“Leading with passion and purpose: Serving people by leading self and others” at GIZ, Feb. 2014 (New Delhi, India)

1. The leadership project
“Leading with Passion and Purpose”
A co-creation of GIZ and LBSNAA
Germany /India 2014
FLYING HIGH
PROFUNDITY
WITH

2. Editor
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Bonn und Eschborn, Germany
Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40 Dag-Hammarskjöld-Weg 1-5
53113 Bonn, Germany 65760 Eschborn, Germany
Telefon: +49 228 44 60-0 Telefon: +49 61 96 79-0
Fax: +49 228 44 60-17 66 Fax: +49 61 96 79-11 15
E-Mail: info@giz.de, Internet: www.giz.de
Responsible:
Hinrich Mercker
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH,
Academy for International Cooperation (AIZ), Bonn
Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40, 53113 Bonn
Responsible project team “Strengthening Management Capacities for International Cooperation”: Dr. Christine Bigdon, Anita Sharma,
Ziaul Hoda, Varupi Gupta
GIZ India
Text: Petra van Laak, www.text-vanlaak.de
Translation: Nancy Chapple, www.chapple.de
Design: Tino Umlauft, www.bildhaus-potsdam.de
Picture credits: title / ©Dmitry Pichugin - fotolia.com, wagon wheel / © nilanewsom - fotolia.com, Yatra Patra / Tino Umlauft,
all other photos / Mohan Dhamotharan and Ziaul Hoda
Bonn, January 2015

3. 3 stakeholders, 1 co-creation process
The framework: German development cooperation
The participants: Stakeholder 1:
GIZ/AIZ (Academy for In-
ternational Cooperation)/
Lernwerkstatt Leader-
ship Development. Focus:
leadership for global
responsibility.
Stakeholder 2:
GIZ in Delhi.
Focus: the “Competence
in Motion” leadership
programme.
Stakeholder 3:
Lal Bahadur Shastri
National Academy of
Administration (LBSNAA).
Focus: leadership training
for top positions in the
Indian Administrative
Service (IAS).
The objective: To develop a leadership programme for future leaders in India using co-creation.
The basis is the canon of values named by LBSNAA: self-awareness, people first,
leading others, integrity.
And incidentally: it was supposed to come about quickly as well.
Hinrich Mercker, AIZ
“The concept of leadership has changed a great
deal. We are letting go of the image of the hero
who leads, and moving towards an idea of lead-
ership as a joint undertaking.”
workshop participant, day 1
“The leadership programme is intended to concen-
trate on the question ‘why’. If the focus is only on
‘how’ and ‘what’, we restrict ourselves to the man-
agement aspects of leadership behaviour. Asking
the question ‘why’, in contrast, leads to addressing
values and objectives.”

4. A leadership academy in the north of India. 186 young
people, educated at the highest academic level. They are
poised to take on leadership responsibility in district-
level administration. A task like this is no trifling matter:
the population in the districts ranges between 2 and 5
million inhabitants. These young managers are trained
for two years by the LBSNAA, the renowned Lal Bahadur
Shastri National Academy of Administration.
May 2014. The 186 participants come together on the
LBSNAA campus in Mussoorie at an altitude of 2,000
metres. Ahead of them: the Himalayan mountain range
and a remarkable programme: “Leading with Passion
and Purpose: Serving People by Leading Self and Others.”
When the two-and-a-half day programme is over, each
participant will have changed a little. In a country in the
process of systematically training leaders, the willing-
ness to change can be put to good use.
Anita Sharma, GIZ India
“For this approach to leadership you need people
who are keen to learn, who enjoy a continuum of
learning, who are prepared to constantly adapt such
programmes to new requirements.”
More than just a change of air

5. THE PRINCIPLES OF CO-CREATION
It seems so easy – but the co-creation process works only if built on a solid foundation:
−− seeing each other as equal partners
−− listening to each other, treating each other in a respectful manner
−− not wanting to sell a model – there is in fact none
−− having the will to adapt conceptual considerations to actual circumstances
−− acting in a competence-based and value-led manner
−− being prepared to re-design a concept – the constructivist approach
−− making open offers – each stakeholder decides whether he or she wants to take on an approach or not
−− placing trust in partners that they will drive the project forward themselves
Fast-paced process, innumerable insights
The GIZ presents the conceptual founda-
tions to those from the LBSNAA involved
in the co-creation process.
New Delhi
5-6 February 2014
Mohan Dhamotharan, facilitator
“We see our task as framing a dialogue that enables
the partners to design their own purpose. Scope
must be created for all participants to develop their
own view of the world.”
A top-level delegation from the LBSNAA visits the AIZ
in the context of the programme “Strengthening Manage-
ment Capacities for International Cooperation“ to get
informed about the academy’s methodological and didac-
tic approaches and leadership approach. The request to
jointly develop a leadership module follows.
Bonn / Bad Honnef
21-23 October 2013

