by Lester Coupland

Leadership In Search of Crowning Glory

There is no shortage of advice on offer to any leader interested in addressing their areas for improvement. Amazon offers 57,136 books with the word ‘leadership’ in the title. And Training Industry estimates that in 2019, organisations around the world spent $370.3 billion on leadership development solutions and programme vendors.

So, even allowing for the unprecedented pace of change, the volatile economic and political context plus the post- pandemic challenges, why is it that we are still searching for how we produce great leaders and great leadership? Why is it that we seem to be adept at writing theory, formulae and frameworks but less so in getting these to work? 

Part of the answer may lie in how leaders choose to develop themselves. Whether they be a head of state, a CEO or a senior business leader, openness to personal change requires a unique willingness to reflect deeply, self-critique ruthlessly and treat feedback as a valuable asset. This article proposes a process for doing this systematically which involves the leader working through five stages:

• Identifying their leadership values
• Subjecting these values to peer review
• Assessing their leadership performance
• Holding dialogue with key stakeholders
• Committing to action

Step 1: Identifying leadership values

This is about being internally directed rather than externally directed (1). It means that the leader stops merely complying with others' expectations and over-compliance with the current culture. This is a delicate balance; it is not about flagrantly contradicting organisational norms and there needs to be a visible alignment to the latter. But it is about becoming more internally directed through clarifying their core values to increase their integrity, confidence and authenticity. This will mean that they behave differently; some people will be attracted by this whilst others may be offended. The idea here is that others must make sense of the leader’s new behaviour. There may be conflict but when they are true to their values the leader is willing to initiate such conflict.

This is not a quick 'tick-box' task but a rigorous deep-dive which helps the leader to articulate with clarity who they are and what they stand for. Pope John Paul 2nd observed something similar when he said that we must take account of our own interiority if we are to do justice to ourselves as persons (2). There are no rules as to how many values are identified by the leader but typically we find that there are 6-8 in number.

If the leader needs a prompt in thinking about their values, they can consult Senge's Values Exercise (3) and use this list as a start-point. Importantly though the latter is a stimulus and a means to an end.

Values are what leaders turn to when they are uncertain, when they face complex challenges and when they feel entangled in awkward dilemmas which somehow need to be reconciled. They guide them and help them re-centre and find an inner-calm in the midst of turbulence.

Step 2: Subjecting leadership values to peer review in a support and challenge triad

This involves the leader inviting two trusted peers who are prepared to engage with them on their values identified at Step 1. The 'deal' is that they offer robust but empathetic support and challenge so that the leader can in complete confidence:

• Explain their values identified at Step 1
• Add and / or refine these for greater clarity
• Refine and edit where necessary

The outcome should be an adjusted set of leadership values which deeply resonate with the leader's inner-self, define them as the leader they absolutely aspire to be and in some way start to articulate their legacy.

Step 3: Assessing leadership performance in life's 4 Domains (Work, Home, Community, Self)

Here, the learner assesses their leadership performance in Friedman's 4 Domains (Work, Home, Community, Self) (4) in order to identify areas of concern. This is done through clarifying how their leadership activities, practices and routines in these 4 domains either fulfil or overlook their leadership values in order to surface 'areas of concern.'

The 4 domains described by Friedman are:

• Work: role, challenges and priorities
• Home: family, joint activities, home-projects
• Community: friends, neighbours, social and religious groups
• Self: personal, emotional and spiritual development

For each domain, the leader identifies goals, interests, activities, routines, practices. The critical element of this step is then for the leader to answer: how are my leadership values being lived out in these four domains; and where is too much or too little happening?

The aim here is a that the leader becomes more integrative and holistic in their leadership approach by identifying:

1. their areas of satisfaction
2. their areas of concern

Step 4: Consulting with stakeholders

And finally, the idea here is that the leader identifies key stakeholders in each domain. The recommendation is 3-4 stakeholders for each domain and they should be people where there exists a high level of trust and openness. These stakeholders can be work colleagues, family or friends. 

The leader then meets and shares with them the outcomes of Step 3, i.e. their areas of satisfaction and areas of concern. The stakeholders are firstly asked to offer their own expectations; and then to share their feedback. Here the leader simply listens, takes notes, stays open to what their stakeholders share with them and is advised to guard against being defensive but to adopt the mindset of receiving these observations as gifts.

5) Committing to action

The stakeholders then help the leader to plan a way forward that addresses the areas of concern this shaping an approach to leadership which integrates the 4 domains. And the leader makes a commitment and promise to themselves to follow through.

This process takes time and effort; however, we believe if you're prepared to invest, you will learn and grow from the experience.