Leadership Voices

Here we stand just over three months from the Presidential election. The American People will select their next leader. Maybe this is a good time to revisit what leadership means to us and what type of leader we need most.

This earlier Time Magazine issue provides an overview of the leaders that many people believe shaped the direction of the last century the most. It's worth a bit of your time to review.

Will our next President go down as one of the current century's top leaders? Can either man running for President attain this title? This is a case where looking back might help us a bit in looking forward. Will our next President be a transformational leader or simply another bureaucractic caretaker living in the White House for four years?

How Leadership Styles Have Changed

"Yesterday, natural resources defined power. Today, knowledge is power. Yesterday, leaders commanded and controlled. Today, leaders empower and coach. Yesterday, leaders were warriors. Today, they are facilitators. Yesterday, managers directed. Today, managers delegate. Yesterday, supervisors flourished. Today, supervisors vanish." -- Denis Waitley

Different Leader Styles

According to Elizabeth Lolly, there are five distinct styles of leadership:

1. Chain of Command: Level one, an unempowered environment, positions the leader above and separate from the work group.
2. Leader is Central: At level two, the leader moves from above the workers to the center of the unit, but a clear distinction still exists between what the leader does and what people in the work unit do. The leader is central to most communication within the group and channels communication from upper management to the group.
3. Transition: At level three, the leader begins to shift decision-making authority for basic tasks to members of the group or the work group as a whole. Some members might begin to take on responsibilities belonging traditionally to the leader. The leader also encourages communication, cooperation, and teamwork among group members whenever possible. However. the leader still is central to the group, especially as the initiator of the transition to empowerment.
4. Partnership: No longer central to decision making, the leader becomes a partner to group members in level four. The links between group members might become even stronger. They might depend on each other as much as on the leader for information, help on decisions, and support. Their scope of empowerment has widened. Not only do group members make decisions about how they do theirjobs, but they also assume many of the responsibilities and decisions formerly held by the leader.
5. Highly Empowered: At level five, group members are self-directed.. The leader's primary role is to coach, counsel, and support them. Group members take responsibility for and make decisions about tasks and jobs, including most responsibilities that had been their leader's. The leader still provides direction and acts as a resource, often tackling issues outside the group.

Society for Organizational Learning

This is a resource you might want to know about if your interested in transformational leadership.  Click here to access SoL's website.

Here are the SoL's guiding principles:

Drive to Learn - All human beings are born with an innate, lifelong desire and ability to learn, which should be enhanced by all organizations.

Learning is Social - People learn best from and with one another, and participation in learning communities is vital to their effectiveness, well-being and happiness in any work setting.

Learning Communities - The capacities and accomplishments of organizations are inseparable from, and dependent on, the capacities of the learning communities which they foster.

Aligning with Nature - It is essential that organizations evolve to be in greater harmony with human nature and with the natural world.

Core Learning Capabilities - Organizations must develop individual and collective capabilities to understand complex, interdependent issues; engage in reflective, generative conversation; and nurture personal and shared aspirations.

Cross-Organizational Collaboration - Learning communities that connect multiple organizations can significantly enhance the capacity for profound individual and organizational change.

More on Transformational Leadership Qualities

Here is what an Australian Air Force Colonel has to say about transformational leadership:

- Leaders have high moral and ethical values.
- Leaders express genuine interest in followers.
- Leaders have an inspirational vision.
- Genuine trust exists between leaders and led.
- Followers share leader’s values and vision.
- Leaders and followers perform beyond self-interest.
- Participatory decision-making is the rule.
- Innovative thinking and action is expected.
- Motivation is to do the right thing.
- Leaders mentor.

Watch for the Pitfalls!

The ancient Greeks used to speak of hubris (pride), a characteristic which afflicted the autocrat of many early city-states. Today's CEO's, as the feudal lords of business, would be wise to understand how they can end up losing everything they spent years trying to achieve.

Good Reading: Why CEOs Fail: The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb to the Top and How to Manage Them, by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo.

Know Thyself

Two simple words by Socrates a very long time ago. This is the starting point for leadership development of any type, but especially for those leaders who aim to transform the world. They must first understand themselves, and then must fully embody this knowledge in how they go about their life work.

Transforming Organizations Through Leadership

"The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develop them."  Source: John C Maxwell, The 17th Irrefutable Laws of Teamwork.

Integrity as the Cornerstone of Transformational Leadership
 
In his article “A New Day for American Leadership,” Howard Adamsky wrote: “…leadership is part vision, part art, part science, part experience, part faith and part know-how, all bound together in an ironclad package called integrity.”

Read Adamsky's article here.

What is the Goal of Transformational Leadership?

Steven Covey once wrote, "The goal of transformational leadership is to “transform” people and organizations in a literal sense – to change them in mind and heart; enlarge vision, insight, and understanding; clarify purposes; make behavior congruent with beliefs, principles, or values; and bring about changes that are permanent, self-perpetuating, and momentum building."

Transformational Leadership Qualities

Transformational leaders concentrate on:

• Instilling a vision of the future.
• Using stories and symbols to communicate.
• Conveying a strong sense of purpose.
• Talking optimistically and enthusiastically.
• Building trust by doing the right things and not just doing things right.
• Talking often about values and beliefs.
• Thinking from different perspectives.
• Spending time coaching and teaching others.
• Approaching life and their work in a compassionate and appreciative way

Download the source article from the Sheffield University Institute of Work Psychology.

