Three dimensional Leadership Development
The technical field of a leader’s work is generally an area of proven expertise, for which they have been recruited and promoted. Lorenza Clifford, Founding Director of Coachange Ltd asserts that while expertise is a useful dimension for leaders to have, development of leadership in organisations needs to be 3D to deal adequately with today's world and the future.
In her experience, real leadership growth is the result of focusing on:
Breadth – exploring the fullness of a
role at a specific level of leadership, developing awareness of the widest connections that can add value. Inclusion of all stakeholder perspectives gives better understanding of the ripple effects of decisions. Skill development to stay truly well-informed is the “stuff” of horizontal development in a role.
Length – exploration of time horizons, working with narrative from the past, present and projecting into the future to create inspiring vision that attracts talent and additional effort. Sense-making and insight are increasingly important to recognize new patterns fast, and create responses. Vertical development can be accelerated by harnessing action logics, developing action inquiry and exercising new awareness to bring new choices.
Depth – understanding, respecting and working with themselves and others (emotional intelligence). Owning presence, power and vulnerabilities, to develop dialogue, resilience, trust and loyalty which are crucial to culture and therefore to organizational results.
Developing these areas converts potential into increased capability, effectiveness and innovation, through a series of pragmatic conversations about the work, either in groups (workshop format) or more often one-to-one in executive coaching format.
From our Hampshire base, Coachange works internationally with leaders over several months to discover and develop their hidden potential. Embedding a regular phone call or coaching meeting into the fortnightly routine, gives you 24 boosts a year to your leadership thinking and planning. Advanced leadership development becomes part of the fabric of reflecting on and dealing differently with the realities of leadership faced.
The advantages in results may often show from the first session. Such early change reported examples have included:
Improved strategic thinking, leading to more choices and better decisions
Confident framing of the context and need for change in communication
More positive mindset about change outcomes, giving inspiration to teams
Understanding of elements of the cultural web and how to influence these
Clearer awareness of wider perspectives and need for stakeholder involvement
Key learnings about specific relationships and actions that flow to improve them.
Developing leaders accelerates growth of the organisation.
