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What Do Leaders DO to build “Level 5” Organizations?

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This blog is a companion to the podcast with Geoff Fitch and Terri O’Fallon, Is There Such A Thing As A ‘Level 5’/Teal Organization -Part 2. Geoff Fitch, MA, wrote this post.

As a Level 5 leader, we know our personal development is key to our ability to meet the complex challenges we face in today’s world. In our last post, Terri O’Fallon noted that working with individual and organizational shadow is one of the most challenging parts of the life and development of a Level 5 (Strategist) Leader. An important part of this process is understanding our shadow – the projections and assumptions we are unaware of often set the limits of the solutions we imagine.

But what is Organizational Shadow, and how can we work with it? You can think of shadow as pushing things out of our awareness that we don’t want to or can’t handle. Level 5 leaders understand that the organizational field of play doesn’t just include what we see; it also includes the unconscious territory and that we must work to uncover what’s hidden in it. You can think of shadow as a form of self-deception. As an individual, we blame others without looking at our projections we put on them and miss how we may be just as at fault.

At an Organizational level, you can think of shadow as one step beyond what is undiscussable. Organizational Shadow is what is unthinkable. When there is something that an organization or team is not dealing with, often what happens is that it “projects” that issue on one of its staff members or departments. Someone or some group in the organization will compensate for the lack of attention to the issue at an organizational level. However, because the need is unconscious, they will often be vilified for the initiative instead of appreciated. Why are they paying attention to something that is not an organizational priority or perhaps even one of their responsibilities?

In our interview, we discussed just such a case in which a healthcare executive had taken action to address some compliance problems the organization was facing. These problems were an organizational issue that was not being dealt with effectively by leadership at all levels. So, she stepped in and took the issue on, even though it was outside her responsibility. The result was she became a source of conflict and eventually became ill from the stress. Once the executive team identified the Organizational Shadow, clarified the cultural blocks to effectively dealing with compliance issues, and took this on as a core organizational imperative owned by the whole team, the conflict disappeared, and the executive’s health recovered. It was a striking example of Organizational Shadow at work.

In hindsight, it might seem like an obvious challenge to address, but it can be very difficult to see when we are caught in shadow. What is unseen in your organization? What persistent challenges might point to a core truth you are not willing, as an organization, to face?

These four approaches help explore and resolve organizational shadow issues. These four strategies also point to capacities that Level 5 (Strategist) leaders bring to their organizations.

  1. Identify the conflict.

Organizational shadow produces conflict. Usually, there is a personal, role, or strategic conflict surrounding the issue as the unidentified organizational need creates tension in the system. Yet how we see that conflict often misleads us from the underlying issue. Often, a person or group gets the need “projected” on them and consequently becomes scapegoated or marginalized. This happened in our example when the executive tried to get others to face a problem and was consequently seen as a problem in the organization. When looking at an area of struggle, ask yourself – might someone be getting scapegoated here? This takes us out of the blaming mindset and helps us begin to see the problem more systemically – a key Level 5 move.

  1. Turn the problem into an organizational need.

Looking at the issue systemically, you can often notice that we ascribe negative qualities to the potentially scapegoated person or group and ask, do these qualities represent something we need to have more of, not less of? In our case, the executive had turned into a kind of enforcer, which directly conflicted with the collegial reciprocity at the core of the organizational culture. It was a friendly place, and her behavior was clashing. Asking the turnaround question, we could see how the organization needed more of what she was bringing. In its open, friendly culture, the team avoided effectively dealing with the black-and-white issues that required them to confront themselves. Because of this, she had become the ‘cop’ and alienated herself from everyone on the team. Her ‘difficult behavior’ was now seen as a needed organizational capacity. Level 5 Leaders bring this capacity to identify and integrate organizational polarities that may seem in conflict.

  1. Determine how and why the organizational need has been disowned.

In this example, we can see that the organizational need was disowned because it seemed to conflict with their culture, which they highly valued. There was an implicit assumption that there was no way to deal with compliance that was consistent with their culture. Level 5 leaders see these organizational assumptions as the key drivers of thinking, behavior and results. They also see them as discussable and changeable. Uncovering organizational shadow allows us to see exactly how these hidden drivers of organizational performance have been operating. After identifying the conflict, scapegoating dynamic, and underlying organizational need, it is important to discover how this process has functioned – what mindsets, thinking, decisions and behaviors have held it in place.

  1. Take collective ownership of the organizational need.

In our case, solutions to this contradiction became obvious once the team surfaced out of the shadow. The first step to implementing a solution is to collectively take ownership for the need. Organizational Shadow often points to systemic shifts that need to take place in values, priorities, and behaviors. In the healthcare case, once the problem was identified, the executive team made a commitment to own the problem across the organization. This action immediately relieves the scapegoat of excessive responsibility for the issue and is a critical step in resolving the shadow and ensuring it does not persist. Specific strategies and tactics to address the need can be implemented from there.

In our interview, we also talk about how the very organizational capacities Level 5 leaders foster, particularly social safety and adaptability, are essential for uncovering Organizational Shadow. What makes these issues unlike other organizational challenges is that they are unseen because we are actively, and often unconsciously, avoiding them. For teams to be willing to explore these hidden assumptions and areas of conflict, leaders need to bring a culture of trust, safety, and curiosity. When this is in place, we find that most teams are more than willing, and are often relieved, to bring light to what is in the shadow.

 

About Geoff Fitch

Geoff Fitch is a coach, trainer, and facilitator of change in individuals and organizations and a creator of transformative leadership education programs worldwide. He is a founder of Pacific Integral with Terri O’Fallon Ph.D., where he was instrumental in developing the internationally-acclaimed Generating Transformative Change program, now offered on three continents and in its 24th cohort. He has researched and developed novel approaches to transformative change in individuals and human systems through these programs. Geoff brings over 30 years of experience in business, management, and organizational leadership, including 18 years in in management in the computer industry and 15 years as a consultant, coach, and trainer in leadership. He has explored diverse approaches to cultivating higher human potential for over 25 years. He holds a master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University and B.S. in Computer Science, magna cum laude, from Boston University.

Learn more about Geoff’s work at www.pacificintegral.com

Proven Path to Leadership Maturity and Effectiveness

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This post is a companion to the podcast featuring Mike Morrow-Fox talking about leadership maturity and vertical development to build the leadership qualities required to lead large, complex organizations and those that aspire to make the greatest impact.

