Shaping Futures: Unlocking Potential through Leadership
Carl Rallings Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Students & Communities)
President Association for Tertiary Education Management
ATEM Strategic Priorities
• Marketing & ATEM
• International
• Professional Development
USQ
Power of the “fellow traveller”
Dr Allen Tough said the most valued learning resource for someone setting out in a new leadership role is a “fellow traveller” (who might be further down the same change (learning path) who is seen to be performing effectively
Throughout my career I have embraced this concept of ‘fellow traveller’ – they don’t have to be in the same organisation (often they are not); they don’t have to be in same field;
You can choose them, you can have one or many;
They can be your ‘phone a friend’; your trusted confidente; your mentor; your advisor; sounding board; best practice guru
Today you might meet and connect with a ‘fellow traveller’; I encourage you to embrace the concept and explore the boundaries
ATEM study of Leading Professionals in tertiary education
“I am the juggler of personalities, expectations, egos, eggs, priorities, chainsaws and politics”
“Im trying to get butterflies to fly in formation / It’s like being a wrangler on a cat farm”
Trying to nail jelly to the ceiling whilst trying to put out fires with my feet
It’s like being in GroundHog day/being inside a rubics cube
Authors report that the more senior the leader the more the sense of producing an effect/influence; more junior leaders chose analagies ‘more meat in the sandwich’ / less influence
They also report the analogies indicate that high levels of emotional intelligence are necessary to work productively with change processes, and with those who are essential to the effective implementation
The New Normal
Leader’s Perspective
V
U
C
A
Volatility
Uncertainty Ambiguity
Complexity
Discussion points
1. Cook’s tour of Leadership Theories & Perspectives
2. Emerging Leadership Practices and Behaviours - Generative leadership
3. Implications for Futures (Leadership development & Mental Health)
Major Leadership Theories - past
1930’s
trait
‘great man’
theory - ‘born’ to
lead
1940’s
behavioural
what key behavioural
patterns result in
leadership
1960’s
contingency/
situational
establish which
leadership behaviours
succeeded in specific
situations
1970’s
transactional
leader promotes
compliance of his/her followers through
both rewards
and punishmen
ts.
1980’s
Transformational
leaders transform
followers through
inspiration
and charisma
Source: Microtech.net ‘The Evolution of Leadership Theory’ and ‘Journal of Managerial Psychology’,
Present thinking….
New-Genre Leadership (1992)
Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) (2000)
Evolutionary Leadership Theory (2004)
Complexity Leadership (2007)
Source: Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions, Avolio, B., Wulumbwa, F., Weber, TJ., 2009
Inspirational Leadership Common Qualities
1. Leaders selectively show their weaknesses - humility
2. Leaders who rely on intuition
3. Managing staff with tough empathy
4. They reveal their differences
Authentic leadership: being yourself with more skill
Source: Why Should Anyone be Led by You? Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones HBR 2000
Key emerging leadership theories
Authentic, Enabling, Generative – includes:
Viewing Leadership more holistically (leader, follower, context, stages, interaction)
Adding new leadership elements e.g. ethics, information sharing, transparency, the practice of leadership a collective process (rather than a ‘position’); fostering and manoeuvring conditions to enable middle managers
Source: Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions, Avolio, B., Wulumbwa, F., Weber, TJ., 2009
Leadership perspective future - Generative
Individual Mindset
Learning Culture Collaboration
Generative - Individual
• High levels of self-awareness
• Development stage from which you are thinking and acting matters a lot!
• Looking at world through multiple perspectives/lenses
• Key role is to set the stage and create the environment
Stage of Vertical Development
Source: Vertical Leadership Development, Stage 1, Nick Petrie, Center for Creative Leadership
Generative - Collaboration
360 degree relationship between Leaders, Managers and Staff - new ground rules for engagement
Building permissive culture
Spirit of trialling new ideas known as Emergence
Generative Leadership & Strategic Planning
Staff engagement and resource allocation (combined top-down bottom up approach;
Empowerment: planning for innovation and change
Involvement; meaning; reliance on others; feelings that I am being listened to; where I fit into the bigger picture
Generative - Learning Culture
Emergence as key strategic tool
Diverse perspectives sought
Framework of continual learning
Experimentation
Interdependent – Collaborator Long-term view
Sees many shades of grey
Sees many patterns and connections
Accepts uncertainty as the norm
Change is a collaborative process
Comfortable with ambiguity
Success means realization of a shared vision
Healthy way to gather more views
Something to be encouraged
Increases learning and performance
Sees the world through others’ perspectives to
understand more
Share knowledge across boundaries
Works in partnership with other functions
Challenge for you..