6. If an intervention does not touch a person’s core, it
will not help them critically examine their attitude,
let alone change it. This is the strategy: participants
are supported through the process of self-reflection,
a prerequisite for being able to take the lead oneself.
That’s why the programme’s sub-line is “Leading Self”
– and only then “Others”. During the programme, the
participants pass through three stages:
Stage 1: The “I level” (basic idea: Leadership
has something to do with self-man-
agement.)
Stage 2: The “team level” (basic idea: It’s
about the people for whom we bear
responsibility and the people with
whom we intend to jointly achieve
results.)
Stage 3: The “world level” (basic idea: Leader-
ship has something to do with global
responsibility and the constant
question about one’s own role in the
world.)
Training of Trainers (ToT). The teach-
ing staff of the LBSNAA takes on
the challenging task of being the
trainers in this unusual programme.
They will later be the trainers and
facilitators of the individual modules
that constitute the LBSNAA’s cur-
riculum.
Start of the co-creation phase. The
stakeholders meet several times to
find out exactly what the subse-
quent trainers and participants in
the leadership programme need.
Many phone calls and e-mails are
exchanged.
The programme was conducted for
186 trainees of the LBSNAA, split into
7 participant groups within the scope
of their training phase 1 (induction
training).
Mussoorie
14-16 April 2014
New Delhi / Mussoorie
February 2014
Mussoorie
5-8 May 2014
The “Leading with Passion and Purpose” approach
The AIZ’s didactic principles form the basis for the pro-
gramme approach. They include:
1
Ownership
and self-
organisation/
-steering
4
Experiential
spaces
7
Comparison of
systems
2
Learning support/
guidance
5
Self-reflection
8
Learning as a
co-construction
3
The attitude as
the centre
6
Multiple
perspectives/
change of per-
spectives
9
Networking

7. The multi-faceted group methods, to some extent un-
familiar to the participants, were an important element
of the leadership workshop. They led to an open, lively
and creative prevailing mood among the young men and
women. The individual tools and methods applied in the
2.5 days have varying conceptual ideas behind them.
A tool is only of value, however, when it can be adapted
to particular requirements. For that reason, on the
one hand, new tools were designed. On the other, best
practices from the AIZ TOOL BOX (Leadership for Global
Responsibility) were adapted so they were suitable as
instruments for achieving the objectives of the leader-
ship project “Leading with Passion and Purpose”.
Yatra Patra
Journaling as self-reflective writing
Where do I come from, and where do I want to go? The
future managers address these questions for themselves
in terms of “Leading Self”. The method of journaling, self-
reflective writing, lends itself to this endeavour.
The team developed the “Yatra Patra” fanfold for the 2.5-
day workshop. The term derives from the Sanskrit and in
essence means the document of a journey. There is also
an underlying connotation of a personal letter.
One side of the fanfold has a timeline with the life stages
childhood, youth, education, etc. – ending with the concept
of “legacy”, namely what will persist of the individual. The
other side of the fanfold has terms leading to a basic
understanding of one’s own being, (future) visions, includ-
ing for instance objectives, me in 2025, challenges, skills,
personal progress.
The participants are encouraged in the course of the work-
shop to embark on the journey to themselves with the
help of this travel document. It is intended that they keep
working on their personal “leadership journal”, completing
the itinerary, if desired to exchange with each other about
it (e.g. on a “dialogue walk”). This self-reflective approach
is based on the principle that only someone who knows
him- or herself well can clearly articulate goals and im-
plement them appropriately, i.e. for the collective good.
Surprising, inspiring, moving
participant, day 2
“I surprised myself, as I would never have
thought I could make something out of model-
ling clay that my colleagues would actually rec-
ognise. More than that: we complemented each
other and designed future landscapes.”
Sanjeev Chopra, Acting Director LBSNAA
“In the future it won’t be compe-
tition that’s important, but rather
cooperation.”

8. Ram Kakani,
trainer, docent LBSNAA
Cooperation between the LBSNAA and the GIZ has grown.
At the end of 2014 the jointly developed module “Passion
and Purpose: Serving People by Leading Self and Others”
was taken over in the curriculum of the Indian leader-
ship academy. The GIZ has been pleased to be able to
support the preparatory “Training of Trainers” course.
What the stakeholders involved can rely on: a tested,
evaluated and documented cooperation model for co-cre-
ation processes in the area of leadership development.
One of the 24 wagon wheels at the Konark
Sun Temple. It was chosen as the symbol for
the leadership project “Competence in Motion”
because it represents movement, the path and
making progress. The path of learning and
capacity building also never end and are in
constant flux.
“I’m impressed by the leverage effect that interventions like
this leadership programme can have. In day-to-day practice,
our graduates need to address many challenges. For instance,
they must support all children in getting the possibility to at-
tend a school. This is not just a question of skills – they can
be acquired – it’s about the right attitude. The programme can
effectuate a change in one’s own attitude, and thus a change
in how one behaves. This carries forward through all the work
like a golden thread.”
Does it continue? And how!