Building Leadership across the organisation

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things” -Ronald Reagan

The measure of a true leader is in their ability to develop and create other leaders. However, because there is a dearth of effective high performing leaders, the responsibility of leadership development tends to be outsourced to consultants, usually with mundane results. To truly build up to the point of organisational breakthrough, we find that leaders must do the work of mobilising the leadership potential at all levels of the organisation. Simply put, a leader must teach others to lead.

Best Practices for Developing Leaders

Mature leaders in any institution, public or private, must demonstrate 4 dimensions of leadership teaching styles related to the 4 adaptive Leadership Styles. Adaptive Leadership Maturity is the ability of a Leader to select the style and approach required to deliver the best results in a particular situation. When it comes to developing other leaders however, the Pedagogy of High Performance Leadership Development requires all 4 Styles delivered in an integrated format to Build Future Leadership Competencies (Knowledge, Character, Skill-Set and Attributes).

The Direct Leadership Style tends to teach by giving Instruction to others and is directional in nature (telling the student-leader what to do). Instruction builds the Knowledge of the Future Leaders.

The Spirited Leadership Style tends to teach by mentoring the student-leader into the roles of leadership. This involves using lots of examples -including personal examples- inspiration, motivation, modeling and storytelling. Mentoring builds the Character of the Future Leaders.

The Systematic Leadership Style tends to teach by Coaching. This teaching style involves planning a system to help the student-leader acquire the skills through practice, while providing support, wisdom and feedback. Coaching builds the Skill-Set of the Future Leaders.

The Considerate Leadership Style tends to teach through Counseling. This is leveraging the conversational approach to direct the student-leader to learn from their own experiences and pointing them to principles and practices which that student’s experience relates to. Counseling builds the Attributes of the Future Leaders.

Mobilise Your Leadership Pipeline

Long-term success depends on making a critical distinction: A focus on leaders emphasises the personal qualities of the individual; leadership emphasises the methods that secure the ongoing good of the organisation.

When it comes to developing and unlocking leadership potential across an organisation, successful leaders convert the workplace into the learning place. They create the culture, systems, structure and practices within their organisations required for the development of the Knowledge, Character, Skills and Qualities of the next generation of Organisational Leaders.

Bolaji Olagunju