Dimensions of Leadership Development

Session Submission Type: Workshop

Short Description

Designed from a study of leadership and adult development theory, this holarchy of leadership model has been used for years in leadership development practice to assess leadership development needs and design training initiatives. Leveraging the advantage of vertical leadership development without narrowing the focus on the individual, holarchy integrates a perspective on collective leadership and the perspective of the follower. After a vivid overview on the model’s dimensions, participants will use the model to navigate their own leadership development challenge and gain a new perspective what is needed.

Detailed Abstract

In this Workshop a new model for evaluating Leadership Development will be presented, the Holarchy of Leadership. Participants will apply the model on a leadership development challenge they face and will be able to gain a new perspective. This is especially important when facing leadership in turbulent times because theories suggest that not only new competencies are needed but a transformative development is needed to build the capacity leadership needs (McGuire 2009). If this is true, besides needing to develop Leadership, we need to change our thinking about leadership too.

When talking about Leadership in turbulent times it is often thought about using the acronym of the VUCA-World. High degrees of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity shape todays leadership environment. In the ILA Conference theme it is stated that turbulence is the new normal and there is no way back to stability.

If Leadership in turbulent times is an adaptive challenge (Heifetz 1994) it could be true that we are right in the process of transforming our model of leadership into a new one that fits better into the complexity of the environment. The needed set of competencies seems to shift (Cannon 2015) and we may need to discover a new way to develop leaders (Hughes 2014).

The Holarchy of Leadership underpins this requirement. It describes the development of leadership through five different stages of leadership in six different dimensions. It was designed in a study of leadership and adult development theory (Willms 2004). In that study the model was used to assess the leadership model of different organizational consulting approaches. Data sources had been the literature of the consulting approaches. Since than the model was successfully used in leadership development practice to assess developmental needs, design training initiatives and has been continually refined through that practice (Willms 2010).

With describing how Leadership develops through different stages of development the Holarchy of Leadership counts to approaches summarized as vertical leadership development (Petrie 2014). Vertical Leadership Development is a promising approach for Leadership Development in turbulent times, it differentiates vertical from horizontal development. Horizontal development can be understood as training leadership skills based on the current leadership model. Vertical development means transformational learning, transforming the leadership model into a new model that fits better to the complexity of the environment. The evolving of the new model is based on the model before and described on a vertical axis. There are different approaches to describe and measure Leadership Development on a vertical axis. Building on adult development theories they focus on the development of the individual leader, some for example look at Action Logics (Torbert 2004), important areas a leader needs to deal with (Joiner 2007) or a combination of competencies and the internal meaning making of the Leader (Anderson 2016). One advantage of the influence from adult development is that it shines a light not only on Leadership behaviors but also on the inner world of a leader, for example the thinking and feeling of a Leader as a meaning making system (Kegan 1982). Personal development helps leaders to grow and get better in dealing with a more complex environment to lead effectively (Eigel 2005, Garvey-Berger 2012, McCauley 2006). A disadvantage could be to narrow the focus on the individual. Leadership Development is more than the sum of individual leaders developing. This is especially true for Leadership in turbulent times. Authors argue that the individual leader is overrated (Kellermann 2008) and collective leadership is one of the main pillars leadership in the VUCA World needs to be built up on.

The Holarchy of Leadership bridges this gap theoretically as well as practically. To leverage the advantage of vertical leadership development without narrowing the focus on the individual, the Holarchy of Leadership integrates a perspective on collective leadership and the perspective of the follower.

The Holarchy of Leadership describes Leadership as a social arrangement that deals with power and responsibility. The Dimensions are the Understanding of Leadership, the Leadership Style and the Task of Leadership. All dimensions are described in subcategories. For example the Leadership Style is described as different qualities of communication and building the follower and leader relationship.

The method of using the Holarchy of Leadership for assessing Leadership is the inquiring dialog between the practitioner and the partner (Fuhr 2004). The Model describes the evolving of leadership in an a-perspective way (Gebser 1986) and offers different dimensions for the assessment of leadership development. The a-perspective description with the developmental perspective challenges the user to make his perspective on the challenge explicit. The user is helped within the dialogue to find out how his/her own model of leadership contributes to the challenge. This is especially helpful when the developmental challenge needs transformative learning like in turbulent times. The goal of the dialog is to understand the situation better and make sense of the challenge. The advantage of using the Holarchy of Leadership in the Dialogic Process is that immediate change is possible for the person doing the inquiry because it reveals how the person itself contributes to the challenge and what the person can do differently.

The Workshop will first give a vivid overview on vertical leadership development approaches in general and how this contributes to Leadership in turbulent times. It will be shown how the Holarchy of Leadership offers a new perspective on the development of Leadership and how the model describes different stages of Leadership development in different dimensions. (20 Minutes)

With this map participants will use the model to navigate their own Leadership Development challenge that they are facing in their own projects. Participants will split up in subgroups and work on each ones challenge (60 Minutes). So every participant has evaluated his own challenge and at least two others if working in a trio.

At the End of the Inquiry the findings will be generalized for the audience (10 Minutes).

In the Workshop the model will be presented the first time in an international context to a larger audience.

Sub Unit

• Leadership Development

Presenter

• Johannes Willms, willms.coaching