Has your organisation moved this way?
Can it move in this way?
What are the constraints/challenges/supports?
Defining Leadership
‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn
more, do more and become more; you are a leader’ -
John Quincy Adams
Forbes Magazine defines Leadership as: The process of social influence which maximizes the efforts of others towards the achievement of a goal
‘Leaders are people who do
the right thing; managers are
people who do things right’ –
Prof. Warren G. Bennis
Summary
Future Leadership is going to require the acquisition of additional skills, practices and behaviours …
… things to add to your existing
leadership toolkit!
Our organisations need to become good at critical things :
Building institutional change capacity
Being able to shape/create sound, relevant and engaging responses to the changing context
… and also making sure the change agenda is put into place/practice successfully and consistently
We have to be a ‘change capable university’ in this complex and ever changing world
and
we have to build ‘change capable professional leaders’
So change doesn’t just happen – it must be lead
– and deftly
Issues with Leadership Development Face to face, one-off, ad-hoc
Directed and compliance driven
Episodic updates delivered in didactic manner
Separated from authentic work experiences ‘just-in-case’
Command and control system (production style)
’80% of corporate investment in learning flows into formal learning, yet 80% of the results come from informal learning’ (Cross 2010)
Wrong Focus – should be developing leaders themselves
Disconnected from the workplace
Programs don’t engage leader’s key stakeholders
Development events as opposed to learning journeys
Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership
Future Trends of Leadership Development
Increased Focus on Vertical Development:
Awaken, Unlearn and Discern, and advance
Transfer of Greater Developmental Ownership to the Individual: …people’s motivation to grow is highest when they feel a sense of autonomy
The decline of the heroic leader–the rise of collective leadership: need to collaboratively share information, create plans, influence each other, and make decisions.
A new era of innovation in leadership development:
embrace the challenge of finding a new approach to leadership development; allow ourselves to come to a whole new paradigm about how to do this; let go of the old mental models
Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership
Solutions? Development programs that:
Generative perspective Development practices that foster high self awareness Techniques that promote self disclosure One on one coaching that enhances strengths, focuses on behaviours that may derail collective leadership Building strategic agility, diversity is sought, fostering emergence, experimentation
Focus more on transformation of the leader (vertical)
Connectivity/continuous part of work, individualised, flexible
Just in time, just for me
Access to development activities that enhance performance
Does your leadership nudge good choices here?
Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership
Challenge for you..
• Has your organisation moved this way?
• Can it move in this way?
• What are the constraints/challenges/supports?
Key leadership frustrations
The pace and relentlessness of change
The complexity is overwhelming
Change: Easy in one organisation; hard in another!
How little other areas of our organisation understand what we do;
The slowness of staff to engage with change;
Change related frustration mostly HR and staffing challenges (inefficient processes and systems, red tape; budgeting; and unclear strategic direction)
Making sense of the world at any stage of development can lead to feeling ‘I’m in over my head’
43%
56%
1%
Mental Health in the Workplace costs
Australian Business $10.9 billion per year
Absenteeism
Presenteeism
Compensation
Relationship between strong Leadership and Workplace Mental Health
Advocating for university-wide buy-in to address in workplace
A strategic priority?
Engaging staff on this topic
Reducing stigma increasing awareness
Role of a Leader vs Health Care Professional
Shaping Futures: Unlocking Potential
What are your individual and group leadership development needs?
Has your organisation developed a post GFC leadership & learning culture?
What is your organisation doing about leadership development programs?
Approach to workplace mental health
QUESTIONS?
Leadership Research History
Source:’Leadership: Past, Present, and Future, Day, DV., and Antonakis, J., 2011