Heather Davis
Australia
TAKING IT PERSONALLY:
SMALL ‘l’ LEADERSHIP
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 1 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Today’s agenda
 Speaker introduction
 Leading in a (super)complex environment
 The knowledge-era
 Small ‘l’ leadership
 Interconnectness
 Interaction and Q&A session
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 2 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Heather Davis
 Holds a Bachelor of Business, Master of
Professional Education and Training
 Is currently enrolled in a PhD program at RMIT,
Australia. Longheld professional and research
interest in leadership development for the
knowledge era.
 Actively associated with the Centre for
Leadership Excellence, LeadCap and Leaders Café
Foundation
 Management and Leadership experience in the
higher education sector in Australia and an Assoc
of Tertiary Education Management executive
committee member.
Professional Memberships include:
Catch Heather’s PhD blog • British Academy of Management
at leadershipliteracies. • Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)
wordpress.com • International Leadership Association
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 3 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Spoilt for choice in a
complex world…
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 4 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

How Volatile?
How Uncertain?
How Complex?
How Ambiguous?
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 5 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Example
Workplace diversity
 Generations
 Gender
 Religions
 Nationalities
 Cultures
 Mindsets
 Etc...
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 6 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Values as a mediator
of VUCA
Perhaps the most important role of values
is that they help us interpret and act on
the oceans of information that we
process every day.
They serve as central organizing principles
that help us to decide how to address
complex situations and problems as they
bombard us.
O'Brien, W. J. 1998. The soul of corporate leadership: guidelines for values-centred
governance, Pegasus Communications, p. 5
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 7 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Defining Leadership
 Leadership is one of the most observed and
least understood phenomena on earth
(Burns, 1978)
 Lead people and manage things
 Leaders are in the business of energy
management (ket de Vries)
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 8 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Energy Management
Leaders are in the business of energy management
- Manfred kets de Vries
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 9 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Leadership today...
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 10 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Typical Thinking Patterns…
From Machine-Centric To Eco-Centric
Industrial Era Knowledge-Intensive Era
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 11 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Eras…
Staron, M. et al 2006. Life based learning: a strength based approach for capability development
in vocational and technical education: a report on the research project
"Designing professional development for the knowledge era". Sydney, TAFE NSW ICVET, p. 23
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 12 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

The knowledge era
The knowledge era is characterised by
impermanence, turbulence, multiple competing
agendas and priorities, diversity in ideologies,
ambiguity, multiple roles, irritations, uncertainty
and contradictions and a great amount of energy
and creativity.
It is also the ‘intangible era’, where instead of
goods and services the growing economic
commodity is knowledge itself.
Staron, et al.,(2006). Life based learning: a report on the research project
"Designing professional development for the knowledge era". Sydney: TAFE NSW.
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 13 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

The Conceptual Age
Pink, D. H. 2005. A whole new mind : moving from the information age to the conceptual
age, Allen & Unwin. (Graphically depicted by Garr Reynolds)
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 14 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

It is personal!
Small ‘l’ leadership
 Leadership is a verb
 Moving from a deficit model to a strengths based
approach to leadership, learning and life
 Locus of responsibility is now with the individual
 Self referential logic
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 15 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Leadership is a verb
Leaders have a bias for action
Executives execute
Barriers to action:
• Uncertainty
• Fear
• Dissonance
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 16 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Moving to a
strengths based approach
• Focusing on what is working well and investing in
that
• Enabling individuals and organisations to be the
best they can be
• From an ecological perspective, does not displace
what works
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 17 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Removing Mental Blocks
to Action
• The Right Answer • That’s Not My Area
• That’s Not Logical • Don’t Be Foolish
• Follow The Rules • Avoid Ambiguity
• Be Practical • To Err Is Wrong
• Play Is Frivolous • I’m Not Creative
von Oech R. (1998). A Whack on the Side of the
Head
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 18 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Maslow’s
Hierarchy
of Needs
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 19 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Maslow's Self-Actualising characteristics
• creative, inventive and original • accepting others as they are
• keen sense of reality • comfortable with oneself
• see problems in terms of • a few close intimate friends rather
challenges and situations requiring than many surface relationships
solutions • sense of humour directed at
• need for privacy and comfortable oneself or the human condition,
being alone rather than at the expense of others
• reliant on own experiences and • spontaneous and natural - true to
judgement oneself, rather than being how
• not susceptible to social pressures others want
• democratic, fair and • excited and interested in
non-discriminating everything, even ordinary things
• socially compassionate - • seek peak experiences that leave a
possessing humanity lasting impression
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 20 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Argyris’s Ladder of Inference
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 21 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

