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Just a quick one while it comes into my head…if you were ever wondering about how difficult it is to lead and solve adaptive challenges I think you only need to look at the US at the moment. Six people dead, including a nine year old girl and a Federal judge, and a Congresswoman just off the critical list and still there doesn’t look like being any serious debate around the gun laws they have in their country. In fact, gun sales jumped in the few days following the tragedy.

To me it just goes to show how truly awful the present has to be for some people before leaving it becomes a less scary proposition than the uncertainty of change. And that is a real challenge for leadership.

Sorry for not being around so much folks….I’ve been a bit busy lecturing….well that is my excuse and I’m sticking to it!

Anyway, I saw this article today and really liked the thoughts expressed in it…

“Over the past two years, organizations have fought to do more with less — to hit next quarter’s target, to meet payroll, and in too many cases, to simply survive. At the same time, employees have struggled to do more work than ever before, maintain a positive attitude even as uncertainty about the future deepens, and develop skills even as opportunities for advancement diminish in a low-growth environment. In such an atmosphere, many organizations had little budget for training, nor could employees take time away from their day-to-day responsibilities for training. Yet as leadership expert John C. Maxwell notes, “Good leadership is learned in the trenches.” With or without formal training, leaders have been emerging within your organization because of how they have responded to the stresses and strains of the Great Recession. They kept peers motivated with a positive though realistic attitude. They maintained momentum during trying times and delivered results for the organization. They remained focused on developing and mentoring the individuals they lead, even when there was little or no time to do so. In other words, when fear and paralysis set in for many, these people led from wherever they were in your organization. By now, they may be frazzled, burned out, and thinking about finding work elsewhere. Before they do, consider Maxwell’s idea that “Leading as well as they can wherever they are is what prepares leaders for more and greater responsibility.” ”

Just thought I’d share.

One of the key elements of the Distributed Leadership is the concept of Sensemaking…which, simply put, is making sense of the environment in which we find ourselves. And it is one of the key elements, I would suggest, that is needed in an election campaign. When you think about it, it seems pretty logical that understanding the environment in which you find yourself  is pretty key to winning an election…what is the mood of the public, what is their state of readiness for change, what things are important to them etc. But the thing is, all sides of politics seems to be chronically bad at it….and I think part of the reason is their excessive fascination with opinion polls.

Now don’t get me wrong, opinion polls are no doubt a very valuable tool. But they are just that…a tool, and one of many ways of establishing an understanding of the circumstances they are facing. At the moment, however, they seem to be being used as the definitive answer to a complete understanding of the environment. Unfortunately good sensemaking is much more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

I think that the main element of the Sloan Distributed Leadership Model that we are going to see during the Australian election campaign is that of Visioning…this is what an election is after all, convincing people to vote for your vision of the future. As the campaign goes on though, there are a number of things you should look out for. But let me say first up that visioning, as a general rule, is not handled that well by anyone…politicians, business leaders, community leaders alike. It’s relatively easy to come up with a compelling image of the future…most people can do that…but convincing people to really buy in, especially for the long haul, is not so easy. And this is where the elements you should look out for come in.

Firstly a good vision is based on a core ideology…something that is central to very existence of the organisation. Core ideology is itself made up of two elements…core values (what you stand for)  and core purpose (what you do). The important thing about these elements is that they cut to the very core of the organisation, so they are not so much based on activities that you are currently involved in but on the philosophies you believe in. Read the rest of this entry »

So it’s finally happened…the Australian election has been called. Now we’ll get to see some leadership in action…maybe! It’ll be interesting to see how much real leadership comes out from either side…or how often leadership is put aside in the name of political expediency. I’ll be keeping an eye out!

I’m not sure exactly why I like this article by Peter Bregman so much…I’ve been trying to give it some context in my mind but I’m struggling a bit…and I’m not sure exactly how it applies to leadership either. Well I have some vague, not fully-formed thoughts about how it might but I’m finding it a little bit hard to articulate. So I’m just going to blurt some stuff out and leave you to connect whatever dots you choose do.

I think the idea of deliberately pursuing boredom to stimulate creativity is so simple and yet so inherently sensible. I like the way Bregman finds the positives in something we are all taught to avoid. As he says… Read the rest of this entry »

Well the dust has settled on the events of last week and the removal of the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, is seeming more like a distant memory every day. It’s amazing how quickly we adapt isn’t it…it appears to be very much business as usual again in the political world. So now might be as good a time as any to reflect on the part the new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, played in the whole episode.

You only needed to have read the papers and visited the comment section of on-line articles  over the last week to see that there is a wide range of thoughts on the level of her involvement and the rights & wrongs of what she may, or may not, have done. While a lot of this has been focused on her ascension to ‘leader’ I think this is an interesting event to look at from the perspective of followership.

I think the first element of followership Read the rest of this entry »

I was going to write about the leadership issues facing Kevin Rudd over the proposed Resources Super Profit Tax….but a bit late now me thinks! A very sad event during the week because I personally have a lot of time for what he was trying to achieve. And I also can appreciate the personal devastation he and his family must be feeling…I think we forget that politicians, for all they might annoy us at times, are human beings as well.

The upside is that I think Julia Gillard is an extremely talented person who will do a great job. Not only has she been handed a good base of reforms on which to build but she has skills in the very areas that Kevin Rudd lacked…and which, it seems, led to his downfall. This will allow her, I believe, to successfully implement some of the reforms that Kevin Rudd was not able to.

So lets talk about the skills that Kevin Rudd lacked. Read the rest of this entry »

I think this is a really good example of the kind of thinking and leadership we need more of….and I’m not talking about my personal blog, I’m talking about the Robin Hood tax! Like it or loathe it, it is at least an attempt to look outside normal ways of thinking to find a solution to a problem. Inventing doesn’t need to be ground-breaking…it can be a new way of applying old ideas.

Check it out…..and have a read of my personal blog while you are there!

I do love it when things seem to be coming together. I know that I have banged on about the book Natural Capitalism to the point that you are probably being sick if it…but boy is it great when you see some of the concepts  being put into action. Check this out….a group called the Earth Economics have re-valued the lower Mississippi Delta in-line with the same kind of principles espoused in Natural Capitalism. It makes for interesting reading…and makes me feel really good that there are positive things going on.

Bob’s blog looks pretty interesting in general actually.