Apr

20

The MIT Leadership Framework…

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The MIT Leadership Center has a great leadership framework, discussed in the article “Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty” by Deborah Ancona, the Director of the MIT Leadership Center. The framework was developed by four MIT Sloan faculty members, Deborah Ancona, Wanda Orlikowski, Peter Senge and Tom Malone and is underpinned by the following four core assumptions:

  • Leadership is Distributed. That is, leadership is not solely the purview of the CEO, but can and should permeate all levels of the firm.
  • Leadership is Personal and Developmental. There is no single way to lead. The best way to create change is to work with the particular capabilities that you have, while constantly working to improve and expand those capabilities.
  • Leadership is a Process to Create Change. Leadership is about making things happen, contingent on a context. Leaders may create change by playing a central role in the actual change process, or by creating an environment in which others are empowered to act.
  • Leadership Develops Over Time. It is through practice, reflection, following role models, feedback, and theory that we learn leadership.

 

SENSEMAKING

Sensemaking is about “making sense of the world around us”. The act of Sensemaking is discovering the new terrain as you are inventing it. In the very process of mapping the new terrain, you are creating it. 

Tips for Sensemaking:

  • Seek many types and sources of data.
  • Involve others in your sensemaking.
  • Do not simply apply your existing frameworks and overlay them on the situation.
  • Move beyond stereotypes.
  • Learn from small experiments.
  • Use images, metaphors, or stories to try to capture and communicate critical elements of your map.

 

RELATING

Relating is about “developing key relationships withint and across organisations” and consists of the following three primary components:

  1. Inquiry which is the ability to listen and understand what others are thinking and feeling. It also involves trying to understand how the other person has moved from data to interpretation to assessment, rather than simply reacting to the assessment itself.
  2. Advocacy which involves taking a stand and trying to influence others of its merits while also being open to alternative views.
  3. Connecting which is the ability to build collaborative relationships with others and to create coalitions for change.

Tips for effective connecting are:

  • Understand the perspective of others within the organization and withhold judgment while listening to them.
  • Encourage others to voice their opinions.
  • Be clear about your stand and how you reached it.
  • Think about how others might react to your idea and how you might best explain it to them.
  • Think about your connections.

 

VISIONING

While sensemaking creates a map of what is, visioning is a map of what could be. Visions are important because they provide the motivation for people to give up their current views and ways of working in order to change. Perhaps most importantly, visioning provides people with a sense of meaning about their work. It answers the question “why am I doing this?” Thus good leaders are able to frame visions in a way that emphasizes their importance along some key value dimensions.

Tips for effective Visioning are:

  • Develop a vision about something that excites you or that you think is important.
  • Frame the vision with an ideological goal.
  • Use stories, metaphors and analogies to paint a vivid picture of what the vision will accomplish.
  • Practice creating a vision in many arenas.
  • Enable co-workers by pointing out that they have the skills and capabilities needed to realize the vision.
  • Embody the key values and ideas contained in the vision - “walk the talk.”

 

INVENTING

Creating is about the creation of new ways of woking together. Inventing entails creating the processes and structures needed to make the vision a reality. It involves implementing the steps needed to achieve our vision of the future.

Tips for effective inventing include:

  • Maintain focus on improving the ways that people work together in your team and organization.
  • When a new task or change effort emerges, think through how it will get done—who will do what, by when, and in what configuration.
  • Play with new and different ways of organizing work—examine alternative ways of grouping people together, organizing their internal interaction, and linking across different groups.
  • Blend sensemaking and inventing.

 

An interesting point mentioned in the artcile is the role that polarity or paradox plays in leadership, which the author refers to as tensions:

These capabilities can also create tensions that need to be managed. It is difficult to hold an image of the future and the present simultaneously. Balancing people and processes, action and understanding, individual and collective aspirations, can be challenging. Yet it is inherent in the framework that managing these very tensions is the essence of leadership.

 

Signature Style

The last component in the framework is the individual leader’s “signature style” which is “It is the change signature that determines how and what the tool is used for. While the capabilities focus on what leaders do, the change signature is about who a leader is. It develops slowly based on experience and skills. It is a key part of the leadership model because it represents who we are as leaders.”

 

I share this as I think this is a great leadership framework which we can use to shape our thinking and approach to leadership.

 

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2 Responses to “The MIT Leadership Framework…”

  1. Sanderws on April 24th, 2007 19:13

    You can look at a leader as one who discovers reality and leads organizational members through this reality.

    One can also look at a leader as a person who makes sense of reality and frames the sensemaking of organizational members.

    The last perspective fits more or less with the described leadership framework.

    Personally I am interested in the way the sensemaking of organizational members can be influenced/framed by leaders.

    Because I believe that members of organizations act based on their sensemaking of reality. And if that is so, it is an interesting question how a leader can frame this sensemaking.

    Have you got an idea about this framing of sensemaking?

  2. The importance of sensemaking in leadership : The Practice of Leadership on June 15th, 2008 20:32

    [...] Leadership Model, one of the best leadership frameworks, which I have discussed in a previous post. As discussed in the article… “Leaders learn to compete, survive and change by first [...]

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