Great Ideas: Leadership Lessons

Jeff and I had great fun doing the “Leadership Lessons from 80s Music” session in Miami at the Great Ideas Conference this year. We had 40 people come to the session, and I was very impressed with the depth of 80s music knowledge in the room.

Of course, 80s music is nice and all, but truth be told, I'm more passionate about leadership than I am about 80s music. I was most excited to talk about the three themes that I had linked to the 80s music in our session. We covered six themes in the session but here are my three:

• Everyone leads
• Be open
• Learn about generations

I'm going to do a different blog post about each of the themes. This one will be on "everyone leads."

This theme is important to me, because I think too many people tend to equate the term "leadership" with positions of authority and control in organizations. In associations, for instance, leadership development is a term used almost exclusively to describe programs we put in place to train volunteers to assume positions on the Board of Directors. In the session I gave an example of an association that was presenting about its leadership development program and they explained that it took about 15 years from when potential leaders were identified until they finally reached the Board.

(Aside: I got NO reaction when I said this. Did I deliver it wrong? Are people not shocked and outraged that it takes 15 years to get to the Board? Is it just me?)

Developing people for positions of authority IS important. People won't get into those positions automatically knowing what to do and how best to do it. So I am all for leadership development programs. But LEADERSHIP is so much more than that! I shared my favorite definition of leadership from Peter Senge:

Leadership is the capacity within the system to shape its future.

Leadership is not about individuals, and it's not about power, control, or authority. Leadership is simply about being able to shape the future. Making things happen. Think about it: in the absence of leadership, a system will simply react to what happens. The future happens to the system, rather than the system being able to shape its own destiny. But when a system develops its leadership capacity, then it can make things happen, generate positive results. But that capacity is system-wide, not just at the top of the organizational chart.

So look at your organization. Look BELOW the top levels and ask yourself what capacity needs to be developed in other parts of the system that will better enable you to shape the future. I manage an association that does meetings every month. I've got a meeting planner in her mid-20s that knows a ton about meeting planning. If I want to develop the leadership capacity, I probably need HER to educate my Education Committee on meeting planning, rather than sending her to a generic training on how to be a leader or training my Committee members on good governance.

Drop your focus on filling slots and generically applicable skills. Take a fresh look at what needs to be developed system wide, and do it.

Comments

[Maddie Grant]

Totally agree. Strategic thinking happens mostly in the middle layers of an organization and it's crucially important IMHO to recognize that and encourage that and create "systems thinking" throughout an organization.

On a different tangent, this applies to diversity as well - only when your Board accurately reflects the diversity of your membership (racially, generationally etc) can you even begin to think and act in a diverse way. 15 years to get to board level? Yikes.

[Peggy Hoffman]

Thanks for the recap - the session was lots of fun and at one table we all chuckled knowingly to your comment about 15 yrs.

Your comment about leadership development programs struck a chord in me - for I think that too often associations focus on training the "leaders" not developing leaders. And if we were to view our volunteer pool as you suggest not from the top we would looking at developing capacity.

[Kristi Donovan]

I feel compelled to react to your comment on 15 years.

**WHAT?!?** she says, as she bangs her head on her desk.

In reality though, I probably wouldn't have reacted in that room. I think we are all numb to that reality. It's a shame, but maybe your mention of it here will wake us up. I hope.

I recently said on a staff survey - anyone can be a leader, no matter what their title is. Or experience, for that matter. We all have the power to make things happen. My counterpart at the office has the Marianne Williamson quote on the wall, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." Imagine what we could accomplish if we got over that!

[Roberta]

And we all wondered why we don't always keep younger people - and why our boards don't innovate!
We reward them for following the rules, not breaking them. And coming up through the ranks is another example of that. Who has 15 years to spend doing something they are not enjoying just to get on a board? We reward people for being single-minded not innovative.

[john mamone]

Sounds like I missed a great session (especially since I'm as passionate about 80's music as I am about leadership). For me, the most influential leadership lessons came from an 80's television program ..."Moonlighting". Two distinct leadership styles, both with strengths and weaknesses, both trying to lead at the same time. At yet, it seemed to work. Personally, I always favored the David Addison approach.