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This Leadership Development Plan provides further context and guidance to the homework presented throughout Scaling Leadership. Use the following pages as a guide for personal reflection on your life and your leadership.
Scaling Leadership is about taking your leadership to the next level of effectiveness. We intend that you use this Leadership Development Plan (LDP) in tandem with the Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) and Scaling Leadership. Your completion of this plan, as you read the book, will not only greatly increase the positive impact of the book on your leadership effectiveness, but also provide a foundation to transform yourself, and then scale that as you transform your organizations.
You cannot be other than who you are, but you can always be better than you are now.
—Bob Anderson’s father as he passed from this Earth
Leadership Development Plan
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 2:
Profiles in Leadership: Every Leader Has One ........................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 4:
High-Creative Leadership Strengths: What Differentiates the Most Effective Leaders? .............................. 2
Soliciting Feedback ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Chapter 6:
Leader Liabilities: Most Reactive versus Most Creative .......................................................................................... 4
Chapter 8:
How Leaders Scale Leadership: Learning from One Man’s Example .................................................................. 5
Chapter 10:
Reactive Leadership: Strengths Run Reactively Cancel Themselves Out .......................................................... 7
Chapter 12:
Practices That Transform Leadership: Change is Simple, Change is Hard ........................................................ 8
Ready to Scale Your Leadership! .................................................................................................. 9
Chapter 4
High-Creative Leadership Strengths What Differentiates the Most Effective Leaders?
Identify Your One Big Thing
In their book, Immunity to Change, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey recommend identifying your “One Big Thing,” (OBT) namely, what is the one change you could make in the way you lead that would unlock your leadership and take it to the next level?
Using your LCP results and the lists of what works in Scaling Leadership (see Figures 4.1 & 4.2 on pages 41 & 44, respectively), we suggest you clarify one strength you want to develop further—the one that would make the most difference in your effectiveness.
Suggestion: Ask others for feedback! Use the feedback to dial in your OBT – does my perception of my One Big Thing also resonate with those I lead? Does it sufficiently stretch me, or do I play it safe? (See the next section on How to Solicit Feedback).
As you craft your One Big Thing, make sure it:
- Addresses a change in leadership style or performance:
- “I will build healthy relationships and engage others.”
- “I will be an efficient decision maker.”
- Will stretch you, a declaration you can focus on over the next 6-9 months
- Is aspirational; provides energy around an outcome
- Uses everyday language – make it your leadership mantra!
- Examples of Goal Statements, click here
Brainstorm possible options for your One Big Thing.
One Big Thing Statement Why is this important to me personally?
Soliciting Feedback
Nothing accelerates change as much as increased awareness about what needs to change. One of the best ways to increase awareness is to increase the amount of feedback you’re getting in the areas where you are trying to grow. Think of getting feedback like trying to find flame blindfolded: the closer you are to the truth (flame) the hotter it feels; the further you are, the cooler it is. Use these signals to navigate toward what will be most impactful for you, those you lead, and your organization. As you continue to get feedback and make course corrections, you will naturally tend to become the leader you want to be.
How to Solicit Feedback
Choose People Who:
- Know you well
- You trust to be honest and straightforward
- Observe you behaving (or not) in the ways you want to change
- Have good motives for your development and take seriously your request for feedback
- Understand your job responsibilities and areas of influence
- Can describe you in relation to the various roles you play on the job
Have a face-to-face conversation with each person. Enlist them on your leadership journey. This trans- parency and vulnerability not only speaks to your own dedication to development, but helps to establish some of the Conditions for Scale: being Radically Human (an unusual degree of vulnerability, authenticity, humility, self-awareness, courage, and integrity (p.24)) and in deep relationship with those you lead.
When you Solicit Feedback:
- Listen without defending yourself.
- Ask questions to gather more information. Good questions include:
- What does that look like?
- What is the impact of that on you? On others?
- What should I do differently?
