Positive Impact Blog

Thought provoking insights for change makers

Category Archives: Leadership


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Safe and powerful learning environments

The basic requirement for developing these leaders is a framework that addresses the whole person and that creates the needed openness and support for them. As such, education must provide the fertile grounds that allows for profound personal and professional development. Students and participants, irrespective of their age, will need a serious amount of personal courage to confront their fears, to let go of the views they hold on the world and on themselves and to drop the mask of a so-called educated perspective. Daring to let go of the roles we all hold requires a safe space. Developing and exploring both an inner attitude that is connected to our inner self and an outer attitude that reflects a truly human view of compassion requires a learning environment in which making mistakes is considered progress rather than failure.

Developing a safe and powerful learning environment requires a shift from knowledge teaching to sharing the journey of learning. It forms the entry ticket for transformational learning and involves the ability of the facilitating teacher to hold a safe space within which the greatest potential can emerge. Creating this kind of safe environment requires the facilitator to master the following competencies:

  • Relate to each student with personal authenticity, not pretending to have competencies or knowledge that one lacks. This learning-oriented attitude on the part of a professor can set the tone that it is acceptable not to take the risks that learning entails.
  • Be comfortable with an appropriate degree of self-disclosure, thus paving the way for disclosure on the part of students to more fully discuss the challenges they are facing and the feedback they receive.
  • Make the participants’ needs a priority and demonstrate acceptance of the students’ current abilities both academically and in terms of their leadership development.
  • Live a nonjudgmental attitude as a needed form of support. Be non-prescriptive (as a professor) in class discussions.  Good facilitators do not tell participants exactly what to do, but rather ask (both directly and indirectly) that participants take responsibility for their own development in many ways.
  • Provide a process that places participants in the position of deciding what the information means to them and how to best integrate that into their learning and development. While this process can benefit from coaching and mentoring, it should not be one that gives students all the answers.[1]

 

[1]            King, S. & Santana, L. (2010). “Feedback Intensive Programs” in Van Velsor, E., McCauley, C., & Ruderman, M. (Eds.) Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development, 3rd Edition.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.


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Responding to Climate Change – Post Rio Briefing

I encourage you to read this very interesting article, RTCC Post Rio Briefing, by Ed King, Editor at the RTCC.

http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=6316d25f7b68919349e54a251&id=ca2b2548a2&e=3704702678


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What differentiates globally responsibly leaders from our existing leaders?

One realization that stands out among the many important research findings of the past two decades in the field of leadership: the need for a shift in consciousness of the leader. We have come to understand that leader development first and foremost is personal development, a capability for reflective awareness which can be observed by the way a leader relates to himself, his environment and various aspects of the world.

  • Reflective Awareness is expressed through a universal perspective. This includes: an evolved level of consciousness and personal awareness; clarity, focus and commitment on a personal and organizational level; deep values and ethics; humility and humanity; empathy and resonance with others. This attitude forms the non-negotiable foundation of a leader. As a matter of fact, without this attitude, the development of the three dimensions falls within an old paradigm and will miss its intention and impact entirely.
  • Responsible Leadership is reflected by a visionary perspective. This includes: strategic skills, extraordinary communication skills, an excellent adaptability and attitude towards learning, a talent as a motivator, enabler and team players, an awareness of patience vs. impatience or doing and being, the capacity to span boundaries and bear tension, respect for diversity, adhesion to ethics and anthropological values.
  • Sustainable Entrepreneurship is reflected through a long-term perspective. This includes: the ability to lead organizational sustainability transformations, an advanced capacity for creative, critical, and divergent thinking, both street-smarts and an evolved intellect, the ability to question the status quo and to dismantle complexity, a facility to handle general management challenges and to solve problem integrally, implementation skills, and advanced mastery of all relevant subject knowledge to get any given job done.
  • Enlightened Statesmanship is demonstrated through a societal perspective. It includes: the ability to formulate an inspiring, higher-order vision, a sensitivity and awareness for societal concerns, a capacity to serve a cause larger than oneself, a drive to serve the Common Good, the ability to create and function within broad stakeholder networks, fluency with all aspects of sustainability, and a profound desire to be of service.