‘Working’ the Ladder
I take actions based on my
beliefs
I adopt beliefs
I draw conclusions
I make Assumptions
I add meanings
I select “data”
Observable “Data”
& experiences
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 22 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Assumptions and
our ladder of inference
As a mediator against self-referential logic…
“No problem can be solved from the same level of
consciousness that created it. We must learn to see the
world anew.”
Albert Einstein
“It may surprise people, but I have found that we all have a strong
propensity to hold inconsistent thoughts and actions, and that
we aren’t very effective observers of our own behaviour: we tend
to judge our behaviour by our intentions, while we judge other
people’s behaviour by its outcomes”
Chris Argyris interview, 2008.
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 23 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Leadership literacies
for the knowledge era
 Leaders are in the business of energy management
 Leadership as stewardship
 Living asset stewardship
 Leaders as teachers, stewards, mentors
 Locus of responsibility has shifted to the individual
 Shift to other-centredness
 Holistic worldview – interconnectness
 Triple bottom line governance
 Sustainability
 Transparency
 Focus on ‘soft’ skills – e.g. values, empathy
 Relationships
 Leadership/Followership
 Learning Metabolism
 Making Thinking Visible
 Creativity
 Apperception
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 24 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Interconnectness
People want to be connected and to feel that their
livelihoods and professions matter. Serving and
enhancing life matter to them because they know
their lives depend on other living assets,
including the health of their neighbourhoods,
their market systems, Earth’s ecosystems, and
the biospheric web of life.
When people feel so connected, they are more
likely to reach their full potential in terms of their
intelligence, adaptability, family life, self
motivation, creativity and energy.
Bragdon, J. H. 2006. Profit for life, how capitalism excels: case studies in
Living Asset Management. Cambridge, MA, Society for Organization Learning Inc.
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 25 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Relationships
You and I are the same thing. I cannot
hurt you without harming myself.
- Mahatma Gandhi
(1869-1948)
NESTA model
Then Then
Conversations First
Relationships Transactions
Harwood, R. 2008. Connecting Dots and Valuing Networks, NESTA Connect
Blog. UK, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 26 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Creative Capital
 Human Creativity is multi-faceted and multi-
dimensional.
- It requires a supportive environment that provides
social, cultural and economic stimuli.
 Creative process is not just individual but social.
- Forms of organisation are necessary but elements of
organisation can and frequently stifle creativity.
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 27 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Creativity and Change
The idea that change is a transitional phase
between two stable states is ridiculed by
everyday experiences in our globalized world.
Constant change is the actual state of our
living world.
We should seek to comprehend, incorporate and
develop that which makes life worth living
through change, not against it.
Jascha Rohr
www.participatory-design.com
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 28 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Leadership as Stewardship
Caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving
each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built.
Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person,
now most of it is mediated through institutions - often
large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always
competent; sometimes corrupt.
If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and
more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity
for its people, then the most open course is to raise both
the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant
of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces
operating within them.
Robert K. Greenleaf, The Institution as Servant
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 29 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Making Thinking Visible
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be
those who cannot read and write, but
those who cannot learn, unlearn, and
relearn.
Alvin Toffler
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 30 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

Making Thinking Visible
Visible Thinking has a double goal:
 to cultivate students' thinking skills and
dispositions
 to deepen content learning.
Cultivating thinking dispositions means
strengthening thinking skills associated with
curiosity, concern for truth and understanding, a
creative mindset, not just being skilled but also
alert to thinking and learning opportunities and
eager to take them.
Making Thinking Visible Research Team, Harvard
http://www.pz.harvard.edu/vt/VisibleThinking_html_files/VisibleThinking1.html
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 31 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

VUCA
 Volatility yields to vision
Uncertain yields to understanding
Complexity yields to clarity
Ambiguity yields to agility
Johansen, B. (2009) Leaders make the future: 10 new
leadership skills for an uncertain world
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 32 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com

If your actions inspire others to
dream more, learn more, do more
and become more, you are a
leader.
John Quincy Adams, 6th US President
www.leadershipexcellence.com Slide 33 www.leaderscafefoundation.webs.com