Leadership Development

Submitted by denisevaneck on December 1, 2008 - 3:22pm.

I'd like to throw some questions out to the masses here at the Hub:

As our world and organizations shift with the changes in local and global cultures, have approaches to developing leadership shifted as well? Do you take a formal approach to developing leadership and if you do, what are the three to five core, non-negotiable things that you want to make sure get taught? If your approaches have changed over the last ten years or so, how would you describe the changes? As you look to the future, what do you think will be most important for leaders to have/know?

Thanks much. Can't wait to see what you all think!

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some opinions

By Damian Benghiat on December 1, 2008 - 9:34pm

In my opinion, Thomas Friedman in his book The World is Flat and Alvin Toffler in his book Revolutionary Wealth, both of them mention the same idea: First it was the Globalization 1.0 (or the first wave in Toffler's terms): The Countries Second it was the Globalization 2.0 (the second wave): The Companies Third it was the Globalization 3.0 (the third wave): The People So, again in my opinion, they could summarize very well what has changed in the world in the last couple of centuries. And obviously this changes has a very deep impact in the way people do things, and in the way people practice leadership. Hope to hear from others their opinions.

Point of view is everything

By Colin Scowen on December 1, 2008 - 11:25pm

I was recently on some company sponsored leadership training. As you can guess, the assumption was that everyone there was a manager who needed to be trained to lead. I am not a manager, but the course was useful. Read Abrashoff, or Winters, and you find that the lessons in how to develop as a leader are there in all leaders that you may see, the good ones as well as the bad. The world changes, that is a given. The people in a society change, that is a given. The leadership in a society changes, that is a given. But, how often do the people in a society change without the leadership changing? Compare that to how often the leadership changes in a country without the people changing. To your questions then. IMHO leadership development is driven by organisations wanting to keep the organisation going ( be it a military organisation, a religious organisation, or a businiess organisation, or a NGO). Not a bad thing per se, but the focus in their leadership development will always be of a managerial bent. Let's stop things getting worse. The shift is, that people are taking a much more active role in their own development, often outside the formal development programmes that organisations put in place. The sooner these people are recognised and helped, the better placed organisations will be to grow their next generation of leaders. There is plenty of research that shows the characteristics that a leader should have, according to those that follow. These differ by location, look at the Globe studies. They also differ by situation, the characteristics required are contingent on the situation that is present. Therefore the leadership style is also. I take a semi formal approach to developing my own leadership skills. I use places like this, I use experiments in the workplace, I take advantage of formal training. I think the core things are: Communication, An appreciation of and a caring about peoples humanity, Knowing what you believe in, what you are passionate about, what is going on around you, Doing it, making mistakes, doing it differently, making different mistakes, doing it differently etc etc etc. I think that these are also going to be the things that future leaders will need to know. Regards, Colin. As the great philosopher K said. 1500 years ago, everybody knew that the earth was the centre of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew the world was flat. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.