To become a leader, to stand out from the crowd, and to take on responsibility for others is a threatening experience for most people.  Their first experience is often a feeling of being very exposed.  To be successful in these early stages new leaders needs to find effective ways to protect themselves.  The more effective their protection the more confidence they have to lead.

The nature of a leader’s protection can be seen as stages along their journey of development: -

Stage 1 – Power

During this stage the new leader has a tendency to enjoy the ‘protection of power’ that has been afforded them with their new leadership role.  To gain the confidence to lead other people these leaders tend to rely on, and be supported by, the power of their position in the organisational hierarchy, the power they can borrow from their superiors, or the power of rule book.  In essence the new leader losses their sense of self and becomes the role.

 Stage 2 – Inclusion

In time the leader’s confidence grows, along with a desire to look around and learn from more experienced leaders.  At this stage the leader will tend to want to find a role model.  The leader should be able to see elements of their own self in their role model.  This helps the leader to identify with their role model and gain confidence from the logic that the role model is a successful leader, the role model is similar to me, therefore I can be a successful leader.  After overusing their power leaders at this stage often want to repair relationships and feel included with their peers and their direct reports. This sense of inclusion provides the leader with the protection they desire.  Therefore, it is vital that the role model they have chosen is also acceptable to the leader’s peers and direct reports.

 Stage 3 – Competence

By this stage in their journey of development leaders will have gained enough confidence to stand out from the crowd and assert their emerging authenticity.  They now tend to gain their protection and confidence from being the expert in a particular aspect of the business, organisation or service.  Leaders who operate from this level have some appreciation of what they are actually like as a leader and will attempt to find their niche or cultivate relationships that are in tune with who they are.  However, they tend not to be entirely confident with their authenticity and may overly assert their expertise, i.e. when there is a conflict of opinions, or when they are under pressure.   They are likely to dismiss feedback from those they don’t see as experts in their field.

Stage 4 – Delivery

By the time leaders get to this stage in their journey of development they have usually been able to construct their identity as a leader.  This is the combination of the aspects of the previous stages that have been successful for them.  In essence the leader has created a workplace persona that feels very authentic and gives them a high level of confidence.  This confidence generally gives them the ability to effectively challenge and support other people, create a positive high performing team atmosphere, and foster collaboration.  They tend to use this confidence to focus their team on achieving goals and objectives as a means of protecting their right to be authentic.  Whilst they are aware of their own authenticity they tend not to invite others to question their own system of values and beliefs which supports their sense of self.  Instead they tend to spend so much time maintaining their sense of self that they may not see the possibilities for transformation.

In the past Stage 4 has been seen by organisations as the pinnacle of successful leadership.  However, due to increasing levels of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in the world organisations are now expecting their many of their senior leaders to have progressed further in their journey of development.  To progress to the later stages of development involves the leader letting go of their constructed identity and connecting with a deeper level of authenticity associated with their values.  This enables the leader to transcend the constraints of their identity and gain the agility required in their leadership behaviour to be successful in this complex and uncertain world.

“To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping.”  Chinese Proverb

By Terry Sexton, founder of Creative Edge Consulting Ltd

When an organisation is failing to cope with market forces, could this be due to a restriction of consciousness – the collective consciousness of its people?

An organisation’s consciousness is, arguably, its culture. Edgar Schein has defined organisational culture as: ‘A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems. These worked well enough to be considered valid are passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.’  A good way of diagnosing and describing these ‘patterns of basic assumptions’ is through the use of Value Orientations which were researched and developed by Clare Graves (popularised by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan through their Spiral Dynamics model).

Grave’s Value Orientations model comprises seven levels as follows:-

Most organisations’ cultures have a combination of different Value Orientations.  However, all organisations have a ‘centre of gravity’ in which one Value Orientation is dominant. Research estimates that over 95% of organisations have either a dominant red, blue, orange, or green culture, while less than 5% of organizations have a yellow or turquoise culture.  However, a significant percentage of people with Yellow Value Orientations are now joining organisations. The presence of these people paves the way for more Yellow and Turquoise Value Orientations to emerge.  However, these will only emerge when the solutions implemented by Green patterns of shared basic assumptions start to cause problems.  Essentially, the organisation starts to outgrow its current level of consciousness or it becomes misaligned with its market.

Change within the Consciousness of the Culture

When implementing organisational change the path of least resistance can be found when working within the current level of consciousness: -

Growing the Consciousness of the Organisation

As organisations develop and grow there are times when its consciousness holds it back.  The collective consciousness of the organisation needs to grow.  Graves identified a number of conditions necessary for this type transition to occur in individuals.  These conditions can also be applied to the development of an organisation: -

1. The organisation must have resolved the problems which the current level of consciousness emerged to fix. According to Graves, this resolution releases the psychological energy needed for advancement.
2. The solutions implemented by the current level must now be starting to cause new problems. Graves found that transitions to new levels of conscious can occur only after a period of crisis at the existing level.  This generally occurs when the organisation is becoming misaligned with its market.
3. There must be insight into the new ways of solving the new problems and encouragement for people to leave the old ways behind.
4. Relationships, and other constraints from the previous level of consciousness, must be overcome.  Most relationships ground people in shared basic assumptions and provide resistance to people moving on.
5. Consolidation is the final condition. It involves the practice and affirmation of the new ways of solving problems.