Forbes Coaches Council first published the following article in August 2016.

Future trends indicate complexity, accelerated change, and near-constant uncertainty in the coming years. These conditions will require significantly different leadership skills.

With these new demands for evolving leadership, is there a predictable path to develop leadership? If so, what does that path look like?

Leaders develop both “horizontally,” increasing their ability at their current level of operation, and “vertically,” increasing their level of complexity, emotional maturity, and opening to new awareness. Many researchers are now saying that “vertical development” is required to navigate the complexities leaders and their organizations face.

To answer what the vertical evolutionary path looks like, I reference the research of Dr. Cook-Greuter, who developed a Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF) and measurement of adult development as part of her doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. Dr. Cook-Greuter is now the Co-Founder with Beena Sharma of The Center for Leadership Maturity, a firm that facilitates vertical development in individuals, teams, and organizations. The LMF is the basis of my work with vertical leadership development because it provides a model grounded in research and is practical to use in coaching and leadership development.

Vertical development does not mean that more developed people are “better” people, but rather, in many cases, they are likely to be more effective in key leadership roles within large complex organizations. The following is a summary of the LMF describing the predictable developmental trajectory people navigate as they grow:

The Group-Centric Level

This level is about conforming and belonging. People at this level follow rules, norms and observe hierarchy. They conform to social expectations, work to group standards, seek membership and approval, and appreciate outward signs of status as a sign of approval. They attend to the welfare of their own group; those who are not like them are the “other,” and therefore outside their circle of concern. They avoid conflict, think in simple terms, and often speak in generalities. Feedback is taken as disapproval since their driving value is to gain approval and be included.

Example: This is the employee who looks to what the group is doing to determine his actions. He looks to meet the “expectations” set by the organization, fit into the culture, and do what everyone does. Belonging is his key to success; standing out or having a different opinion feels risky

The Skill-Centric Level

This focuses on comparing self to others and perfecting skills. Individuals at this level focus on being competent in their own area of interest and improving techniques and efficiency. They aspire to quality standards and are often heavily invested in their way as the only way of doing things. Decisions are made based on incontrovertible “facts.” Given their focus on problem-solving and detail, they can get caught in the weeds and not see the big picture necessary to effectively prioritize among competing demands. All consuming attention on being right can lead them to be critical of and competitive with others. They hear feedback about their work as criticism of them as a whole person.

Example: This is the employee who points out when others make mistakes and tries to correct them so they can meet the standards. Her development efforts focus on building expertise. She usually has a “better” opinion unless she is in the presence of a subject-matter expert.

The Self-Determining Level

This focuses on analyzing and achieving to effectively deliver results. Leaders at this level look toward longer-term goals and initiate rather than follow expectations. They value objectivity and scientific knowledge, seeking rational, proactive ways around problems. They often seek consensus — “agree to disagree” — and value mutuality and equality in relationships. They accept feedback to promote learning and success.

Example: This employee continually drives to meet organizational goals. He works both efficiently and effectively and is continually competing with himself and others to drive the best results. He has a five-year plan, is open to new learning, and is beginning to be more reflective.

The Self-Questioning Level

This level focuses on self in relationship and contextualizing his/her experience. Leaders at this level are concerned with the difference between reality and appearance and have an increased understanding of complexity and unintended effects of actions. They begin to question their own assumptions and views and realize the subjectivity of beliefs; and talk of interpretations rather than facts. They can play different roles in different contexts and begin to seek out and value feedback.

Example: This employee is continually inquiring, challenging assumptions, and aware of the limitations of conventional thinking. She focuses on creating an environment where everyone feels valued. She is committed to appreciating value in different perspectives.

The Self-Actualizing Level

This level is about integrating and transforming self and systems, and recognizing higher principles, complexity and interrelationships. People at this level are aware of the social construction of reality — not just rules and customs. They are problem finding, not just doing creative problem solving. They are aware of paradox and contradiction in self and systems and learn to have a deep appreciation of others. They demonstrate a sensitivity to systemic change and create “positive-sum” games.

Example: This person is continually evaluating the organization’s strategy against long-term industry trends as well as global economic conditions while embodying her values and using herself as an instrument of transformation. She is self-aware and firmly anchored in principles while having the ability to adapt based on context.

As we look to the changes leaders are facing in the near and long term, it is helpful to have a robust model for development that allows them to focus their development energy effectively. This framework, along with it, measurement instrument — the maturity assessment for professionals (MAP) — is the most robust I have seen, and I find it highly effective in supporting leaders.

About the author Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Innovative Leadership Institute, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful profitability, growth, and sustainability strategies.

Strengthening Thinking as a Mechanism to Building Resilience

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This blog post is the companion to a podcast with Mark Palmer and Belinda Gore, Building Resilience, A Key Foundation For Change. We encourage you to take our free online resilience assessment.

As the person who curates this blog, I try to balance sharing the work of our radio show guests and other thought leaders with my own opinions. This is one of the weeks where I am sharing my own opinion as it relates to current affairs and the need for resilience.

During the past week, the United States has seen the escalation of threats with North Korea about the use of nuclear weapons and civil unrest in Charlottesville, Virginia, associated with race and hate. Many of us are trying to find a balanced path to respond to what is happening globally, nationally, locally, and personally. Who we are at our core can shine through during times of challenge when we take care of ourselves first.

I realize this message is a bit counter to cultural beliefs. Most of us were cautioned against selfishness. We were taught to believe that it connotes self-centeredness, and that anything “selfish” is wrong. Yet, having a sense of self and knowing when and how to care for yourself is the antithesis of being selfish. If we don’t care for ourselves, there is no way that we can care for others. I think of the inflight announcements on planes: In an emergency, please put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.” As leaders, we need to attend to our resilience foundation to respond to our environment consistently consistent with our values.

Let’s do a small exercise, think about a time you pushed yourself to meet a deadline. It may have meant you didn’t get sufficient sleep. You may have been caffeine-powered or maybe augmented by your favorite sugar source (chocolate, for me). Can you recall a time you did this and responded to someone more harshly than usual? Did you need to do damage control later? I have an example of one of these incidents early in my career. I apologized to my boss for the harsh words delivered at 3 a.m. while trying to get a project completed and out the door. I left that company and was hired back two years later. My new boss handed me my personnel file, and my former boss saved the note. That event lived on in my “file.” While I think it was more a source of banter, it was not my best professional moment.

