Shaping Futures: Unlocking Potential through Leadership

Carl Rallings Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Students & Communities)

President Association for Tertiary Education Management

ATEM Strategic Priorities

• Marketing & ATEM

• International

• Professional Development

USQ

Power of the “fellow traveller”

Dr Allen Tough said the most valued learning resource for someone setting out in a new leadership role is a “fellow traveller” (who might be further down the same change (learning path) who is seen to be performing effectively

Throughout my career I have embraced this concept of ‘fellow traveller’ – they don’t have to be in the same organisation (often they are not); they don’t have to be in same field;

You can choose them, you can have one or many;

They can be your ‘phone a friend’; your trusted confidente; your mentor; your advisor; sounding board; best practice guru

Today you might meet and connect with a ‘fellow traveller’; I encourage you to embrace the concept and explore the boundaries

ATEM study of Leading Professionals in tertiary education

“I am the juggler of personalities, expectations, egos, eggs, priorities, chainsaws and politics”

“Im trying to get butterflies to fly in formation / It’s like being a wrangler on a cat farm”

Trying to nail jelly to the ceiling whilst trying to put out fires with my feet

It’s like being in GroundHog day/being inside a rubics cube

Authors report that the more senior the leader the more the sense of producing an effect/influence; more junior leaders chose analagies ‘more meat in the sandwich’ / less influence

They also report the analogies indicate that high levels of emotional intelligence are necessary to work productively with change processes, and with those who are essential to the effective implementation

The New Normal

Leader’s Perspective

V

U

C

A

Volatility

Uncertainty Ambiguity

Complexity

Discussion points

1. Cook’s tour of Leadership Theories & Perspectives

2. Emerging Leadership Practices and Behaviours - Generative leadership

3. Implications for Futures (Leadership development & Mental Health)

Major Leadership Theories - past

1930’s

trait

‘great man’

theory - ‘born’ to

lead

1940’s

behavioural

what key behavioural

patterns result in

leadership

1960’s

contingency/

situational

establish which

leadership behaviours

succeeded in specific

situations

1970’s

transactional

leader promotes

compliance of his/her followers through

both rewards

and punishmen

ts.

1980’s

Transformational

leaders transform

followers through

inspiration

and charisma

Source: Microtech.net ‘The Evolution of Leadership Theory’ and ‘Journal of Managerial Psychology’,

Present thinking….

New-Genre Leadership (1992)

Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) (2000)

Evolutionary Leadership Theory (2004)

Complexity Leadership (2007)

Source: Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions, Avolio, B., Wulumbwa, F., Weber, TJ., 2009

Inspirational Leadership Common Qualities

1. Leaders selectively show their weaknesses - humility

2. Leaders who rely on intuition

3. Managing staff with tough empathy

4. They reveal their differences

Authentic leadership: being yourself with more skill

Source: Why Should Anyone be Led by You? Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones HBR 2000

Key emerging leadership theories

Authentic, Enabling, Generative – includes:

Viewing Leadership more holistically (leader, follower, context, stages, interaction)

Adding new leadership elements e.g. ethics, information sharing, transparency, the practice of leadership a collective process (rather than a ‘position’); fostering and manoeuvring conditions to enable middle managers

Source: Leadership: Current Theories, Research, and Future Directions, Avolio, B., Wulumbwa, F., Weber, TJ., 2009

Leadership perspective future - Generative

Individual Mindset

Learning Culture Collaboration

Generative - Individual

• High levels of self-awareness

• Development stage from which you are thinking and acting matters a lot!

• Looking at world through multiple perspectives/lenses

• Key role is to set the stage and create the environment

Stage of Vertical Development

Source: Vertical Leadership Development, Stage 1, Nick Petrie, Center for Creative Leadership

Generative - Collaboration

360 degree relationship between Leaders, Managers and Staff - new ground rules for engagement

Building permissive culture

Spirit of trialling new ideas known as Emergence

Generative Leadership & Strategic Planning

Staff engagement and resource allocation (combined top-down bottom up approach;

Empowerment: planning for innovation and change

Involvement; meaning; reliance on others; feelings that I am being listened to; where I fit into the bigger picture

Generative - Learning Culture

Emergence as key strategic tool

Diverse perspectives sought

Framework of continual learning

Experimentation

Interdependent – Collaborator Long-term view

Sees many shades of grey

Sees many patterns and connections

Accepts uncertainty as the norm

Change is a collaborative process

Comfortable with ambiguity

Success means realization of a shared vision

Healthy way to gather more views

Something to be encouraged

Increases learning and performance

Sees the world through others’ perspectives to

understand more

Share knowledge across boundaries

Works in partnership with other functions

Challenge for you..