To survive in this uncertain and complex world organisations need to ensure that they have the ‘collective consciousness’ to meet the challenges faced in the market place.  Otherwise organisations will become constricted by their shared basic assumptions for problem solving and they will fail.

By Terry Sexton, business psychologist and founder of Creative Edge Consulting Ltd. We use the Value Orientations psychometric to profile the nature of individuals’ consciousness.

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

Organisations are facing unprecedented levels of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA).  First appearing in military circles the acronym VUCA is now more often used to describe the business environment.  Organisations need leaders who can trust their own judgment and make the right decisions at the right time.  This means that leaders must have the agility necessary to deal with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity if they are to lead their organisation to a successful future.

Through our experience of using the Cognitive Process Profile Psychometric we have found that agile leaders have three things in common: -

• They are able to make space for their intuitive insight
• They accept failure as an inevitable part of the process
• They are able to let go of their personality

Are current education, training and development practices designed to develop these qualities in leaders?

Intuitive Insight

When dealing with VUCA it appears that our conscious, rational mind is easily overwhelmed.  The more complex and ambiguous the problem, the more we try to analyse and rationalise our way to the answer.  Then, just when we’ve admitted defeat and given up trying, a solution pops into our heads as if from nowhere.  This is because our intuitive unconscious mind had been working on the problem in the background and had found a solution but our conscious rational mind didn’t allow any space for the intuitive insight to emerge.  This is the same process that occurs when we sleep on a problem.  Successful decision making in a VUCA environment depends on making space for intuitive insights by: -

• Suspending the need for detail and tuning into the dynamic patterns of the situation
• Focusing less on the pragmatic and being more open to the possible
• Being less concerned with short term solutions and having a greater awareness of long term implications
• Having less reliance on structure and a greater comfort with chaos

Accept Failure

The issue here is not the failure itself, but the fear of failure.  Agile leaders accept both success and failure as data about their understanding, strategies, tactics and actions.  This data they interpret and learn from to ensure they increase their chances of success next time.  To minimise the risk to the organisation agile leaders initially engage in small scale experiments.  They accept that failure is an integral and useful part of the experimentation process.  Less agile leaders often get constrained by their fear of failure.  This can be caused by working in punitive environment, by fragile self esteem, or by their sense of self worth being bolstered by setting and achieving high standards.  The consequence of the fear of failure, when working in a VUCA environment, is that people often draw heavily on their memory of what worked in the past.  This is the equivalent of driving down an unfamiliar road whilst looking in the rear view mirror.  Alternatively, they rely on the thinking processes they were taught at school and become paralysed, over analysing and rationalising the situation.  Both of these reactions constrain a leader’s capacity to deal with VUCA.  Eventually, their brain gets overwhelmed and goes into survival mode.  This is when our ‘cognitive bucket’ shrinks to a narrow range of deliberate thinking.  Our brains are naturally wired to take short cuts as a way of saving energy and time.  This natural process becomes a very effective survival mechanism when we are in danger.  However, in a VUCA world it can derail leaders because all they are able to do is think of old solutions and habits and over use their strengths.

Let go of Personality

Successful leaders are often characterised as people who have found their own authentic way of leading and have incorporated their leadership skills to the point that they are now using them effortlessly and often without conscious awareness.  This high level of ability instils a great deal of trust in their followers and enables them to lead a team that focuses on delivering the business objectives.   However, this authenticity is often a constructed identity or persona which they have created and found to generate success.  They call this their personality, holding it tightly and protecting it at all costs.  All too frequently leaders become slaves to this personality and subsequently become rigid caricatures of themselves.  This rigidity constrains their ability to deal with the demands of working in a VUCA environment.  To develop greater agility leaders need to be able to transcend the constraints of their personality and contact a deeper place of authenticity.  This can be found using the Value Orientations tool.

When we look at the dominant education, training and development practices in the Western world we can see that leaders are still being encouraged to develop the attributes that can lead to rigidity: -

• Memory for past knowledge, facts and details
• Analytical and rational thinking
• Right first time attitude
• High standards for personal achievement
• Confidence from a constructed identity

Whilst there is nothing wrong with these qualities per se, they do tend to crowd out the leadership qualities required to deal with a VUCA environment.  To be successful now and in the future leaders need to make space for intuitive insight, accept failure as part of the process, and transcend the constraints of their personality.  Can we change our approach to education, training and development and thus deliver the leaders we need for a successful future?  What will the future look like if we don’t?

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.” – Albert Einstein

By Terry Sexton, founder of Creative Edge Consulting Ltd

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act as an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act as an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act as an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act as an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

Creative Edge Consulting Ltd does not act as an agent for the Cognitive Process Profile Practitioners listed on this site. It therefore accepts no responsibility for a practitioner’s knowledge, skill or ability. It is up to the person procuring the practitioner to check their knowledge, skill or ability. It is also recommended that when procuring a Practitioner, that their right to work in the UK is also checked.

