Feb
27
Seeking Powerful Leadership Experiences
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Leadership development is about personal development and the experiences we have on our life’s journey creates the necessary personal capacity required to lead. Consider the biography of the life of Winston Churchill, “Winston Spencer Churchill: The Last Lion, Visions of Glory” describes Churchill as:
“Sickly, an uncoordinated weakling with the pale fragile hands of a girl, speaking with a lisp and a slight stutter, he had been at the mercy of bullies. They beat him, ridiculed him, and pelted him with cricket balls. Trembling and humiliated, he hid in a nearby woods. This was hardly the stuff of which gladiators are made.”
Similarly, Peter Senge in his book “The Fifth Discipline
“Most of the outstanding leaders I’ve worked with are neither tall nor especially handsome; they are often mediocre public speakers; they do not stand out in a crowd; they do not mesmerize an attending audience with there brilliance or eloquence. Rather, what distinguishes them is their clarity and persuasiveness of their ideas, the depth of their commitment, and their openness to continually learning more”
It seems to me that life’s experiences and our response to them are key to, how leaders are formed, and the kind of leaders they become. The experiences that shape us as leaders, as we journey through life are referred to as passages by David Dotlich in the Ivey Business Journal article, “Adversity: What Make a Leader the Most” describing life’s adverse and diverse experiences as passages because:
“they take you from one place to another. You see the world and yourself differently after you’ve gone through the events and emotional states that define each passage…these passages are emotionally and cognitively intense….as a result your sense of self changes in a fundamental way. Who you are, what you’re capable of doing and your place in the world will all shift”
These adverse and diverse passages are effectively illustrated by David using the following matrix:
The power of experiences to shape a leader’s life is huge, in fact experiences are so powerful they can have the opposite effect, just as experiences can make us stronger they can also paralyse us, causing us to cower and retreat from life. Fearful of having another similar experience, we rather play it safe, not venturing out, not taking risks, seeking the safety of “positional leadership”. The key is in how we respond to our life passages.
The result is that we have two types of leaders:
- Leaders who responded poorly to life’s passages, they developed negative or faulty worldviews and lead out of fear, abusing their power, controlling others and seeking position as a means to exert influence.
- Leaders who responded to life’s passages from a learning stance, looking for the opportunity and lessons to be learned, remaining open and vulnerable. They lead authentically, not from pride, exerting influence through relationships and personal character and commitment (as described by Peter Senge above)
This is described by Warren Bennis in “On Becoming a Leader
“Until you make your life your own, you’re walking in borrowed clothes. Leaders, whatever their field, are made up as much of their experiences as their skills, like everyone else. Unlike everyone else, they use their experiences rather than being used by it.”
As mentioned in a previous post, “If you honestly evaluate your “leadership career”, do you have ten years of leadership experience…….or do you have a one year leadership experience repeated ten times?.” To develop, leaders need to seek experiences that will create a shift in their worldview, either through changes in career, industry, travel or exposure to other cultures. Whilst seeking diverse experiences leaders should simultaneously, strive to ensure a positive response and always looking for opportunities to learn and grow though the experience.
Technorati Tags: Personal Leadership, Leadership, Experience, Leadership Development, Personal Development, Management
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[...] Leaders learn by taking time to reflect and learn from life experiences. Our experiences shape us and if we learn from our life experience we grow and develop. One of the keys to learning from life experience is to develop a regular practice of reflection. Reflection is simply a quiet time, purposefully set aside, to cast our minds back and think about the events of the day, week or a specific situation, with the intention of learning. By asking questions such as “what happened?”, “how we reacted?” and “what should we do differently next time”, we learn valuable lessons. Leaders can also reflect in groups, helping our teams to learn. The US Army improves group learning using “After Action Reviews“, we can do the same. The most powerful learning in my life has been when I consciously take a concept or principle I’ve discovered in a book, apply it in my life and then reflect on the results. [...]