Figure 1: The four dimensions of globally responsible leaders


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A call to service: management education for the world

The influence of management educators is vast. They train the majority of leaders of the most influential business organizations worldwide and they impose and promote their vision of the firm and their philosophy of management. If they chose to, they could become major change agents for a better world.  To understand the link between a better world and management education, we need to clarify and agree on some upfront parameters:

Figure 1: The call to service for management education for the world by holding the space for provide responsible leadership for a sustainable world

Business schools and institutions, public or private, engaged in educating managers and leaders need to extend their scope beyond business to educate existing and emerging leaders active in organizations of any type, shape or form in business and beyond. To stress this point, we shall consistently replace the term “business school” with “management school”. The challenges described above are summarized in a call to service to provide management education for the world by “holding a space for responsible leadership for a sustainable world”. Its parameters are leadership, entrepreneurship and statesmanship.


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A radically new vision for business schools: towards a Call to Service

If we consider what the world needs us to do and what is expected of business schools in order to contribute to successfully address the existing and emerging societal, environmental and business challenges world-wide, we recognize that we are invited to embrace a call to service:
A call to service: To educate citizens to act responsibly for the world.

Let us look in more detail at this call of service in order to understand the amplitude of what is implied by this vision:

  • A call to service = a clear purpose beyond and above keeping our institutions alive, enriched by the understanding that education stands on equal footing on external knowledge and internal wisdom.
  • To educate = an issue-centred education complemented by subject or domain knowledge focused on the big issues of this world, replacing teaching with a powerful and safe learning environment. Learning embedded in action-learning platforms of collaborative laboratories (collaboratories). Research supporting global issues by involving stakeholders in the definition of research topics and delivering results to them in appropriate formats.
  • Citizens = you and me, business professionals, artists, activists, consultants, coaches, women in emerging countries, micro entrepreneurs, collaborative networks, seniors, everybody with a desire to make a positive contribution to this world.
  • To act = empowered learning to enable action, facilitating participants to wake up to what is inside of them, embracing the adventure ahead, becoming eco-literate and fluent in divergent thinking and courageous action, learning to act as a result of being.
  • Responsibly = creating a space to reflect on action and choices, to connect with true purpose and inner values, embracing the choices and consequences for society and planet in the long-term.
  • For = rather than against, rethinking strategic product & service needs, complementing competition with collaboration and understanding that we are all part of the same larger Unit. Sustainability is the obvious and essential guiding principle of life, business and anybody with a desire to act. Example:  waste-free closed-loop cycle inspired by nature.
  • The world = beyond the current paradigm of capitalism: serving society and the planet.

If we consider what the world needs us to do and what is expected of business schools in order to contribute to successfully address the existing and emerging societal, environmental and business challenges world-wide, we recognize that we are invited to embrace a call to service:
A call to service: To educate citizens to act responsibly for the world.


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Reflecting on the underlying paradigms in management education (1)

Business education has been a victim of countless unconscious, un-reflected choices that have deeply affected what and how we teach business and management. If we want to make progress in developing reflective and responsible managers and leaders, we need to reflect on the underlying paradigms in management education. These debates have been conspicuously absent in the classroom. As a result, we have robbed our students – future business leaders – the chance to reflect on these crucial issues and to develop their own perspectives. These include the following:

What is the purpose of business?

Milton Friedman was convinced the business of business is business. But is it true? And why is this? In looking at the impact of business today, it seems much rather the business of business is definitely more than just business. In the same vein: Is business an economic institution or is it a social institution? Does it serve its shareholders or a larger group of stakeholders and society overall? These questions need to be raised again and answered anew, if we want to make progress with regard to sustainability and responsibility.

Why do we need business growth?

We blindly accept the conviction that business growth is a necessary key factor in economic development. Business theories have been developed in a period of high-growth. And there are no useful models for business in an economy without growth. A business that doesn’t grow is considered a failure. Everything must grow: profits, market shares, reputation, salaries and shareholder value. This assumption has guided decision-making across all fields of business from strategy and finance, to marketing and HR. In the past two decades, new perspectives have emerged (see the de-growth movement). There has been little debate and reflection on the many unwritten rules and underlying assumptions of economic and business growth.


