CCL Points of View on Leadership Development Through the Lens of Relational Leadership

©2014 Center for Creative Leadership. All rights reserved.
CCL Points of View:
Leadership Development
Charles J. Palus PhD
Senior Fellow
palusc@ccl.org
Theoretical Roots
Applied Practice
Opportunities and Dilemmas

CCL Points of View:
Leadership Development
Dialogue
DAC Model
Relational Leadership
Lessons of Experience
ACS Model
Leadership Culture
Vertical Development

Chat
As you study the image, enter the following in the chat box
to All Participants:
• The number of the image.
• What does this image say about shared direction,
mutual alignment, and personal commitment – any or
all of these?
Reflect
How do you define the word leadership?
Choose an image that says or represents something
important about how you define leadership.

Whether or not you
are a formal
leader, you are
most probably
engaged in the
process of
leadership.

*”Group” refers to any type of collective, e.g., a team, an organization, a work group, or a community.
Leadership is a social process that enables
individuals to work together as a cohesive
group* to produce collective results.
The leadership process is effective when it
generates three crucial outcomes:
Direction
Alignment
Commitment

© 2014 Center for Creative Leadership. All Rights Reserved.© 2015 Center for Creative Leadership. All Rights Reserved.
The Outcomes of Leadership
Direction:
Agreement in
the group on
overall goals

Direction:
Agreement in
the group on
overall goals
Alignment:
Coordinated
work within
the group

Direction:
Agreement in
the group on
overall goals
Commitment:
Mutual responsibility
for the group
Alignment:
Coordinated
work within
the group

What does it look like when one aspect is missing?
Coordinated,
facing same way
but lacking energy
• Promises without
delivery
• People not
helping each
other
• Only easy things
get done
Dedicated, bought in,
but uncoordinated
• Duplication of effort
• People unintentionally
negating each
others work
• Things inadvertently
falling through
the cracks
Willing cooperation but lacks purpose
• Teams going nowhere fast
• People uncertain about what they are trying to achieve together
• People feel pulled in different directions

PERSPECTIVE OPPORTUNITY DILEMMA
DAC as outcomes of
leadership
A cross-context way of
assessing whether leadership
is happening
If it’s not happening, tell me
how to improve DAC
production.
DAC impacts collective
results (but so do other
factors)
Doesn’t make leadership
synonymous with results
How can we say we have
effective leadership if we
aren’t achieving results?
DAC is produced through
the interactions of people
with shared work
A way of seeing that all
leadership is shared
leadership
Are you promoting
participative or democratic
forms of leadership?
A wide variety of social
processes can produce
DAC
Expands the possibilities when
it comes to producing
leadership
Aren’t you diluting the
distinctiveness of leadership
as a concept?
Opportunities and Dilemmas

©2014 Center for Creative Leadership. All rights reserved.©2014 Center for Creative Leadership. All rights reserved.
Application:
Putting DAC to Work
• Improving Group Processes: Monitoring and improving
leadership (DAC) in teams
• Empowering People to Act: Encouraging all people to see
their role in producing DAC
• Crafting New Leadership Practices: Developing leadership
beliefs and practices that better enable the production of
DAC in the face of complex challenges

Society
Organization
Group
Individual
DIRECTION
Impact increases as DAC is held among many.
“Zooming”
“From close-in
to
furthest-out”

To what degree has the team generated DAC thus far?
Very Little A great deal
DIRECTION 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ALIGNMENT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
COMMITMENT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
What did the team do collectively to produce direction, alignment, or commitment (DAC)?
What did I do to contribute to the production of DAC?
What can the team do going forward to better produce DAC?
What can I do going forward to better contribute to the production of DAC?
Group Processes: DAC Debrief

DAC as Ontology
Direction-alignment-commitment leadership ontology
Longer-term
Collective
Outcomes
Direction,
Alignment,
Commitment
Individual
Leadership Beliefs
Collective
Leadership Beliefs
Leadership
Practices
Leadership Culture
Context
Drath et al., 2008.

Relational leadership ontology (“sociology”)
Leadership is an emergent property of relations (Denis,
Langley & Sergi, 2012).
Leadership is a relational process of shared sense-
making and meaning-making (Bill Drath, The Deep Blue
Sea, 2001).
Individual leadership ontology (“psychology”)
In its simplest form leadership is a tripod—a
leader or leaders, followers, and a common goal they
want to achieve. (Warren Bennis, 2007).

