(This post is written for alumni of LEAD365, although all are welcome to read it.)
It’s been a half-year since the last session of the PILOT program. As instructors and coaches we are living with the content consistently, and yet we still find ourselves discovering—or rediscovering—insights that make the learning more potent. Knowing that each of you aren’t revisiting the PILOT concepts on a regular basis—and believing that old expression, “use it or lose it”—we hope the following review of session one will be helpful as you continue to grow as a leader.
On March 12, 2014, you were first exposed to several topics we covered in the initial session. Here’s three of those topics:
- What is leadership and how does it compare to management… and is there a personal form and an organizational form of leadership?
- How do adults really learn and grow? Is it through gaining more knowledge? Is it through repetition and exams? Is it through something else?
- What is the DoKnowBe Tree framework and how can it help me understand leadership?
We also talked about the three major categories of leadership that we would cover throughout the year: 1) What it means to be a person worth following; 2) How to build a great team; and 3) How to create clarity around Mission, Vision and Values
Let’s do some review…
What is leadership? And management? And personal versus organizational leadership?
Leadership differs from management AND both are really important. Leadership is more about people, and management is more about things (reports, systems, goals and plans).
Leadership is more about the future and management is more about today, this week, this month, and this year.
Leadership is more about doing the right things, and management is more about doing things right.
Both are vitally important. There is a time in your career when you need to be more of a manager. Your management skills often develop naturally as you grow in your career. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t be promoted and would not have been considered for a program like PILOT/LEAD 365.
Leadership skills aren’t always as automatic in their development. It’s not at all uncommon for a high-level executive to be an excellent manager and a very poor leader. Leadership abilities have been treated like a welcome option in many companies, while management abilities are required. We aim to change that in West Michigan, and with your help our journey has begun.
How do adults really learn and grow?
One of the things we talked about and used through your PILOT /LEAD 365 experience is the reality that failure is often a great teacher. Remember being asked to draw the DoKnowBe Tree in your first coaching session? For those of you I was coaching this proved to be a very difficult task. I believe in Session Two you had a much better grasp of the model, partly because we allowed you to fail at recreating it in front of us.
Too many leaders work to avoid failure. Of course avoiding failure by working very hard to ensure you succeed is a wonderful attribute. But to avoid failure by not allowing yourself to be tested will rob you of great opportunities for growth, not to mention great team-building opportunities when your team sees you authentically struggle and grow. I may have mentioned to you that I believe one of my great failures is that I don’t have any great failures. Great leaders have failures, just ask them sometime. In the past I haven’t risked enough which was a way to ensure that I wouldn’t fail. This is a failure in itself.
The possibility of failure is a very vulnerable place to be. We didn’t talk with you much about the importance of vulnerability but we have added this to subsequent cohorts. You might want to check out these two TED Talks delivered by Brene Brown on why vulnerability is key for great leaders:
Two other effective learning tools we used are repetition and teaching. By having each of you review one of the sessions each month, each of you got some repetition of the material, taught in a different way by a different voice AND you got a chance to teach some of the material, which is a great way to learn it more fully.
Each of these learning methods—being open to risk and possible failure, using repetition, and teaching others—can continue to be used as you seek to grow your leadership abilities. The core of our adult learning model had to do with two basic rhythms that you experienced throughout PILOT/LEAD 365. The first was a rhythm used in each session. In this method we shared information with you, then gave you time alone to process some of it, then gave you time in a small group to process more of it, and then finally we had you share some of your insights in our full cohort so you could learn from each other. This four-step rhythm is a good way to get information into your head. You might be able to use this method in some of your other learning efforts.
However, because getting information in your head alone doesn’t make you a better leader—only applying it does—we designed the second rhythm to be engaged between sessions. We asked you to to apply your learning where you could and then reflect on that with your coach. This is a very big step in real development and the feedback we continue to get is that the coaching component of PILOT/LEAD 365 is the most important of all the components. After processing this with your coach, we had you process it further in your triads at the start of each session.
I share this with you because your growth journey continues. Even though we aren’t actively guiding you in these growth methods, we suggest that you to continue to be intentional about them.
- Keep challenging yourself to do things where you may fail.
- Keep teaching others—especially those on your teams—what you are learning so they can also grow with you.
- Keep applying and practicing the knowledge you have gained.
- Keep processing in solitude what you’re learning—maybe by journaling—and with others through conversations. Maybe you could meet with fellow PILOT/LEAD 365 alumni over lunch and share what you’re working on.
That’s enough for now. Next week I will review the DoKnowBe Tree. Maybe you already know it very well. Maybe you’ll be reminded of things you forgot. Maybe you will learn it at a new level by experiencing it in a new way. Regardless, I hope it stirs more growth in you.
I hope you have a great week with some moments of real growth!
Rodg
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