governance

Sustainability

Transparency

Focus on ‘soft’ skills – e.g. values, empathy

Relationships

Leadership/Followership

Learning Metabolism

Making Thinking Visible

Creativity

Apperception

Interconnectness

People want to be connected and to feel that theirlivelihoods and professions matter. Serving andenhancing life matter to them because they knowtheir lives depend on other living assets,including the health of their neighbourhoods,their market systems, Earth’s ecosystems, and


their market systems, Earth’s ecosystems, andthe biospheric web of life.

When people feel so connected, they are morelikely to reach their full potential in terms of theirintelligence, adaptability, family life, selfmotivation, creativity and energy.

Bragdon, J. H. 2006. Profit for life, how capitalism excels: case studies inLiving Asset Management. Cambridge, MA, Society for Organization Learning Inc.

Relationships

You and I are the same thing. I cannothurt you without harming myself.

- Mahatma Gandhi(1869-1948)


Conversations FirstThen

RelationshipsThen

Transactions

NESTA model

Harwood, R. 2008. Connecting Dots and Valuing Networks, NESTA ConnectBlog. UK, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts

Creative Capital

Human Creativity is multi-faceted and multi-dimensional.

- It requires a supportive environment that providessocial, cultural and economic stimuli.


Creative process is not just individual but social.- Forms of organisation are necessary but elements of

organisation can and frequently stifle creativity.

Creativity and Change

The idea that change is a transitional phasebetween two stable states is ridiculed byeveryday experiences in our globalized world.Constant change is the actual state of our


Constant change is the actual state of ourliving world.

We should seek to comprehend, incorporate anddevelop that which makes life worth livingthrough change, not against it.

Jascha Rohrwww.participatory-design.com

Leadership as Stewardship

Caring for persons, the more able and the less able servingeach other, is the rock upon which a good society is built.

Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person,now most of it is mediated through institutions - oftenlarge, complex, powerful, impersonal; not alwayscompetent; sometimes corrupt.


competent; sometimes corrupt.

If a better society is to be built, one that is more just andmore loving, one that provides greater creative opportunityfor its people, then the most open course is to raise boththe capacity to serve and the very performance as servantof existing major institutions by new regenerative forcesoperating within them.

Robert K. Greenleaf, The Institution as Servant


The illiterate of the 21st century will not bethose who cannot read and write, butthose who cannot learn, unlearn, andrelearn.


Alvin Toffler


Visible Thinking has a double goal:

to cultivate students' thinking skills anddispositions

to deepen content learning.

Cultivating thinking dispositions means


Cultivating thinking dispositions meansstrengthening thinking skills associated withcuriosity, concern for truth and understanding, acreative mindset, not just being skilled but alsoalert to thinking and learning opportunities andeager to take them.

Making Thinking Visible Research Team, Harvard

http://www.pz.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html

VUCA

Volatility yields to vision

Uncertain yields to understanding

Complexity yields to clarity

Ambiguity yields to agility


Johansen, B. (2009) Leaders make the future: 10 newleadership skills for an uncertain world

If your actions inspire others todream more, learn more, do more


dream more, learn more, do moreand become more, you are aleader.

John Quincy Adams, 6th US President