Research
Here are this past week's headlines in leadership development:
The old distinctions between leaders and followers are gone: great followers follow by leading, according to August Turak in this Forbes article
This past week, successful executive, entrepreneur, and writer August Turak wrote a great piece on Forbes called "The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About". In this article, he explains that the old "command-and-control" approach to leadership has not gone gently out of favor. the grammar of the several thousand human languages is a concept of agency, in which actions have either an object or a subject (with rare exception, such as Bengali, Tamil, and Icelandic, which have a middle voice between active, I threw the ball, and passive, The ball was thrown by me). As Turak notes, we are all conscious agents, thinking for ourselves, just as capable of causing change as being driven by it. Einstein's universe is a fluid place of feedback loops where cause and effect are interchangeable and often indistinguishable. Turak notes that the Einsteinian revolution in quantum physics has implications for leaders and leadership development: Einstein's revolution means that the old, neat distinction between leaders and followers no longer exists. Those bright lines between kings and subjects, nobles and serfs, bosses and "workers" are gone. We often switch between leader and follower many times in a single day, and success depends just as much on being a great follower as it does on being a great leader. Great followers follow by leading and here are 11 ways to do just that, according to Turak:
The article is quite compact and offers a lot of food for thought if you're in the process of reconceiving leadership development at your organization. Read August Turak's article on Forbes, "The 11 Leadership Secrets You've Never Heard About"
Despite all of the increased focus on leading virtual teams, leadership development rarely happens virtually in organizations. This article offers some successful practices to make virtual leadership development work
It's a lot easier to train a leader when you work in the same place, but it can be done in virtually. In some ways, if structured well, a virtual leadership development experience can augment the knowledge and experience possessed by the attendee through knowledge sharing and development experiences. Virtual leadership development can work if the program is designed to build relationships with team members, learn the organization's approach to customer service, and explore the various aspects of the organization's capabilities. Here are a few tips:
To do it well, it takes a dedicated manager who is willing to put in the time, take risks to put the trainee in situations they can handle but not necessarily master immediately, and who is willing to have the hard conversations and not shrink from conflict. Read Kyra Cavanaugh's article in the Huffington Post, "Developing Leaders, Remotely"
Palladium Group's Randall Russell offers some thoughts in Harvard Business Review on why strategy execution should be further up the chain so that CEOs are "Chief Execution Officers" -- possible discussion point for executive development needs?
Executive development is, by its nature, tricky business. Yet, helping executives understand the context and ramifications of ways of approaching decisions is part of the work of breaking down fiefdoms and engaging the workforce. In this article in Harvard Business Review, Randall Russell author and long-time Palladium Group guru on using the balanced scorecard in strategy execution offers some important distinctions encouraging CEOs to take on the role of Cheif Execution Officer. As Russell notes, by not relegating the execution of strategy, leaders can achieve consensus and commitment across the leadership team, establish and preserve the integrity of the strategy, and engage the work force. If done correctly, this approach and these achievements can greatly improve performance of the strategy. But for many CEOs, becoming actively engaged in strategy execution remains a challenge. Why is that? Mostly because evolving from the position of a CEO to that of a Chief Execution Officer requires a new management approach, and most traditional CEOs loathe trying a new approach when it comes to something as critical as strategy. The discussion in HBR shows that the topic has engaged and activated many in the c-suite, and it is likely you can refer to this article when discussing executive development program design and development. Russell's position is based on over 150 case examples, distilling the lessons from those who have successfully evolved their own management style and who have become Chief Execution Officers in order to identify the steps that lead to success.
Figure 1. Chart from Harvard Business Review article showing the benefits of CEOs serving as "Chief Execution Officers"
No major news in mergers, acquisitions, or product releases.
Many of today’s books on the tools and techniques of leadership and management provide descriptions and lists to use in decision-making, leading, coaching and project management. In the book Tools and Techniques of Leadership and Management (to be released July 27, 2012), Prof Ralph Stacey takes a completely different approach building on his years of research and studies in organizational development and complexity science. The book contests the claims that the tools and techniques are based on evidence and explains why human activities of leading and managing are simply not amenable to scientific proof and, consequently, why long-term futures of organizations are unpredictable. The book undertakes a critical exploration of just what these tools and techniques are about: showing that while they may lead to competent performance they cannot go further to expert performance because expertise involves going beyond rules and procedures. Prof Stacey investigates the many questions that are thrown up as a result of this new approach. This book offers a new way to look at leadership, decision-making and organizational development and behavior within large organizations and is definitely worth the time for professional leaders and managers who want to develop their own understanding and techniques. Buy Now
How NASA Launched a New Corporate University for Safety and Changed the Way NASA Learns
Date: July 24, 2012, 10:00am ET
Presenter: CorpU Register now
7 Strategies for evaluating eLearning Quality
Date: July 25, 2012, 1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT
Presenter: eLearning Guild Register now
Choosing the Right Authoring Tools for eLearning Development
Presenter: CommLab India Register now
Learning Design Process
Presenter: CommLab India Register now
Gamify Your Training: Use Gamification to Increase Employee Engagement and Improve Feedback
Date: Thursday, August 2, 2012, 1pm ET
Presenter: Greg Greunke, President, Tuzooni & Greunke Register now
Attracting, Developing and Retaining World-Class Talent
Date August 6-7, 2012
Location: San Francisco, CA, US Register now
“I’m grateful to be in this network. The calls I had with other members gave me the information I needed to move my project forward.”
Annette RollsLeadership Development Program Designer, Boeing
“We were able to realize almost immediate value—in terms of definitively quantifiable savings—by implementing the concepts introduced during this [Art of Negotiation] program.”
Ken MurphyEVP of Sales and Operations, Mattress Firm
“In my particular case, I certainly care about the HR functions, but that’s not why I wake up every day. I care about advancing the ball down the field with our people’s professional development skills and knowledge. You guys focus 100% on the learning piece, and that’s what I like.”
Jim StewartCLO, Teradata
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