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Leadership is a journey and an effective leader brings along a map. Maps are useful tools to helping us understand where we are, where we want to be and what route we need to take when journeying from where we are, to where we want to be.

A key leadership practice is that of leading change. Leading change requires that we shape people’s thinking. Thinking guides action….. resulting in either great or mediocre performance. Thinking and reflecting results in robust mental maps and robust mental maps leads to effective action. Shaping thinking is about, shaping the maps of current reality and that of future destinations that people carry around in their heads.

As leaders, we are responsible for the mental maps we develop for ourselves and others. These mental maps are used to guide our journey. Peter Senge in his best selling book “The Fifth Discipline” called these mental maps, mental models, which he defined as follows:

“’Mental models’ are deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action. Very often, we are not consciously aware of our mental models or the effects they have on our behavior.” – Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline

Mental models or as I like to refer to them mental maps, are the maps of how we see the world and how we understand, the way that the world around us works. These are maps and frameworks which reflect our understanding of the critical aspects of reality. Why is all of this important? Well, the key reason, requires us to understand that we all make decisions, resulting in actions, based on the mental maps we hold of reality. Poor maps lead to poor results. The more effective the mental maps we hold, the more effective is our action, resulting to better results.

• If you get the facts wrong, you get the map wrong
• If you get the map wrong, you do the wrong things and take the wrong action

As leaders we need robust mental maps that  help to ensure that we take action that produces positive results. The three steps detailed below describe how we go about building robust mental maps.

1. Map reading through sensemaking

I have posted on the importance of sensemaking to leaders on this blog in the past. The MIT Leadership Center article “Making a Difference by Making Sense” makes the following observation concerning sensemaking.

“As a leadership capability, sensemaking closely resembles map making. At the MIT Leadership Center dialogue on sensemaking, academics and practitioners spoke of places, observations, and directions, of ‘where we are,’ ‘where and why we are going,’ and ‘what we should look for as we go.’… Like cartographers, sensemakers create consequences with their maps. The way they understand and then describe an environment has ramifications, because this understanding guides future action.”

As we travel through life we read the landscape of people, events and consequences. Interpreting and assigning meaning and importance to events and behaviours. Through this process of observation, we begin to develop a picture of how the world works and how we need to behaviour to be effective in it. It’s conclusions that form the beginning of our leadership map.

2. Map making through inquiry

We develop and build upon our initial mental maps though a process of further inquiry and learning. This is how our comprehension of reality and possible futures are developed. Inquiry is not something that just happens, we need to make conscious effort to inquire and build our maps. The inquiry we do may be in the form of research, reading, interviewing other or the observation of cause and effect relationships of everyday life. Some of the best learning happens when we reflect on life’s experiences and the consequences of decisions we make.

3. Map testing through experimentation

Map reading through sensemaking, leads to map making, resulting in insight and understanding, leading to map testing through experimentation. Experimentation with our ideas and insights are important, as poor maps lead to poor results. We need to ensure that we have our maps right. When we act, we act within the context of the leadership map we have developed. Through experimentation we test our maps, testing whether we are getting the results we expected when acting based on our leadership map. After evaluating the effectiveness of our actions, we get an idea of the effectiveness of our mental maps. If, after some experimentation, we are not getting the results we expect, then the map is wrong and requires adjustment.

As leaders, we need to make sure that we are leading from a mental map that results in effective action.

• Do you have a clear mental map as to what is effective leadership?
• Do you consciously use this map to guide your actions?
• Do you test your mental map through experimentation?
• Do have a mental map that is shared with others to align organisational action?

Related posts:

1. Leader: Who do you intend to be?

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 Tony Mayo, co-author of “In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century“, discusses the importance of contextual intelligence for leaders. In his post Tony Mayo describes the importance of context for leaders….

“Yes, business leaders need to have certain personal characteristics to be successful, but it is often the application of those characteristics within a specific context that define great success. It’s not only who you are, but when and where you are.”

Too much emphasis is placed on heroic leaders, those special individuals with a unique set of traits, CEO’s who turn-around large organisations and political leaders that free a nation. Tony goes on to note that:

“There is far too much focus on individual characteristics of leadership and far too little focus on the situational context. By placing too much emphasis on the individual, we can easily fall prey to the cult of the CEO and believe that any individual who was successful in one setting would naturally be successful in a new setting. The list of once-successful CEOs who have failed in new business settings is long.”

This focus on heroic leadership traits, leads to a number of dysfunctional behaviours, such as:

• The tendency to try and become like our leadership hero’s, instead of seeking to become more of who we are, to be original’s and not copies. What traits and factors that made a leader great in the past, will not necessarily make the leader great tomorrow. This is why you cannot blindly emulate successful leaders from the past and expect to get the same results. What made Jack Welch successful, will not make your successful. We need to leader from successful leaders and not to try to emulate or copy them.
• The tendency to over-estimate the importance of our leaders, and to under-estimate the difference we can make in our daily actions.
• The tendency to relay on past success and limit ourselves from experimenting and trying new things.

Given the central role of context, it’s important for  leaders to be able to make sense of the changing environment and then adapt their leadership style, approach and behaviour to ensure they’re effective in the new context.

“Clearly, context is important. Business leaders who have been sensitive to context possess what Nitin Nohria and I call contextual intelligence. Not only do these leaders understand the implications of the contextual forces that surround them, they also have the ability to adapt and change their leadership style and approach as environmental conditions evolve. Success in one realm does not always translate into success in another. Indeed, relying on past models of success without being sensitive to the context of the situation has often yielded major disappointments.” – Tony Mayo, Why Do Some Leaders Have More Influence than Others?