We all have these moments of stress-related responses. The challenge for all of us, especially in an environment where civility seems to be in short supply in some circles, is to find our own path to sustain our own sense of balance so that we can be the source of civility when it is lacking in our environment. It is during these times that leadership is most critical.

  1. Take care of your physical well-being. We know insufficient sleep and a poor diet take a toll on us. Do your best to draw boundaries that will allow you to recharge. I do walking meetings when possible so that I can get some physical activity and sunlight during the work day.
  2. Manage your thinking. This one is critical. Research tells us five minutes of negative thinking causes six hours of negative physiological impact on our bodies. I am a strong proponent of mindfulness, just staying aware of what I am thinking and reframing to see the positive in challenging situations. I also do scenario planning in which I look at the worst case and plan accordingly; then, I feel free to move back to the positive opportunities I want to create in the world. I use the recordings of Gary Weber and Maryanna Klatt as a strong foundation for managing my thinking. I have a daily reflection practice that helps me regroup when life feels challenging.
  3. Develop emotional intelligence and a sense of purpose. Emotional intelligence is grounded in our ability to manage emotions and respond appropriately to others. One of the biggest keys to managing my emotions is to build a routine that allows me to be aware of my emotions and their impact on me. This was one of my weaknesses. I was happy to avoid feeling things, and yet those feelings still impacted my behavior. When I was unaware of them, the impact could be negative (see the earlier reference of the need to apologize to my boss). If we can maintain awareness and metabolize emotions appropriately, we can return our focus to the activities of leading. I don’t mean find better ways to ignore them, I mean working through emotions in a healthy way. For people who will dismiss this as “touchy-feely,” – don’t discount the impact this skill can have on your ability to stay focused positively. The other part of this step is to have a sense of purpose bigger than yourself and take daily steps toward that purpose—most will be small but significant steps.
  4. Build a strong support system. Having a network of caring relationships is invaluable. For some people, the network may be one or two. For others, relationships do look like a web. There is no formula—what is important is that we have at least one honest and authentic relationship and an outlet to support us. Just knowing and feeling the support of others on the days when everything seems wrong is invaluable. Pets are also a great connection and are a source of unconditional love.

I want to close this post with a quote I got by e-mail today from www.gratefulness.org. Part of my resilience practice is having a regular “diet” of positive information.

“The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.” —Barack Obama.

So, I invite everyone reading this to do something today that supports your resilience. Doing good for others helps build our own sense of well-being and counterbalances the negativity that we all occasionally and circumstantially face.

About the author: Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Innovative Leadership Institute, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

Organizations Have Personality Types: How Do You Fit?

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Belinda Gore EnneagramThis guest blog was written as a companion to the podcast with Belinda Gore,  Building Leadership Self-Awareness Using Personality Type. In the interview and the blog, Belinda explores how she uses the Enneagram to help leaders build the self-awareness that enables them to perform effectively. 

As a reminder from a prior post, when the 65-member Advisory Council for the Stanford Graduate School of Business was polled several years ago on the topic of what is most important to include in the school’s curriculum, there was overwhelming agreement that the most important thing business school graduates needed to learn was self-awareness and the resulting ability to reduce denial in their perceptions of themselves and their actions. Pretty impressive. This speaks to the emerging recognition that we highlight in Innovative Leadership: leaders can derail the most progressive initiatives toward an organization’s sustainable success through their personality quirks and biases.

In my experience using the Enneagram system as a psychologist and a leadership coach over the past twenty-three years, I find the Enneagram to be more robust than any other system I have encountered. Many organizations are familiar with DISC, MBTI, Social Styles, and other systems, and training in these models has given employees at every level of the organization a foundation in models for self-awareness. I have found leaders at every level able to learn the rich and versatile information the Enneagram offers readily.

Just as leaders have “personalities,” so do organizations. This is just another way to think about the organizational culture, the mission or role the organization seeks to fulfill, the favored strategies for accomplishing goals, the behaviors that are rewarded and those that are not, and the subtle hiring filters that tend to screen out people who do not fit. The senior leaders of the organization may or may not reflect the culture. It is immensely valuable for leaders to determine their organization’s personality type to harness the natural strengths of that pattern and avoid the embedded tendencies that create problems. Leaders are likely to have a strong influence on the development of organizational culture, but without clear awareness, they may not realize how the leader and the group are aligned and how they sometimes work in opposition.

For example, a mid-size utility company instituted leadership development training based on the Enneagram. In assessing several hundred people within the company, it became clear that the organization has a Type Six culture of loyalty. The Type Six pattern is reflected in the company’s mission to provide reliable and affordable gas and electric energy to their customers and to promote safety for their employees in power plants and distribution. Loyalty is highly valued within the company; many employees have worked there for twenty years or more. Attention is paid to identifying potential problems and working out solutions before they occur; when there is a power outage due to weather conditions, there is an expectation that the entire workforce will be available to provide support until the situation is resolved. In some Enneagram training groups of individual contributors, up to 50% of the employees determined for themselves—using an assessment tool along with classroom training and guided group discussion—to have a Type Six personality. Among mid-level managers, that percentage drops to around 35%, and in the top group of senior leaders, less than 10% assess themselves as having a Type Six personality pattern.

This is not unusual. Why? Because leaders in the C-suites, those who have risen to the top leadership levels, are not equally distributed around the Enneagram circle but tend to cluster in another sub-grouping.

As a leader, you must understand your type to build awareness of your predispositions. It is also important to understand the organization’s type to understand better how you fit within it. Understanding your type will lead you to the following questions:

  1. Is your style a natural fit with that of the majority?
  2. What gifts do you bring because of your similarities?
  3. What blind spots exist if too many people share the same personality type?
  4. If you have a different type, how do your predispositions fill gaps?
  5. How do you manage your similarities and differences to fit and fill gaps?

By answering these questions, you will have a clearer sense of how you, as a leader, may best contribute and some of the inherent struggles if you have a different type than the majority that comprises the culture. While being part of the minority allows you to fill gaps, you may also find yourself excluded or struggling to communicate effectively. Through self-awareness and skillful interactions, you will be able to navigate any organization’s predispositions.