On the Shoulders of Giants

"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants." Source: Issac Newton

A Ship in the Storm

"The only safe ship in a storm is leadership." Source: Faye Wattleton

Leaders Attach Themselves to a Vision

"Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future."  Source: Edwin H. Friedman

Leadership as Art

"Leadership is much more an art, a belief,  a condition
of the heart, than a set of things to do. The visible signs
of artful leadership are expressed, ultimately, in its
practice."  Source: Max DePree

On the Leadership Mind

"Authentic leaders have absorbed the fundamental
fact of existence -- that you can't get around life's
inherent contradictions. The leadership mind is spacious.
It has ample room for the ambiguities of the world, for
conflicting feelings, and for contradictory ideas. I believe
that the central leadership attribute is the ability to manage
polarity." Source: Peter Koestenbaum

Our Views on Transformational Leadership

The concept of transformational leadership has been around for some time.  This is an important fact to realize. It is not something new that is unproven and unfamiliar to us.

According to our research, the formal concept of transformational leadership applied to modern organizations was first developed by James McGregor Burns in 1978. Burns did not study academic schools of thought, but rather based his ideas on his work with actual political leaders, Army officers, and business executives. We share Burns' pragmatic "hands on" approach to transformational leadership.

We have studied the field of leadership to understand where and how transformational leadership fits into the overall leadership spectrum. We would like to share just a little of what we have learned.

"Lead" is the root word for leadership. In its early Anglo-Saxon form, lead is rooted in "loadan" (lithan), which means "to travel."  Later, the word evolved to mean "to help travel in a direction." The addition of the ending "ship" indicates that leaders are recognized by others as possessing certain abilities to lead. Leaders are seen as possessing a certain mastery in their ability to lead others. 

Centuries ago we believed that leadership was a divine right bestowed upon only a few. Today, we believe it is every human being's right to be a transformational leader. Moreover, transformational leadership can be learned by anyone with the will to transform herself/himself through learning and collaboration with others.

We are concerned about helping leaders lead in the right direction. Part of that process is determining what that direction should be. Toward that end, we have evolved a new model of strategic planning that supports the transformational leadership process in organizations. We call this "Transformational Leadership Development."

Where does the "transformational" piece fit in? Management guru Peter Drucker said some time ago that: "Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society – its world view, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions – rearranges itself …. We are currently living through such a time."

Professor Drucker has hit the nail on the head. That is why we have dedicated ourselves to advancing transformational leadership at this particular time. This new age is marked by accelerated global economic and social integration, revolutionary-scale technological innovation, heightened spiritual awareness in all walks of life, greater appreciation for the total person in organizations, and the increasing application of ideas from evolutionary biology and ecology as new organizing concepts for business, government, education, the arts and culture, religion, and other institutions. We are indeed amidst a major transformational period in our human and natural evolution.

Today, many strands of transformational leadership exist. The strain we are most concerned about has to do with "giving leadership to things (issues, priorities, activities) that matter most." This embodies the concept of "doing well by doing good," and forwards on all levels the notion that future solutions to our world's problems must give greater recognition to the interdependence of humans everywhere and our inseparable relationship with Nature.

We are especially interested in the notion that transformational leaders are "authentic" in how they lead. The last consideration for the truly transformational leader is simply to accumulate more personal power and control other human beings. The transformational leader is most concerned about liberating, empowering, and advancing people through learning, creativity, collaboration, connectivity, and spiritual rootedness.

Learning organization theorist Peter Senge was an early advocate of the concept of "servant leadership," which says that leaders exist for one purpose: to serve others. Senge credits his discovery of this notion of leadership to the 1977 book, Servant Leadership, by Robert K. Greenleaf.  Transformational leaders are servant leaders in the highest sense of the word. This too is a part of our concept of what transformational leadership is all about.

We will be adding to these ideas on a daily basis. Please stay tuned.

Some Starting Definitions

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
--Peter F. Drucker

"Transforming leadership is engaged in the framework to create and
sustain a context that maximizes human capacity, organizational
capabilities and contributions to societal well-being."
--Gill Robinson Hickman

Introducing Transformational Leadership

Transform: to change the nature, condition, or function of. A qualitative change in a person, organization, or activity.

Welcome to Transformational Leadership, a new weblog about transforming people and organizations through the discovery (rediscovery) of personal, social, and spiritual meaning and purpose.

Management and managing were chief obsessions of the last century. Leadership and leading have steadily moved into the forefront in this new century, as executives, entrepreneurs, scientists, athletes, monks and ministers, parents, and teachers alike have all come to realize there is something beyond controlling people and organizations. That something is leadership, especially a new brand of leadership that welcomes and embodies the heart and spirit. That is what we call transformational leadership.

We hope you will find Transformational Leadership to be a source of ideas, information, insights, and inspiration about how to organize our world in the future.

We invite you to share your thoughts with us.

Thank you for joining us on this exciting journey.

Don Iannone
Founder, Donald T. Iannone Associates
Cleveland, Ohio