The ABCs of Leadership Development

Your future success as a leader depends upon your ability to translate feedback and awareness into a tangible development plan.  Unfortunately, you probably have no idea where to start.  After 20 years in the business of helping to transform leaders and organizations I am convinced, more than ever, that the ‘black box’ in bridging the gap between leadership potential and reality is development.  There are endless solutions for acquiring feedback that point in the direction of change.  There are, likewise, endless solutions for measuring and rewarding performance.  What is most often missing is what happens in between - a fundamental understanding around how to move from leadership aspiration to reality.  In essence, how to change behaviour.  If you are a leader interested in how you can transform yourself, read on.

Step 1: Gain Clarity Around You Who Are and Who You Aspire to Be

Why should anyone be led by you?  We don’t spend enough time asking ourselves who we want to be when we grow up and why we should be leaders.  How can you tackle your development if you really don’t know who you are and what you stand for?  I have had the privilege of working for leaders who ‘get’ this and the less-than-inspiring experience of working for those who do not.  Quite honestly, there is nothing more frustrating or disillusioning than working for someone who really does not have an interest in developing their identity as a leader.  

Defining Who You Are as a Leader

I will admit I can be a tedious leadership coach.  When I am working with leaders in the context of personal transformation, before we even discuss where they should focus in terms of their development, I ask them to answer these questions: 

1. What is your leadership philosophy?  How do you think about and define leadership excellence?  What do you value in a leader?  What do you stand for?  What kind of leader do you aspire to be?
2. What is your leadership personality? (who are you?).  What are your key character traits?  What are your values and beliefs? What motivates you?
3. What is your leadership presence? (who do others see and experience?)  What is your behaviour?  How would others describe you?
4. What is your leadership potential?  What is the alignment between your leadership philosophy, who you are as a leader, and how people experience you? (these are your core strengths and form the foundation of your leadership practice; this is what you build from).  Where is the mis-alignment between your intent and how your behaviour is interpreted? (these are your gaps, shortcomings and blind spots; these you assess and determine if you manage, mitigate or develop).

Step 2: Setting Development Targets and Priorities

The goal of leadership development is to align intent with behaviour in order to achieve higher-order objectives in the context in which you find yourself.  So often, leadership development springs from a mis-match between what a leader is striving to do and what is coming across to key stakeholders.  The extent to which you are aware of and can objectively assess your development opportunities determines your ability to develop strategically and intentionally.    

Questions leaders should ask before determining development priorities and next steps

Not everything that you get feedback on is worthy of development.  I don’t particularly care what your 360 feedback, leadership assessment report or leadership coach have to say about how you need to change.  Instead, I suggest you ask yourself a series of questions to get at the heart of where you should focus your development:

1. What relevant strengths do I possess that I can leverage more effectively in this situation?
2. What strengths do I possess that I can build upon to be more effective in this situation?
3. What strengths have I relied on in the past that are less relevant to success in this situation that I need to monitor and manage in order to avoid over-reliance?
4. What gaps do I have that limit success in this situation but which I have the potential to close?
5. What gaps do I have that will be difficult for me to close in any situation and which I need to manage or mitigate?
6. What are blind spots that can derail me in this situation if I don’t become more actively aware of and monitor?

Making Change Stick

Where the rubber hits the road around personal development is translating your desired future behaviour into tangible action steps that will result in real change.  I have seen a lot of development plans; I have seen a lot less actual development.  If you are serious about actually transforming who you are as a leader, the very best resource I have found for changing behaviour is James Clear’s Transform Your Habits.  My summary of how to translate development intent into sustainable behaviour change is:

1. Goals need to be visceral and tangible.  You have to be able to see and feel the future leader you aspire to be.
2. You have to really want it. 
3. You have to be able to translate the goal (future behaviour) into a daily habit.  
4. Focus your activity on the daily practice of a new habit.  Behaviour changes one day at a time until old habits are transformed into new habits. 
5. Actively track your process and progress.  That means every day, stop to reflect on what you intend to do and make a note of how it went.
6. Celebrate success on a daily basis.  And if you were not successful today, remember that tomorrow is a new day that begins with a clean slate.

Change is hard.  This is the humble summation of my experience working with hundreds of leaders.  But it is less hard when you are clear on the case for change.  And less hard when you are clear on what really needs to change.  And less hard when you are clear on how you are going to instigate that change.  You are in charge.  What you want to do is completely up to you.


Sources
Transform Your Habits (2nd Ed.).  James Clear.  www. jamesclear.com