About the Author
Belinda Gore, PhD focuses on designing, developing, and delivering leadership, assessments, workshops, and coaching. She is a key thought leader in developing the Innovative Leadership framework. She is a psychologist, executive coach, and experienced seminar leader skilled in supporting her clients in high-level learning. With 30 years’ experience in leadership development and interpersonal skills training, she is known for helping teams discover strength in their diversity to achieve their mutual goals, and works with individual leaders to access their natural talents to maximize effectiveness and personal satisfaction. Her clients have included senior leadership in global companies, senior and middle management in corporate and nonprofit organizations, and entrepreneurs. She will lead our new service line, which is focused on helping leaders and their organizations build resilience and offering leadership team development, board development, coaching, and Enneagram assessment.

Avoiding Decision Disasters: Integrating the Gut and the Head

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This guest blog was written as a companion to the podcast Interview with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky’s Tools for Avoiding Disastrous Decisions. In the interview and the blog, Gleb explores how we can balance intuition and data-based decision-making to achieve the most effective business outcomes. He explores some common misconceptions and offers recommendations to avoid them.

Let’s say you’re interviewing a new applicant for a job, and you feel something is off. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you’re a bit uncomfortable with this person. She says all the right things, her resume is great, and she’d be a perfect hire for this job – except your gut tells you otherwise.

Should you go with your gut?

In such situations, your default reaction should be to be suspicious of your gut. Research shows that interviewing job candidates is a poor indicator of future job performance.

Unfortunately, most employers tend to trust their guts over their heads and give jobs to people they like and perceive as part of their in-group rather than simply the most qualified applicant. In other situations, however, it makes sense to rely on gut instinct to decide.

Yet research on decision-making shows that most business leaders don’t know when to rely on their gut and when not to. While most studies have focused on executives and managers, research shows the same problem applies to doctors, therapists, and other professionals.

This is the challenge I encounter when I consult with companies on handling workplace relationships better. Research that I and others have conducted on decision-making offers clues on when we should – and shouldn’t – listen to our guts. Our gut reactions are rooted in the more primitive, emotional, and intuitive part of our brains that ensures survival in our ancestral environment. Tribal loyalty and immediate recognition of friend or foe were especially useful for thriving in that environment.

In modern society, however, our survival is much less at risk, and our gut is more likely to compel us to focus on the wrong information to make workplace and other decisions.

For example, is the job candidate mentioned above similar to your race, gender, or socioeconomic background? Even seemingly minor things like clothing choices, speaking style, and gesturing can significantly affect how you evaluate another person. According to research on nonverbal communication, we like people who mimic our tone, body movements, and word choices. Our guts automatically identify those people as belonging to our tribe and being friendly to us, raising their status in our eyes.

This quick, automatic reaction of our emotions represents the autopilot system of thinking, one of our brains’ two systems of thinking. It makes good decisions most of the time but also regularly makes certain systematic thinking errors that scholars call cognitive biases.

The other thinking system, the intentional one, is deliberate and reflective. It takes effort to turn on, but it can catch and override the thinking errors committed by our autopilots. This way, we can address our brains’ systematic mistakes in workplace relationships and other areas of life.

Remember that the autopilot and intentional systems are only simplifications of more complex processes and that there is debate about how they work in the scientific community. However, this systems-level approach is very useful for everyday life in helping us manage our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Regarding tribal loyalty, our brains tend to fall for the thinking error known as the “halo effect,” which causes some characteristics we like and identify with to cast a positive “halo” on the rest of the person, and it’s opposite the “horns effect,” in which one or two negative traits change how we view the whole. Psychologists call this “anchoring,” meaning we judge this person through the anchor of our initial impressions.

Overriding the gut

Now, let’s go back to our job interview example.

Say that the person went to the same college you did. You are more likely to hit it off. Yet, just because someone is similar to you does not mean she will do a good job. Likewise, just because someone is skilled at conveying friendliness does not mean she will do well at tasks that require technical skills rather than people skills.

The research is clear that our intuitions don’t always serve us well in making the best decisions (and, for a business person, bringing in the most profit). Scholars call intuition a troublesome decision tool that requires adjustments to function properly. Such reliance on intuition is especially harmful to workplace diversity and paves the path to bias in hiring, including in terms of race, disability, gender, and sex.

Despite the numerous studies showing that structured interventions are needed to overcome hiring bias, business leaders and HR personnel tend to over-rely on unstructured interviews and other intuitive decision-making practices. Due to the autopilot system’s overconfidence bias and a tendency to evaluate our decision-making abilities as better than they are, leaders often go with their guts on hires and other business decisions rather than use analytical decision-making tools that have demonstrably better outcomes.

A good fix is to use your intentional system to override your tribal sensibilities to make a more rational, less biased choice that will more likely result in the best hire. You could note ways in which the applicant is different from you – and give them “positive points” for it – or create structured interviews with standardized questions asked in the same order to every applicant.

So if your goal is to make the best decisions, avoid such emotional reasoning, a mental process in which you conclude that what you feel is true, regardless of the actual reality.

When your gut may be right

Let’s take a different situation. Say you’ve known someone in your work for many years, collaborated with her on various projects, and have an established relationship. You already have stable feelings about that person and have a good baseline.

Imagine yourself having a conversation with her about a potential collaboration. For some reason, you feel less comfortable than usual. It’s not you – you’re in a good mood, well-rested, feeling fine. You’re unsure why you feel bad about the interaction since nothing is wrong. What’s going on?

Most likely, your intuitions pick up subtle cues about something being off. Perhaps that person is squinting and not looking you in the eye or smiling less than usual. Our guts are good at picking up such signals, as they are fine-tuned to pick up signs of being excluded from the tribe.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe that person has a bad day or didn’t get enough sleep the night before. However, that person may also be trying to pull the wool over your eyes. When people lie, they behave in ways that are similar to other indicators of discomfort, anxiety, and rejection, and it’s really hard to tell what’s causing these signals.

Overall, this is a good time to consider your gut reaction and be more suspicious than usual.

The gut is vital in decision-making to help us notice when something is amiss. Yet, in most situations, when we face significant decisions about workplace relationships, we need to trust our heads more than our gut to make the best decisions.

About the Author

 

Leveraging Personality Type to Improve Leadership Effectiveness

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Leader Type

This guest blog was written as a companion to the podcast with Belinda Gore, Building Leadership Self-Awareness Using Personality Type. In the interview and the blog, Belinda explores how she uses the Enneagram to help leaders build the self-awareness that enables them to perform effectively.