Has your organisation moved this way?

Can it move in this way?

What are the constraints/challenges/supports?

Defining Leadership

‘If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn

more, do more and become more; you are a leader’ -

John Quincy Adams

Forbes Magazine defines Leadership as: The process of social influence which maximizes the efforts of others towards the achievement of a goal

‘Leaders are people who do

the right thing; managers are

people who do things right’ –

Prof. Warren G. Bennis

Summary

Future Leadership is going to require the acquisition of additional skills, practices and behaviours …

… things to add to your existing

leadership toolkit!

Our organisations need to become good at critical things :

Building institutional change capacity

Being able to shape/create sound, relevant and engaging responses to the changing context

… and also making sure the change agenda is put into place/practice successfully and consistently

We have to be a ‘change capable university’ in this complex and ever changing world

and

we have to build ‘change capable professional leaders’

So change doesn’t just happen – it must be lead

– and deftly

Issues with Leadership Development Face to face, one-off, ad-hoc

Directed and compliance driven

Episodic updates delivered in didactic manner

Separated from authentic work experiences ‘just-in-case’

Command and control system (production style)

’80% of corporate investment in learning flows into formal learning, yet 80% of the results come from informal learning’ (Cross 2010)

Wrong Focus – should be developing leaders themselves

Disconnected from the workplace

Programs don’t engage leader’s key stakeholders

Development events as opposed to learning journeys

Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership

Future Trends of Leadership Development

Increased Focus on Vertical Development:

Awaken, Unlearn and Discern, and advance

Transfer of Greater Developmental Ownership to the Individual: …people’s motivation to grow is highest when they feel a sense of autonomy

The decline of the heroic leader–the rise of collective leadership: need to collaboratively share information, create plans, influence each other, and make decisions.

A new era of innovation in leadership development:

embrace the challenge of finding a new approach to leadership development; allow ourselves to come to a whole new paradigm about how to do this; let go of the old mental models

Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership

Solutions? Development programs that:

Generative perspective Development practices that foster high self awareness Techniques that promote self disclosure One on one coaching that enhances strengths, focuses on behaviours that may derail collective leadership Building strategic agility, diversity is sought, fostering emergence, experimentation

Focus more on transformation of the leader (vertical)

Connectivity/continuous part of work, individualised, flexible

Just in time, just for me

Access to development activities that enhance performance

Does your leadership nudge good choices here?

Source: Future Trends of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie, Centre for Creative Leadership

Challenge for you..

• Has your organisation moved this way?

• Can it move in this way?

• What are the constraints/challenges/supports?

Key leadership frustrations

The pace and relentlessness of change

The complexity is overwhelming

Change: Easy in one organisation; hard in another!

How little other areas of our organisation understand what we do;

The slowness of staff to engage with change;

Change related frustration mostly HR and staffing challenges (inefficient processes and systems, red tape; budgeting; and unclear strategic direction)

Making sense of the world at any stage of development can lead to feeling ‘I’m in over my head’

43%

56%

1%

Mental Health in the Workplace costs

Australian Business $10.9 billion per year

Absenteeism

Presenteeism

Compensation

Relationship between strong Leadership and Workplace Mental Health

Advocating for university-wide buy-in to address in workplace

A strategic priority?

Engaging staff on this topic

Reducing stigma increasing awareness

Role of a Leader vs Health Care Professional

Shaping Futures: Unlocking Potential

What are your individual and group leadership development needs?

Has your organisation developed a post GFC leadership & learning culture?

What is your organisation doing about leadership development programs?

Approach to workplace mental health

QUESTIONS?

Leadership Research History

Source:’Leadership: Past, Present, and Future, Day, DV., and Antonakis, J., 2011