Tue • Jun 24th, 2008 • by Tom Nees • Comments 0
| Do you want to know? Not only can you know—by knowing you can improve your leadership skills regardless of your style. As no two people are alike so leaders vary in the ways they lead. Leadership development with executive coaching is relatively new particularly in the nonprofit and religious communities. The only description of leadership I remember in my preparation for ministry in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s was the SNL – the Strong Natural Leader. It was assumed that leaders were born, not made, and that once elected or appointed the position would make the leader. We know that positional responsibility requires management skills. The hope is that those with positions become leaders as well as managers, but that’s not always the case. The good news is that leadership can be developed whatever the position. In fact some of the world’s greatest leaders have had no position. Leaders without position are sometimes referred to as “thought leaders,” who as they age become the “wise elders.”
In their book “Leadership Agility,” Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs identify what they call “Five Levels of Leadership Agility,” – Expert, Achiever, Catalyst, Co-creator and Synergist. They borrow from David Bradford and Allan Cohen in “Power Up: Transforming Organizations Through Shared Leadership,” who distinguish between “heroic” and “post-heroic” leaders. From their research Joiner and Josephs claim that 90 percent of leaders including the “Experts” and “Achievers” are in the “heroic” category, defined as those who “assume sole responsibility for setting their organization’s objectives, coordinating the activities of their subordinates and managing their performance.” As effective and pervasive as this leadership style may be, they observe that “heroic leadership overcontrols and underutilizes subordinates. It discourages people from feeling responsibility for anything beyond their assigned area, inhibits optimal teamwork, and implicitly encourages subordinates to use the heroic approach with their own units.” Joiner and Josephs predict that in the 21st Century “sustained success will require post-heroic leaders,” understood as leaders who work to create highly participative teams and organizations characterized by shared commitment and responsibility.” Unfortunately, as they note, only 10 percent of leaders are “post-heroic” including those they define as Catalyst (5 percent), Co-Creator (4 percent) and Synergist (only 1 percent). Leadership development with executive coaching assumes a leadership development path which begins by answering the question—what kind of leader are you?—and proceeds through a life-time of learning to develop leaders who know how to help others succeed. |