This post contains some excerpts from the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook by Maureen Metcalf and contributing author Belinda Gore.

Let’s start with the example of Ken, an experienced leader who was making a job change. He realized he was navigating uncharted territory and would no longer be working with the team he knew well and trusted. He would work with new people who didn’t know who he was or how he worked. Because starting a new job is stressful, he must also know his patterns and signs of stress. To help him manage this transition, he revisited his personality assessment to refresh his memory on navigating his stress and understanding his new team better. He found this tool very useful in the past and expected it would be equally valuable as he stepped into a high-visibility role.

When the 65 members of the Advisory Council for the Stanford Graduate School of Business were polled several years ago on the topic of what is most important to include in the school’s curriculum, there was an overwhelming agreement that the most important thing business school graduates needed to learn was self-awareness and the resulting ability to reduce denial in their perceptions of themselves and their actions.  Pretty impressive.  All the tools of the MBA trade—forecasting, strategic planning, financial analysis, among many, many others—were determined to be LESS important than learning self-awareness skills and the ability to reduce denial. This speaks to the emerging recognition that we highlight in Innovative Leadership:  Leaders can derail the most progressive initiatives toward an organization’s sustainable success through their personality quirks and biases.

The name “Enneagram” derives from the Greek for nine (ennea) and a figure (grama). Hence, the Enneagram symbol of a circle with nine equidistant points around the circumference.  The symbol itself is ancient. Using the symbol as a map, we can describe patterns of personality and highly effective pathways for personal change.  In my experience using the Enneagram system as a psychologist and leadership coach over the past twenty-three years, I find it more robust than any other system I have encountered. Many organizations are familiar with DISC, MBTI, Strengths Finder, and other systems, and training in these models has given employees at every level of organizations a foundation in models for self-awareness. I have found leaders at every level able to readily learn the richer and more versatile information the Enneagram offers.

The following section describes the enneagram types.

Type 1—Reformer: The Rational, Idealistic Type

I am a principled, idealistic type. I am conscientious and ethical and have a strong sense of right and wrong behavior. I can be a teacher, crusader, and advocate for change, always striving to improve things but sometimes afraid of making mistakes. Well-organized, orderly, and fastidious, I try to maintain high standards but can slip into being critical and perfectionistic. I typically have problems with resentment and impatience.

At My Best: I am wise, discerning, realistic, and noble. I can be morally heroic.

Type 2—Helper: The Caring, Interpersonal Type

I am a caring, interpersonal type. I am empathetic, sincere, and warm-hearted. I am friendly, generous, and self-sacrificing, but I can also be sentimental, flattering, and people-pleasing. I am well-meaning and driven to be close to others, but I can slip into doing things for others ‘ needs. I typically have problems with possessiveness and with acknowledging my own needs.

At My Best: I am unselfish and altruistic and have unconditional love for others.

Type 3—Achiever: The Success-Oriented, Pragmatic Type

I am an adaptable, success-oriented type. I am self-assured, attractive, and charming. Ambitious, competent, and energetic, I can also be status-conscious and highly driven for advancement. I am diplomatic and poised, but I can also be overly concerned with my image and what others think of me. I typically have problems with being overfocused on work and competitiveness.

At My Best: I am self-accepting, authentic, and a role model who inspires others.

Type 4—Individualist: The Sensitive, Withdrawn Type

I am an introspective, romantic type. I am self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. I am emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but I can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding myself from others due to feeling vulnerable, I can also feel scornful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. I typically have problems with melancholy, self-indulgence, and self-pity.

At My Best: I am inspired and highly creative and can renew myself and transform my experiences.

Type 5—Investigator: The Intense, Cerebral Type

I am a perceptive, cerebral type. I am alert, insightful, and curious. I can concentrate and focus on developing complex ideas and skills. Independent, innovative, and inventive, I can also become preoccupied with my thoughts and imaginary constructs. I can be detached yet high-strung and intense. I typically have problems with eccentricity, nihilism, and isolation.

At My Best: I am a visionary pioneer, often ahead of my time, and able to see the world in an entirely new way.

Type 6—Loyalist: The Committed, Security-Oriented Type

I am reliable, hardworking, responsible, security-oriented, and trustworthy. I am an excellent troubleshooter and can foresee problems and foster cooperation, but I can also become defensive, evasive, and anxious, running on stress while complaining about it. I can be cautious, indecisive, but also reactive, defiant, and rebellious. I typically have problems with self-doubt and suspicion.

At My Best: I am internally stable and self-reliant, courageously championing myself and others.

Type Seven—Enthusiast: The Busy, Fun-Loving Type

I am a busy, outgoing, productive type. I am extroverted, optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. I can also misapply many talents, being playful, high-spirited, and practical, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. I constantly seek new and exciting experiences but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go. I typically have problems with impatience and impulsiveness.

At My Best: I focus my talents on worthwhile goals, becoming appreciative, joyous, and satisfied.

Type Eight—Challenger: The Powerful, Dominating Type

I am powerful, aggressive, self-confident, strong, and assertive. Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, I can also be egocentric and domineering. I must control my environment, especially people who sometimes become confrontational and intimidating. I typically have problems with my temper and allowing myself to be vulnerable.

At My Best: I am self-mastering, and I use my strength to improve others’ lives, becoming heroic, magnanimous, and inspiring.

Type Nine—Peacemaker: The Easygoing, Self-effacing Type

I am accepting, trusting, easygoing, and stable. I am usually grounded, supportive, and often creative, but I can also be too willing to go along with others to keep the peace. I want everything to go smoothly and be without conflict, but I can also tend to be complacent and emotionally distant, simplifying problems and ignoring anything upsetting. I typically have problems with inertia and stubbornness.

At My Best: I am indomitable, all-embracing, and able to bring people together to heal conflicts.

One advantage of the Enneagram is that it is organic. The nine personality styles are formed through characteristic ways of balancing the three primary centers of intelligence in the human body. While we typically think of the brain as the center of intelligence, advances in neuroanatomy have demonstrated that there is also a complex system of nerves in the solar plexus region that forms the center of body intelligence and a third complex system of nerves in the center of the chest, known as the heart center of intelligence.  These three centers are aligned with the three major parts of the brain:  the belly center is aligned with the reptilian brain stem, responsible for instinctual behavior and home of the autonomic nervous system that controls arousal and relaxation;  the heart center is aligned with the mid-brain where we encounter the mechanism for fundamental emotion as well as mirror neurons and limbic resonance that account for our capacity for empathy; and the head center is aligned with the cerebral cortex, which includes the analytical and logical left lobe as well as the holistic and intuitive right lobe.