It’s useful to set up long-term relationships for ongoing feedback. Constructing an informed, conscious intention about how you want to lead, in conjunction with the feedback-rich environment you are creating makes it really hard to go wrong. You know what you have to do and you’re constantly getting feedback on it!
Chapter 8
How Leaders Scale Leadership Learning from One Man’s Example
Write your Vision
Now it’s time to clarify an expansive vision of where you’re going and what you’re going to create for the future. A powerful vision is one that creates both internal and external alignment and excitement—from which we harvest the passion and energy to move courageously forward. Furthermore, progress on your One Big Thing &0 ")"/ 1"!4%"+6,2/" )&7"1% 16,2/3&0&,+!"-"+!0,+6,2/ć Likewise, the Leadership Circle Profile’s dimension Purposeful & Visionary most correlates to Leadership Effectiveness.
There are five elements of vision. They are:
- Personal. Your vision comes from within, it is the picture of how your purpose manifests.
- Specific. So much so, that when you achieve your vision, you will know it.
- Strategic. You set direction that enables the organization to excel well into the future and is not limited by the constraints of current reality.
- Lofty. It appeals to your deepest values, higher aspirations, and personal purposes – and those of those you lead.
- Collective. As a leader, you must be willing to influence and be influenced, to distill and refine, creating a shared sense of purpose and vision.
Ask yourself:
- What would you do or create if you could – if you knew you could not fail and would not be fired?
- What is it that most wants and needs to happen in the system in which you find yourself?
- What will exist in two years that does not exist now? In five years? - Where will I be, who will I become, and what will I have accomplished?
Take a moment to capture your reflections. Using these, write a draft of your vision on the next page.
Vision Statement
Why is this important to me?
Why is it important to the business?
Finally: Make a commitment to share your vision and engage others around it. With Whom? By When?
Chapter 12
Practices That Transform Leadership Change is Simple, Change is Hard
Create an Accountability Circle.
Now, we encourage you to establish a circle of feedback—an Accountability Circle. It will give you the feedback you need to hold you accountable to that which you have declared for yourself on an ongoing basis. Ongoing feedback is an effective way to continually generate awareness, to make real-time course corrections, and, ultimately, a powerful way to evolve your leadership.
Using the aforementioned guidelines on How to Solicit Feedback, choose an Accountability Circle consist- ing of 3-5 people that meet these criteria that would like along with you on this development path. These are people whose opinion you respect, who are in a position to observe your leadership behavior on a regu- lar basis, and who are willing to provide you with candid feedback on what they see.
List the names of those whom you will ask to be included in your Accountability Circle below: Name: Name: Name: Name: Name: Name:
Commit.
Go have a conversation with each of them. Exercise vulnerability and courageous authenticity. By when will you have met with each of these people listed and garnered their support to provide you with ongoing feedback?
Conditions for Success. Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed your robust Leadership Develop- ment Plan. To fully realize the potential and opportunity presented to you here, will you:
- Regularly review the plan to ensure you’re acting to improve your leadership?
- Update the plan to reflect your most current thinking and/or record any progress made?
- Share the plan with others?
Ready to Scale Your Leadership!
Effective Leadership is a competitive advantage and is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the primary differentiator in how an organization performs. It takes a lot of honest self-reflection, asking hard questions, commitment and vulnerability to create the conditions for growth. This is the only way we transcend to the higher levels of leadership and consciousness that allow us to better meet the demands of an ever-changing world.
More importantly, however, we hope this Development Plan has taken you deep within yourself, to un- derstand what is important to you, to get to know the essential you, so that you may show up as a better parent, grandparent, boss, co-worker, brother, sister, friend, son or daughter, spouse, and leader; to further the evolution of this planet and to create a thriving future for all.
A hand moves, and the fire’s whirling takes different shapes: all things change when we do. The first word, “Ah,” blossomed into all others. Each of them is true. Kukai
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