Leadership: the production of direction, alignment, and commitment among
people with shared work.
Leaders: the individuals actively creating or guiding the production of
direction, alignment, and commitment.
Leadership practices: the actions and routines intentionally deployed in the
organization (or in certain subgroups) to create the leadership outcomes of
shared direction, alignment, and commitment.
Leadership beliefs: the taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs, and values
widely shared in the organization (or in certain subgroups) that determine
and justify the leadership practices.
Leadership culture: the mutually reinforcing web of these leadership beliefs
and practices, as they are held, tested, and evolved over time in an
organization or other community.
Followers: participants in the leadership culture, though with different roles
that vary dramatically depending on the type of culture.
“Changing Our Minds About Leadership”

2010 Center for Creative Leadership. All rights reserved.
Research
1988

Research

The LOE research program is guided by one question:
What are the processes by which executives learn,
grow, and change over the course of their careers?
The assumption underlying this question is that leadership is
learned.

Lessons
Shifts in ….
Experiences
Memorable events that
influence a person’s approach to
leading & managing
Knowledge
Skill Level
Attitudes
Behavior
Values

70-20-10
Coursework
and Training
Developmental
Relationships
Challenging
Assignments
20 1070
What we’ve learned about learning…

70-20-10

Horizontal
move
TurnaroundBosses &
superiors
New
Initiative
Increased
job scope
The Basic Five

The Plus Two’s
Personal
Experiences
Stakeholder
Engagements
Ethical
Dilemmas
Mistakes Crossing
Cultures
Crises

“Success and Derailment” research was also part of this major
project. Derailment refers to the phenomenon of managers getting
off track in their expected career progression through demotion or
hitting a plateau. Through this research, we were able to
understand what contributes to derailment and to help managers
learn to avoid it. A study of the reasons for derailment in Europe
was conducted later.
Derailment

• We can help leaders grow by
creating experiences for them
to stretch, fail, and learn.
• We can grow leaders quicker
by helping them learn faster.
www.leadingeffectively.com/leadership-explorer/about-experience-explorer

The Evolution of Leadership Cultures
Leadership is a
collective activity
Leadership emerges out of
individual expertise and heroic action
People in authority
are responsible for leadership
Palus, C.J. McGuire, J.B., & Ernst, C. (2012). Developing interdependent leadership. In The Handbook for Teaching
Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being. Snook, S., Nohria, N. & Khurana, R. (Eds.). Sage Publications with the
Harvard Business School. Chapter 28, 467-492.

Contact:
David Magellan Horth
Chuck Palus
Lyndon Rego
Leadership Metaphor Explorer™ at
www.leadingeffectively.com/leadership-explorer/category/metaphor/

© 2009 Center for Creative Leadership. All Rights Reserved.
How is DAC created in different cultures?
How do we achieve
agreement on direction?
How do we coordinate our work
so that all fits together?
How do we maintain
commitment to the collective?

Vertical Development:
The evolution of minds and cultures
in an interdependent world
Charles J. (Chuck) Palus PhD
CCL Senior Fellow
06 December 2016

The challenges we face …
… require human transformation.

• Children develop in dramatic steps or “stages” (Jean
Piaget)
• Adults continue to develop in stages (Lawrence Kohlberg,
Bob Kegan, Bill Torbert)
• Adults can become increasingly more mature as they
“grow up” and develop “bigger minds.”
• Our adult stage of development affects how we think
and act at work and at home – our “action logics.”
• There are at least seven such transformations possible
in adulthood.
Adult Development

Development = Horizontal + Vertical
Vertical Development: Growing
abilities to think and act in complex,
systemic, and interdependent ways.
Earned through life experience.
It’s about how you think.
Horizontal Development: Adding
knowledge, skills, and
competencies.
Transmitted from experts.
It’s about what you think.
The first step in helping leaders develop for a complex world is to
acknowledge that there are really two types of leadership development:
horizontal and vertical.
Petrie, N. (2014). Vertical leadership development, Part 1: Developing leaders for a complex world. Center for
Creative Leadership. White Paper.

Developmental movement from one stage to the next
is often driven by limitations in the current stage.
• People are frustrated by situations, dilemmas, or challenges
in their lives.
• It causes them to experience the limits of their current way
of thinking.
• It is in an area of their life that they care about deeply.
• There is sufficient support that enables them to persist in the
face of the anxiety and conflict.
Drivers of Vertical Development

© 2016 Center for Creative Leadership. All rights reserved.
Toward Interdependent Leadership
Independent
Division competent
My Technical mastery
Solve Problems
Analytic, debate
Advocacy selling
Being Right
Agile Achievers
Compromise, cooperate
Reliable Performer
Interdependent
Enterprise competent
Our Adaptive learning
Face Dilemmas, Polarities
Both-And, dialogue
Inquiry learning
Multiple right answers
Inter-systemic Strategists
Creative collaborator
Integrating Transformer
*Achieving independent competence AND collective capabilities

─ Coaching / mentoring
─ Dialogue / difficult conversations / deep listening
─ Action-reflection learning
─ Stretch assignments / mistakes / failures
─ Polarity thinking
─ Systems perspective
─ Network awareness
─ Mindfulness
─ Whole life integration
─ Societal-level engagement
─ Culture change / strategic evolution *** START HERE
Methods of Vertical Development

Reflect:
When in your life did you first see yourself as an adult.
Or, when did others first see you as an adult.
Choose:
Three cards --
One card that captures something about how you
thought and acted when you first became an adult.
One for how you think and act now.
One about possibilities for your future self.