• Do you have a good understanding of the context in which you are leading?
• Do you know what leadership behaviour and traits will be most effective in this context?

Related posts:

1. Understanding Leadership Context
2. Why Context Matters
3. Leaders Are Masters of Their Context

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One of the critical leadership capabilities required today is sensemaking, which is defined by Wikipedia as:

“..the ability or attempt to make sense of an ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions.”

The MIT Leadership Center published an article that further describes the five major tasks involved in sensemaking titled “Making a Difference by Making Sense”. Sensemaking is also one of the components of the MIT Distributed 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 understanding the context in which an organization and its people operate….. leaders share a common challenge—the need to quickly assess a constantly changing environment and to continually readjust as they take in new information and impressions. How can they make sense of a world where feedback is unclear and inconsistent? Where the ‘correct’ answer is not obvious? Where they must understand and change their environment simultaneously? This important leadership challenge is called sensemaking: discovering new terrain as you invent it.”

Sensemaking consists of five major tasks:

1. Observe: “Sensemakers ask, ‘What’s the story?’ They pay close attention to their environment and look for hints of change. Because the world does not evolve in linear fashion, sensemakers look for strategic inflection points.”
2. Question: “… sensemakers ask for help. They are open about problems and gain perspective from outside advisors. Under pressure, people often fall back on their habitual ways of responding. But times of crisis frequently require innovative solutions. That’s why sensemakers must resist snap judgments. When they see similarities to a past situation, they need to step back and think about how the new situation may be different.”
3. Act: “Sensemakers use early observations to shape decisions. They look for new ways to lay out alternatives and a better way to understand choices. Then, they take action and see what happens. They are like explorers, dropping a pebble into a pond to gauge its depth.”
4. Reassess: “Sensemaking is grounded in an appreciation of what is. Therefore, every conclusion is open to question. Sensemakers realize that yesterday’s choices may not work today. A static model does not work in a dynamic world. Sensemakers have the courage to let go of prior assumptions. That’s why sensemakers never stop. The environment is always changing, so there is no final answer. Sensemakers continually review and update. Because experience informs action, sensemakers change their plans even as they roll them out.”
5. Communicate: “Sensemakers are storytellers, and to tell stories they must simplify. Sensemakers help others understand complex situations, enabling the others to act.”

In summary …. “Sensemaking means acting in order to think. Sensemaking (where we are) spawns visioning (where we could be). By understanding their environment, the leaders described here learned how to compete, survive, and change.”

Sensemaking is a skill that all leaders need to develop and hone. Leaders need to be aware of the changing context in which they lead. How aware are you of your changing context?

Related posts:

1. The MIT Leadership Framework…
2. The Importance of a Clear Leadership Philosophy

The article titled “Leading for the Next Act: Why CEOs Must Evolve or Step Aside“ published in @Wharton">Knowledge@Wharton provides an interesting discussion concerning the need for leaders to change their leadership style to fit that challenges facing their organisations.

“The secret to long-term CEO success, suggests David Nadler, a consultant to boards and senior executives, is conceiving of a CEO’s tenure as a performance with a series of distinct acts. ‘Each act requires the CEO to lead, think and behave in fundamentally different ways. The successful ones are those who are able to make the transitions,’ Nadler said during his presentation at the 11^th annual Wharton Leadership Conference, sponsored by the Center for Leadership and Change Management, the Center for Human Resources and Wharton Executive Education…… “The problem comes after the CEO solves that first issue; then it is act two and something else is needed,” he says. Many CEOs fail because of what Nadler terms ‘success syndrome,’ that is, codifying a certain way of doing things, and then charging ahead with the old game plan no matter how the context has changed…… What leaders who successfully transition from one act to the next share is an awareness of what kind of leadership is required at the right moment — and they don’t rest on their laurels.”

This is a common leadership challenge, success can be a leaders worst enemy. Success often deceives leaders, causing them to think they have it “all figured out”, it creates pride and fuels ego’s, creating the perfect cocktail for future failure….

“‘They fail to recognize that things are changing, and often, they are unable to assess their own capabilities.’ With these blind spots in place, the CEOs continue to press ahead, widening the gap between their vision and the company’s reality. ‘We call that ‘the death spiral,’ said Nadler…. Feeding into this negative cycle is the hard fact that CEOs may not hear frank words from their insular circle of advisors — or care to listen when the truth is spoken. ‘Normally we think of learning-disabled kids, but I see learning-disable executives, who lack the ability to take in new information and determine the insider implications for it.’”

When leaders are not open to feedback from the business environment and people around them, they cannot adapt to the changing business context, resulting in failure. I’ve often observed how executive will choose to rationalize and defend deteriorating results, rather than looking inward to examine the appropriateness of their leadership style…..

“Part of the CEO’s task, then, is to ruthlessly assess him or herself as the business context changes. ‘Do I have an understanding of what’s needed now in terms of new leadership requirements? Do I have a sense of my own leadership capabilities? Can I understand the gap between what’s required by the new situation and what I’m capable of doing?’”

For successful leaders this is a whole lot more difficult than it seems! A critical leadership capability is the ability to face reality. As Jack Welch says “face reality as it is, not as it was nor as you wish it were“. To me, facing reality means having NO ILLUSIONS, to focus on outcomes and to become more self-aware.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Reality, Evolve, Change, Deception, Self-Awareness, CEO, Management, Business, Success, Failure, Transition

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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 within 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 article 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.

Related posts:

1. The Army’s Leadership Framework and Philosophy