In his book ‘Authentic Leadership’ (2003) Bill George (former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic) has defined authentic leadership as “being yourself; being the person you were created to be” rather than “developing the image or persona of a leader”.  But what is the ‘self’?  This is a question that philosophers, and now psychologists, have debated for centuries.  There is still little consensus.

The Paradox

In helping leaders gain awareness of the nature of ‘self’ the HR profession is able to use a range of psychometrics that reduce personality into a number of traits.  This type of self awareness is a useful step in a journey of development; it helps a leader to become aware of their habitual ways of thinking, feeling and acting.  However, all too frequently leaders overly identify with their profile of traits which increases rigidity in their behaviour and their development grinds to a halt. This often occurs at Level 4 in the Leadership Capacity Framework.  These leaders often find difficulty making the transition from department, function, or project leadership into business leadership due to them lacking the necessary agility to deal with the increased complexity.

For leaders who are further along in their journey of development (Levels 5 & 6) and have gained greater agility, the measurement of their personality in terms of traits feels irrelevant as they are able to demonstrate a range of behaviours according to the environment they are operating in.  These leaders often describe their trait profile as a reflection of their core workplace image or persona, and talk about having a number of personalities which they use according to different situations in all aspects of their life.  In her book “Developmental Coaching, Working with the Self” Tatiana Bachkirova describes these personalities as mini-selves.   The deployment of a range mini-selves gives the leader the agility necessary to deal with the enormous amount of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity which is inherent in leading a business or organisation today.  The issue here, however, is that often the leader feels they are being inauthentic at work.  Which one of these mini-selves is their true self, the one they were created to be?  In this situation traditional trait based psychometrics struggle to find an answer.

Insights from Complexity Theory

A possible answer to this question draws from the new science of complexity and chaos which would describe the ‘self’ as a ‘Complex Adaptive System’.    This means that the self, as it interacts with the environment, constantly adapts its behaviour through using multiple mini-selves to ensure it provides the most appropriate response it has available to a given situation.   Complex Adaptive Systems can go through periods of relative order and then periods of chaotic growth as the system aligns to a new environment.

In chaos theory the relative order of a complex system is produced by a phenomenon called ‘Strange Attractors’.  Whilst the behaviour of the system is still unpredictable and could be perceived as chaotic, over time it can be seen to form a bounded pattern.  The ‘Strange Attractor’ in the leader’s ‘self system’, that keeps the mini-selves in bounded pattern, could be described as their Value Orientation.  This is essentially a person’s ‘centre of gravity’ or ‘power centre’ in terms of their psychological integration within a particular environmental context.  The Value Orientation of the leader enables the mini-selves to interact with their cognitive approach, sense of personal purpose, specific set of interests and skills, values, motivational drivers, etc. to create a unified predisposition.

Authencity of Values

The concept underlying Value Orientations has been around for centuries.  Many spiritual traditions have categorised this concept. Examples include spiritual models such as the ten Sefirot levels of creation in the Jewish Kabbalah teachings, the seven levels from the false Self to the essential Self in classical Sufi teaching, and the seven Hindu Chakras.  A more recent example, from Social Psychology, is the Social Value Orientations theory developed by David Messick and Charles McClintock which contains a model of five levels of motivation.  Although, all these different perspectives use different terminology they all intuitively appear to draw on the same fundamental underlying concept.

We propose that it is the leader’s ‘value orientation’ that gives them their sense of authenticity as they demonstrate the agility of behaviour required to be successful in today uncertain and complex world.  To identify and profile a leader’s value orientation we use a psychometric based primarily on the Spiral Dynamics model developed by Graves, Beck and Cowan that comprises seven levels.

Leader Development

The leader’s value orientation does not remain static.  As the leader progresses along their journey of development, and faces new unfamiliar challenges, their centre of gravity shifts.  This occurs when their existing way of viewing the world no longer provides a solution and a new ‘worldview’ needs to emerge.  At that point the ‘Complex Adaptive System’ of the self moves to the edge of chaos and goes into ‘Bifurcation’ as two paths become available: -

1. Become rigid so as to protect key elements of the self identity
2. Let go of the current value orientation, move into chaos and lose the sense of authenticity

This is a tough decision and one that is often made on unconscious instinct depending on how fearful or confident the leader is.  Many leaders decide to take the first path and their development becomes temporarily stalled.  However, for the leaders who take the second path a new more complex self system emerges which integrates more mini-selves and is anchored around a new centre of gravity or value orientation.  When this happens the leader progresses further along their journey of development with an increased capacity to lead in an uncertain and complex world.  Each successive value orientation incorporates and transcends all previous ones in terms of the degree and focus of consciousness involved.  However, that does not imply that some value orientations are better than others as this is dependent on the situation.

A leader’s development can be accelerated to integrate more complex value orientations.  However, the leader must be provided with the right challenge and support at the right stage in their journey of development.   Our Leadership Capacity Framework provides a map of the terrain for the leader’s journey which can be used to accelerate development ensuring that organisations have leaders who can lead in a complex, ambiguous, uncertain world.

By Terry Sexton, founder of Creative Edge Consulting Ltd