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Recognizing the need to unlearn

We need to recognize that unlearning is equally important as learning. What we have learned in the past may represent a serious impediment to being able to become the kind of leaders the world needs. As a result of fractioning business out of its context and separating business functions into separate divisions, we have created operating modes in business that represent serious limitations to a more holistic approach, whereby business defines its role as contributing to the well-being of society and, by extension, to all living beings in this world. We have learned to negotiate hard, of winning through cut-throat competition, of either rendering our consumers dependent or seducing them to consume more “stuff”. We have learned to pay employees, suppliers and partners as little as we can get away with and to charge our customers and clients as much as we can. We thereby have created a cage which prevents us from connecting to any desire to do good or to offer our energy and efforts to a greater good. Freeing ourselves from the many written and unwritten rules in business is an essential starting point to enable leaders to connect with their hearts and souls, to stop and to listen, and as a result to liberate their desire to do well by making a positive and relevant difference.

Above and beyond these rules and regulations, we have created important walls of protection. We are so scared to be touched (more figuratively than literally) that we have created very strong mental control mechanism that allows us to go through a day without getting too overwhelmed with everything we are confronted with and are asked to digest, starting with the news in the morning, to mildly dissatisfying personal relationships at work to sorting out kids back home. Most of us are in survival mode. We have shut down everything within us, besides the few vital areas that are required to get us through our daily life. If we expect future leaders to address their fears and deconstruct these walls of protection, we need to offer them an alternative that works. Such a process starts by recognizing the fear within the person in front of us. It requires us to see where the other person stands and to acknowledge his fear by offering a hand to take a step outside of it by providing the needed support. Without this support personal transformation will not be possible. Daring to be touched and knowing how to enter into resonance with himself and the world, are the key fundamental ingredient for any future leader that will act for the world and the societies it includes.


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Complementing free education with action learning

It is simply a question of time until all leading thinking in terms of business expertise for each function (marketing, finance, HR, strategy, operations) will be available on-line and accessible for free. A number of emerging models in related fields are strong indicators for this – the Khan Foundation, Born-to-learn and dozens of other initiatives.

Business schools need to enlarge the customers of business schools to include any citizen in the world with a desire to make a positive contribution to our world. We should find ways to effectively teach her the necessary business and management skills and competences no matter where in the world she is located. We need to offer as much information as we can for free on-line.

It can well be argued that free on-line education is not sufficient to develop the kinds of leaders we need. Some educational entrepreneurs have embraced this challenge and may or may not proof us wrong. We believe that it is important to complement on-line education with face-to-face action learning. Part of this vision is to figure out ways to create action-learning platforms for citizens in any part of the world, not just within business schools.


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From business education to management education

So far, business schools have by and large assumed that managerial and leadership skills are a part of business skills and that these can be taught in a similar way as functional knowledge. But we have learned that this will not work.  Skill development is much more demanding and inclusive process than transmitting subject knowledge in various functional domains. In the future, most functional knowledge will be available for free, online and accessible from anywhere. Knowledge can be acquired by reading books or following online modules. And the acquisition of knowledge can be tested through various forms of standardized testing. Developing managerial and leadership skills, competences and attitudes of future leaders, however, require the involvement of the whole person and face-to-face interaction, what cannot work without a coaching and facilitation component. It is the role of business schools to develop the required learning environments to make sure students graduate with the required managerial and leadership skills to embrace the emerging global challenges. Such competences include:

–          Systemic and strategic thinking

–          Critical reflection and holistic decision-making

–          Conflict resolution and crisis management

–          Team-work, collaboration and leadership skills

–          Moral and ethical courage

–          A globally inclusive mindset

–          Practical wisdom.

Emerging leaders will manifest themselves by being courageously explorative, daringly marginal, equipped with an inner guiding system of intuition, common sense and a deep knowing that we all belong to one larger unit. Such leaders will need to comprehend and successfully address increasingly complex, and emerging, systemic issues. Leadership is defined here as entrepreneurship, i.e. people with the ability, desire and will to make a difference. And this will need to be done not just in business, but in any organization that needs to organize resources and people to jointly create value that is relevant for the world.

The basic requirement for developing these leaders is a framework that addresses the whole person and that creates the needed openness and support for them. As such, education must provide the fertile grounds that allows for profound personal and professional development. Students and participants, irrespective of their age, will need a serious amount of personal courage to confront their fears, to let go of the views they hold on the world and on themselves and to drop the mask of a so-called educated perspective. Daring to let go of the roles we hold requires a safe space. Developing and exploring both an inner attitude that is connected to our inner self and an outer attitude that reflects a truly human view of compassion requires a learning environment in which making mistakes is considered progress rather than failure.