Taking it personally: small 'l' leadership

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

Today’s agenda
 Speaker introduction
 Leading in a (super)complex environment
 The knowledge-era
 Small ‘l’ leadership
 Interconnectness
 Interconnectness
 Interaction and Q&A session

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
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.
Catch Heather’s PhD blog
at leadershipliteracies.
wordpress.com
Professional Memberships include:
• British Academy of Management
• Society for Organizational Learning (SoL)
• International Leadership Association

Spoilt for choice in a
complex world…

How Volatile?
How Uncertain?
How Complex?
How Ambiguous?

Example
Workplace diversity
 Generations
 Gender
 Religions
Nationalities
 Nationalities
 Cultures
 Mindsets
 Etc...

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
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

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

Energy Management
Leaders are in the business of energy management
- Manfred kets de Vries

Leadership today...

Typical Thinking Patterns…
From Machine-Centric
Industrial Era
To Eco-Centric
Knowledge-Intensive Era

Eras…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

The knowledge era
The knowledge era is characterised by
impermanence, turbulence, multiple competing
agendas and priorities, diversity in ideologies,
ambiguity, multiple roles, irritations, uncertainty
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.

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)

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
 Self referential logic

Leadership is a verb
Leaders have a bias for action
Executives execute
Barriers to action:
• Uncertainty
• Fear
• Dissonance

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

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

Maslow’s
Hierarchy
of Needs

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

Argyris’s Ladder of Inference

I draw conclusions
I adopt beliefs
I take actions based on my
beliefs
‘Working’ the Ladder
Observable “Data”
& experiences
I make Assumptions
I select “data”
I add meanings
I draw conclusions

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.”
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.

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
 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

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
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.

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

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.

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
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

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.
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

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

Making Thinking Visible
Visible Thinking has a double goal:
 to cultivate students' thinking skills and
dispositions
 to deepen content learning.
Cultivating thinking dispositions means
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

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

If your actions inspire others to
dream more, learn more, do more
dream more, learn more, do more
and become more, you are a
leader.
John Quincy Adams, 6th US President

Taking it personally: small 'l' leadership

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