The key to identifying a person’s core Enneagram type is to look beyond behavior to the factors motivating that behavior. Through awareness of motivation, we can predict how leaders and organizations sabotage their best efforts and find the line of least resistance toward getting back on track.

By harnessing the capacity to see your leader type and conditioning objectively and nonjudgmentally, you can foster better insight into your own experience without the strained effort that can stem from self-bias. You discover that the unique patterns that shape each type are genuine and natural and generally do not change much over time. In the most basic way, they reflect who you are most innately.  The goal with the leader type is to build self-awareness and leverage strengths, not try to change who you are. Understanding the natural conditioning of the leader type is a crucial stage in developing leadership effectiveness and comprehensive innovation within the organization.

A recommended resource for identifying your own Enneagram personality type is to take an online questionnaire.

About the Authors

Belinda Gore, Ph.D., designs, develops and delivers leadership, assessments, workshops, and coaching. She is a key thought leader in developing the Innovative Leadership framework.

She is a psychologist, executive coach, and experienced seminar leader skilled in supporting her clients in high-level learning. With 30 years experience in leadership development and interpersonal skills training, she is known for helping teams discover strength in their diversity to achieve their mutual goals and works with individual leaders to access their natural talents to maximize effectiveness and personal satisfaction. Her clients have included senior leadership in global companies, senior and middle management in corporate and nonprofit organizations, and entrepreneurs. She will lead our new service line, which is focused on helping leaders and their organizations build resilience. She will also offer leadership team development, board development, coaching, and Enneagram assessment.

Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Innovative Leadership Institute, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provide high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful profitability, growth, and sustainability strategies.

Maximizing Team Interactions: Moving Beyond the Lowest Common Denominator’s Reign

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Building Thriving TeamsThis blog is drawn from a paper by Jim Ritchie-Dunham & Maureen Metcalf, Co-hosting: Creating Optimal Experience for Team Interactions, Integral Leadership Review, November 2016. Jim and Maureen also recorded a podcast.

Christopher, the CEO, walked into a planning session to get his full team on the same page for how to move key initiatives forward for the upcoming year. His leaders were all in alignment on the core purpose of the organization and how to accomplish it. During the discussion, everyone gave unbiased input to move the organization forward, irrespective of personal interest. Christopher was highly skilled at understanding the point of view of all participants and synthesizing the various points of view of his trusted leaders to create solutions everyone could support.

Does this scenario describe your normal business meetings? How is it different?

We want to explore the idea that groups can leverage the skills of individuals across five key perspectives and create an environment in which each participant operates at his greatest level of contribution. We call this the alchemy of co-hosting, whereby the co-host, in conjunction with the participants, invokes a very different mindset and process for the team to function.

The Challenge

“Less than one-third of U.S. employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces [since 2000]. According to Gallup Daily tracking, 32% of employees in the U.S. are engaged — meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Worldwide, only 13% of employees working for an organization are engaged.” – Gallup

Much of our work is done within teams of highly effective and highly compensated people. We have found that these teams often function at the level of the least common denominator. Many people, especially leaders, move from meeting to meeting all day. They often do this with little awareness of their specific role in the meeting and the value they bring. This is the culture of many organizations. When asking a cohort of vibrancy community members what they experienced in these teams, they suggested that while the participants were generally strong employees with good skills, they were often disengaged, and some actively disrupted the work or found ways to interfere with the meeting goals. In some cases, the participants did this as a passive-aggressive response; in some worse cases, they did it just for personal entertainment. So, what is the antidote to this high level of disengagement considering five key factors other than the highest rank present? How do we capture the highest input level from each person to create a higher level “field” of operation than any individual would have access to by working alone?

The Approach

We look at five different perspectives or measures of intelligence and then explore how the art of co-hosting can leverage all five intelligences of the participants to create an environment that calls forth the greatest possible capacity in the group.

The five perspectives are:

  • Leadership maturity – describes how adults mature throughout their lifespan, attending to ever-increasing levels of complexity in their thinking, emotions, and behaviors
  • State development – describes where people focus their attention, ranging from what is immediately in front of them to what is abstract and spiritual.
  • Years of experience
  • Skill to identify the perspectives in the room
  • Co-hosting skill – the ability to identify the perspectives in the room and create an environment and approach that leverages the maturity, state, and skills of the participants

It is interesting to note that each perspective is important for an organization to create holistic solutions to its many complex challenges. For that reason, it is important to recognize each of these perspectives and be able to identify, recruit, and create environments that genuinely leverage each of their gifts.

Integrating the five perspectives individually allows an effective co-host to create the “container” or space to leverage each to the participants’ greatest potential rather than the traditional lowest common denominator.

Summary

During this era of increased complexity and accelerated need for change, we must identify methods and processes to help us navigate our challenges. Optimally, these methods and processes would create the greatest impact for all involved—creating an optimal individual experience and a holistic solution for the organizations or groups involved.

We believe the solution integrates a solid process that integrates five key perspectives and a presence of being within the co-host to create the desired outcome. Both elements are critical.

We have an opportunity to enhance the experience and the impact we have in trying to solve problems. By building the capacity to co-host and using this process, we increase the probability of solving our most complex problems and enjoying the process. Knowing this is possible helps us regain hope that we as a society can resolve the mounting list of intractable problems we hear of daily on the news.

Authors

Jim Ritchie-Dunham is president of the Institute for Strategic Clarity, a global research nonprofit, president of Vibrancy Ins., LLC, a global consultancy and publisher, president of the private operating foundation the Academy for Self-Discovery Leadership, an adjunct faculty member in Harvard’s program in sustainability leadership, and Adjunct Professor of Business Economics in the ITAM Business School in Mexico City.

Jim authored Ecosynomics: The Science of Abundance (2014), co-authored Managing from Clarity: Identifying, Aligning and Leveraging Strategic Resources (2001), has written many articles on systemic strategy for academic and practitioner journals, and blogs regularly at jlrd.me.