Reflect:
What is happening in your life right now that might
influence your further development?
Choose:
One card --
that captures something about this reflection.

Transformations™
is
a tool for discerning key patterns in your
life, individually and together in groups,
organizations, and communities.

Transformations™
is
Two sets of cards and a User’s Guide:
1. Life Logics (84 cards)
2. Catalysts (50 cards)
An interactive tool for exploring life
journeys:
From?  Here!  to There?!

Contact:
David Magellan Horth
Chuck Palus
Lyndon Rego
Transformations™ at www.ccl.org/Transformations

Seven Transformations (Action Logics)
of Adulthood: Growing “Up”
Rooke, D., & Torbert, W. R. (2005, April). Seven transformations of leadership. Harvard
Business Review, 66–77.
Alchemical – Integrates material, spiritual, and societal transformations
Transforming – Generates organizational and personal transformations
Redefining – Reframes complex problems in unique ways
Achiever – Driven by personal and team achievement
Expert – Focuses on logic and expertise
Diplomat – Wants to belong and fit in
Opportunist – Wins for self in any way possible

“Leaps in evolution usually occur in a manner of “transcending and
including,” not by wiping out what came before.
For instance, the evolution to the developmental level of a single-
cell organism did not wipe out molecules, but included them into a
greater order of complexity.
Rational thought did not eliminate emotion, but included it into a
greater developmental level of consciousness.
Industrial societies did not wipe out agriculture, but transcended
agriculture into greater levels of efficiency and prosperity.
If we’re going to truly evolve, we do so by including and integrating
what came before into something greater, not by wiping it out.”
--Mark Manson, markmanson.net/ken-wilber
Transcend & Include

Vertical Development is Both
Individual and Cultural
Leadership culture is the set of shared beliefs and values for
setting shared direction, alignment, and commitment.
What does good leadership look like around here?
Who are exemplary leaders?
How do we talk to each other?
What are our norms around power, and inter-personal safety?
How do we make decisions, engage conflict, give and receive
feedback?

Leadership is a
collective activity
Leadership
emerges out of
individual
expertise and
heroic action
People in
authority
are responsible
for leadership
Alchemical
Transforming
Redefining
Achiever
Expert
Diplomat
Opportunist
Cultural
Beliefs
Individual
Action Logics+

From: William R. Torbert. Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and Efficacy of
Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self,
Society, and Scientific Inquiry.
INTEGRAL REVIEW, June 2013, Vol. 9, No. 2. 264-299.

“Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry (CDAI) (Torbert, 1976, 1991;
Torbert & Associates, 2004; Torbert & Livne-Tarandach, 2009) is a meta
paradigm of scientific inquiry that integrates first-person, adult spiritual inquiry
and consciousness development in the emerging present with second-person,
transformational, mutuality-seeking political action inquiry over a lifetime, and
third-person, inter-generational, objectivity-seeking social scientific inquiry and
its effects. In other words … “ William R. Torbert
Listening into the Dark: An Essay Testing the Validity and
Efficacy of Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry for
Describing and Encouraging Transformations of Self, Society,
and Scientific Inquiry.
INTEGRAL REVIEW, June 2013, Vol. 9, No. 2. 264-299.

Reading List: Vertical Development / Transformation
http://cop.ccl.org/connected/connect/foundational-bibliography-
on-relational-leadership-at-ccl/
Cook-Greuter, Susanne (2013). Nine Levels Of Increasing Embrace In Ego
Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory Of Vertical Growth And Meaning Making.
Kegan, Robert. (1994). In over our heads: The demands of modern life. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
McCauley, C. D., Drath, W. H., Palus, C. J., O’Connor, P. M., & Baker, B. A.
(2006). The use of constructive-developmental theory to advance the understanding
of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 634-653.
McGuire, J., Palus, C. J., & Torbert, W. R. (2007). Toward interdependent organizing
and researching. Handbook of collaborative management research, 123-142.
Palus, C. J., & Drath, W. H. (1995). Evolving Leaders. A Model for Promoting
Leadership Development in Programs. Center for Creative Leadership.
Palus, C. J., Harrison, S., & Prasad, J. (2015). Developing relational leadership in
Africa. In K. G. Schuyler (Ed.), Creative Social Change:Leadership for a Healthy
World. International Leadership Association.

CCL Points of View on Leadership Development Through the Lens of Relational Leadership

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