Looking For Leadership 1

This is the beginning of a blog series on leadership and leadership development. It may branch off into other related topics like strategy, organisation, innovation and change (these are the domains that my consulting, teaching and research interests stretch across). It will likely take detours into some more personal and provocative topics like, why do most of us avoid opportunities for leadership most of the time? Or, what’s going on in the world of political and organisational leadership? There will possibly be more questions than answers, I might get some things wrong but hopefully will provide some useful insights too. A book may even emerge at some point and a podcast / video series with a colleague is underway.

I recently attended a leadership conference at the University of Tasmania with a unique mix of leadership academics and leadership development practitioners in attendance. It was a fabulous few days, great to connect with colleagues and I learnt a lot from people doing really good work. In the wrap up it was agreed that there was plenty more work to be done to advance and unify the field. There are big gaps in our knowledge around what good leadership is, how to practice it, develop it and certainly how to measure it.

This wasn’t a surprise to me as I recently spent twelve months reviewing the academic literature on leadership and leadership development and ended up more confused than I started. It is accepted that the domains are still immature in their theoretical foundations, fragmented and difficult to make sense of for the experts, let alone the broader field of leadership practitioners trying to make a difference and bring others along in their daily work. That nevertheless doesn’t discount good work being done in both academia and application.

So, this is for me an alternative way to make sense of, and contribute to furthering, the fields of leadership and leadership development. My hypothesis is that leadership is a more complex, abstract and contextual concept than we might wish; that science has a contribution to make and that there are other useful lenses too. I’m looking forward to stepping back and allowing myself to continue to learn, and in new ways. I’m also hoping to make the learning a social process, more dialogue than monologue, with clients, students, colleagues. I invite anyone to join me in this work, to respond or reach out, to create a leadership learning community, or to invite me into yours. After twenty years doing this work, I feel like I’m just getting started.