As a student of human agreements, Jim Ritchie-Dunham brings over 25 years of research and insights gleaned from working with groups of all make-ups.  Jim named Ecosynomics, the emerging social science of the agreements that guide human interactions. Ecosynomics provides a framework rooted in economics and the sciences of human agreements that begins with an initial assumption of abundance, not scarcity, and a wider view of the human being.

Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Innovative Leadership Institute

, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and executive advisor whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful profitability, growth, and sustainability strategies.

Maureen has published several papers and articles and speaks regularly on innovative leadership, resilience, and organizational transformation. She is the author of the award-winning Innovative Leadership Workbook Series and the co-author of The Innovative Leadership Fieldbook, and she is the winner of an International Book Award for Best Business Reference Book. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

 

Bad Bosses – Are You One?

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Bad Bosses Mike Morrow-Fox and Maureen co-write this blog post as a companion to the podcast recording on Bad Bosses.

Bill comes into the office. He is swamped by the work he must accomplish –  preparing for a high-visibility client meeting, meeting with his executive leadership, and consolidating information to create his monthly reports. On top of this, he has seven highly competent direct reports. He’s grateful that his team is so effective because he doesn’t need much time with them. He really likes his team and wishes to do more mentoring, but for now, he needs to keep his head down and finish his work. As we read in the article, his approach is ineffective because he is not actively engaging them.

In a January 2016 article published in the Gallup Business Journal, ‘Gallup has been tracking employee engagement in the U.S. since 2000. Though slight ebbs and flows have occurred, less than one-third of U.S. employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces during these 15 years. According to Gallup Daily tracking, 32% of employees in the U.S. are engaged — meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace. Worldwide, only 13% of employees working for an organization are engaged.’

Bosses play a major role in employee engagement and disengagement. Engaged bosses drive engagement, while disengaged bosses drive disengagement and, even, active disruption.

Let’s start with a definition. What is the difference between a leader and a boss? Leaders set the cultural tone and strategic vision; bosses are the employee’s conduit to the larger organization.

We understand that there are some obvious characteristics that would make anyone a bad boss, like throwing temper tantrums and micromanaging. We’re going to talk about subtler differences.

Bad Bosses Great Bosses
Let employees “do their thing” Develop their employees, including discussions on strength-based leadership data
Protect their departments Facilitate cross-organizational collaboration
Are customer-focused at the expense of other needs Are priority-focused, helping employees self-manage competing priorities
Are busy with day-to-day operations Are busy with continuous improvement
Recognize their employees to reward them for completing an assignment Recognize their employees as a regular part of development and connection with the mission
Put on a good game face Are authentic and compassionate: “Someone at work cares about me.”
Tell their employees “how.” Tell their employees “why.”

‘If your manager ignores you, there is a 40% chance that you will be actively disengaged or filled with hostility about your job. If your manager is at least paying attention, the chances of you being actively disengaged go down to 22%. But if your manager primarily focuses on your strengths, the chance of your being actively disengaged is just 1% or 1 in 100.’

The number one action great bosses take is regularly taking time to engage with their employees and focusing on employee strengths during these interactions. Great bosses also have regular conversations about employee development, again focusing on employee strengths more than deficiencies. Going back to Bill in the opening story, he would likely have dramatically improved their engagement if he had allocated time each week to talk to employees, discuss their projects, and build on their strengths to help them continue to thrive. It seems rather easy, yet it is not common.

Most of us have had bad boss experiences and found a way to cope until we changed jobs or the bad boss rotated out. The question we pose is, what cost do you incur if you happen to be less involved than your employees need you to be, or if you are primarily focused on correcting and giving guidance rather than balancing guidance to improve performance with helping employees improve their strengths?

 

References:

Rath,T.,& Harter, J. (2010, July). Composite of several submissions. Servant Leadership Focus Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 7.

Mann, Annamarie, and Harter, Jim. (2016, January). Gallup.com Business Journal.

Photo credits: www.flickr.com creative commons Arpit Gupta

About the authors:

Maureen Metcalf is the Founder and CEO of Metcalf & Associates. She is an executive advisor, a speaker, coach, and the author of an award-winning book series focused on innovating how you lead. She is also on the faculty of universities in the US and Germany.

Mike Morrow-Fox, MBA, has over 20 years of experience in leading technology and human resources operations for health care, education, banking, and nonprofit organizations, as well as several years of university teaching. His bachelor’s degree focused on Industrial Psychology and Employee Counseling and his MBA focus was on Organizational Leadership. He is currently completing his Doctorate in Educational Leadership. He is a contributor and thought partner for several of the innovative leadership books.

 

Mergers & Acquisitions: Five Key Drivers to Deliver Value

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Mergers and acquisitions

Not a well-understood concept here…

Today’s post is a collaboration between Maureen Metcalf, Carla Morelli, and Laura Hult, focusing on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and identifying key factors that drive success and failure. The post is a companion to a podcast with the authors. They are seasoned veterans who have participated in many transactions and seen similar themes. This post and its companion podcast provide insights and make recommendations to improve the probability of success for your next transaction, whether you are acquiring, selling, or involved in the integration.

Research Indicates that Mergers and Acquisitions Often Fail to Deliver Desired Results

The Financial Times Press’ A Comprehensive Guide to Mergers & Acquisitions: Managing the Critical Success Factors Across Every Stage of the M&A Process says that though studies have historically set the rate of M&A failure at 50 percent or more, recent years have found it to be as high as 83 percent. One might conclude that executives and boards would eschew M&A to achieve growth and profitability in favor of less risky alternatives, but that has not been the case. Despite the warning signs, the number and dollar value of transactions has increased yearly for the last 20 years.

Failure Results from Management’s Lack of Knowledge or Unwillingness to Face Facts

“The primary reasons for failures [are] related to the fact that it is easy to buy but hard to perform an M&A. In general, many mergers and acquisitions are characterized by a lack of planning, limited synergies, differences in the management/organizational/international culture, negotiation mistakes, and difficulties in the implementation of the strategy following the choice of an incorrect integration approach on the part of the merging organizations after the agreement is signed. Most failure factors indicate a lack of knowledge among senior managers for the management tools that enable coping with the known problems of M&A.” Another management shortcoming is an unwillingness to accept information that negatively impacts post-close projections, whether it be market data, synergies, or cultural challenges. Deal teams often find themselves looking for creative ways to meet expectations. Not meaning to mislead, they are still well aware that the scenarios being modeled are more than just a stretch. The post-close result often falls far short of the mark.

Human Factors are Among the Most Important to Consider

Human factors almost always significantly impact a deal’s success and the amount of additional cost and effort required to recover when they were not sufficiently considered. The five human factors below differentiate successful deals:

  1. Understand the “why.” The buyer and the seller need a clear understanding of why they are initially engaging in the transaction (referred to as the rudder), such as ensuring the business moves forward when a founder retires. As the deal progresses, use the rudder and be open to refining the “why” as the deal unfolds, like realizing that another key motivation is the well-being of employees who helped build the company.
  2. Select an advisory team for both skill and philosophical fit. Advisors play a key role in the deal’s success, and their approach is as important as their skills are. A competent, “bulldog” attorney who takes no prisoners and is more adversarial than the buyer wants to be, for example, is likely to generate wariness and ill will on the seller’s part, eroding the trust and open communication that enables thorough diligence and comprehensive, realistic integration planning. In addition to the advisory team, engage someone to be a sounding board for critical decisions, which can step back when other participants lose their objectivity.
  3. Maintain resilience. The M&A process is physically and emotionally exhausting. To ensure enough physical energy and mental clarity to make tough decisions, buyers and sellers must manage their energy and find ways to rejuvenate. This will be different for different people but should include making conscious choices about physical well-being, managing one’s emotional state, managing thinking (remaining positive), and looking to a trusted advisor for support.
  4. Build trust among the team. Trust takes time and energy when both are scarce. It is particularly important to create an atmosphere that allows people to constructively deal with negative information rather than “creatively” work around it. If the team is selected based on skills and mindsets that align well (similar values and overall approach), it can work through most issues. Addressing them quickly and openly is critical to sustaining a strong team, which is required when challenges arise – and they always do.
  5. Proactively plan and manage the integration. Value is only realized when the organizations are successfully integrated. The most successful integrations have cross-functional integration teams comprised of representatives from both organizations. In addition to keeping the team aligned via regular meetings, progress should be reported at the highest appropriate organizational level (from steering committees to boards of directors, depending on the company’s size and transaction) on a cadence that provides visibility and a forum for decision-making when needed.

Managing human factors increases the likelihood of value being realized: people are complicated, and building a team that has the capacity and inclination to attend to them is a differentiator in an industry where many still focus on the technical elements of the deal.

Authors:

Maureen Metcalf, Founder and CEO of ILI, is an executive advisor, speaker, coach, and author of an award-winning book series focused on innovating how you lead. She is also on the faculty of universities in the US and Germany.

Laura Hult works as an outside counsel focusing on corporate finance. She represents private equity funds and financial, strategic, and lifestyle companies as buyers and sellers. Laura structures negotiates and protects investment value in M&A transactions and has represented investors and lenders at every level of the capital stack.

Carla Morelli is a leader who steers people and organizations through complex change, including global M&A transactions. She delivers business-critical results that balance structural needs with human inter-dynamics; her ability to integrate multiple perspectives and mesh the “balcony view” with a detailed understanding of what is required for an initiative to succeed consistently unlocks potential where other approaches have failed.

Reference:

Weber, Yaakov; Oberg, Christina; Tabra, Shlomo. (January 2014), The M&A Paradox: Factors of Success and Failure in Mergers and Acquisitions, Financial Times Press

Photo credit: www.flickr.com Dan

Center for Leadership Maturity

Leadership Maturity and Vertical Development

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Your level of Leadership Maturity significantly influences your capacity to deal with life and work situations, how you see your role and function in the workplace, how you interact with others, how you solve problems, and how self-aware you are. Leaders develop through various stages of maturity as they grow. Leadership Maturity is about how leaders ‘make meaning’ or sense and interpret experiences at the different stages of development. This is important because the perspectives you use to make sense of the world influence your thoughts and actions. Incorporating the idea of the various stages of your Maturity is critical to innovating your leadership. The author, Jim Collins, referred to Level 5 Leadership in his best-selling business book, Good to Great. Level 5 Leadership is an example of later-stage leadership maturity described in the innovative leadership framework.

One application of the stages of maturity model is to appreciate ‘fit for role’ in organizations. For example, at the ‘Specialist’ level, a leader may perform a process task well and be procedural. A later-stage leader (at the Relative level) who is more mature would be better at handling more complex situations, including those not generally addressed by the rules, and would be better able to take into account the context of the task and adapt when needed.

Another application of this framework is to create a development plan for leaders that is well suited to the level of development they are at, and what would be next for them in their path to maturity.

It is important to note that all stages of maturity bring their strengths and wisdom to an organization, and an optimum mix of levels makes an organization more effective and successful.

Benefits of using this model of Leadership Maturity include:

  • Using developmental perspectives guides leaders in determining their personal development goals and action plans. Determining optimum fit for individuals and team members in the context of specific roles in a particular organization
  • Identifying high-potential leaders to groom for growth opportunities.
  • Determining individual fit for a specific job or role in the recruitment and succession process.
  • Supporting change agents in understanding the perspectives and capacities of others at different stages and tailoring solutions that meet the needs and perspectives of all stakeholders.

The Maturity Assessment Profile (MAP) and its conceptual framework, the Leadership Maturity Framework (LMF) assess leadership maturity. This was researched and validated (with criteria at later stages of development) by Susanne Cook-Greuter as part of her doctoral dissertation at Harvard University. This instrument is today’s most rigorously developed, Harvard-tested, unbiased, and reliable perspective measure. The MAP provides unique and personal feedback in addition to stage description and score. The MAP is also the most sophisticated instrument for identifying and measuring later stages of developmentally advanced leadership. The MAP evaluates three primary dimensions to determine developmental perspective: cognitive complexity, emotional capacity, and behavior.

The following table briefly summarizes the levels and the percentage of the sample population at each level using a sample size of 4,310 people. The name of each stage also indicates the old name (previously used terms) in parenthesis. The Center for Leadership Maturity continues to evolve this model and the development tools for its application. The change in the name is evidence of this evolution. Specifically, it is important to note that while we refer to people being “at a level”, people demonstrate perspectives across a range of levels, while evidencing a ‘center of gravity’ at the stage that they generally tend to operate from.

Levels of Leadership Maturity

Photo credit: Center for Leadership Maturity