[review] Handbook of Leadership Development

I wanted to share some of my 'processing' of the Handbook of Leadership Development. It's the 'bible' for leadership development, according to the Centre for Creative Leadership. The book is split in three parts: an introduction covering the basics, chapters on leader development (=the individual) and chapters on leadership (=collective capability) development.

I'm reading this book (and many others on leadership development) for a reason. In about 4 weeks time, I'll join CCL. Giving that little fact I'm not going to write a review on it, but leave you with two reviews I found on the Internet. The first one is from the social reading site goodreads.com:

This book reads like promotional material for the Center for Creative Leadership. I do not recommend it for classroom use.

The other one from Amazon (I've shortened it):

 ...This book is packed with ideas and CCL has had no reservation on keeping this knowledge to them only. You will get that Aha almost every page you read. Chapters 1 on Leader Development Systems, 2 on Learning from Experience alone are worth buying the book. There is plenty of solid ideas for leader development in the remaining chapters such as Feedback Intensive Programs, Leadership Coaching, Leader Development and Social Identity. ... 

Both reviews are correct. The handbook is not a listing of leadership schools of thought, it is CCL's personal approach on the matter based on their own research for most part. I did find a lot of ideas corresponding with my own as written in Homo Competens. (Shouldn't be a surprise, right?) : intensive feedback, reflecting on experience, challenges that develop you outside your comfort zone, self-driven, etc.

From individual to collective to what?

In the introduction CCL describes its very 'western' path of starting with research on individual leader development in the 70ies, slowly opening that up to the concept of 'collective' leadership in an organisation. So I wondered what's next in this evolution?

1. Individual leader
2. Organisational leadership capability
3. .... next?

The logical answer to that is : step up again and open up the notion of leadership to a collection of organisations, eg leading an industry.
But I'd even break that concept further open and go for : leadership in networks of connected peers. Yeah, I said it. I'm a believer in networks of connected peers as the agile network age has shifted importance away from hierarchy to collaborating workers. How do those networks set directions and commit to them? I believe especially in entrepreneurial circles we can get a good view on that, and there's Social Network Analysis as a tool to shed light on this matter.


There is no magic formula, so here is one

I've blogged before on the many views on leader(ship). Libraries are filled with books on leadership, and their authors travel the keynote speaker scene. On top of that many companies have their own leadership competency frameworks. That should be sufficient proof there is no holy grail here, there is no magic formula, there is no one-size-fits-all recipe.

Yet, I tried to reformulate the introduction chapter as a set of mathematical equations. Why? Not because I aim to find a magic formula, but because mathematics is an excellent language to express the relationships between elements and results.

My mathematical translation of the introduction chapter would go as follows:

Axioma 1: "We believe all people can learn and grow in ways that make them more effective in the various leadership roles and processes they take on."

Axioma 2: "There is no one best way to develop leaders" 

LeaderDevelopment =  SUM(assessment + challenge + support)  * LearningAbility * LeadershipContext 

LeadershipDevelopment > SUM (LeaderDevelopment) 

 LeadershipDevelopment = Direction + Alignment + Commitment

• Axioma 1 says two things: you can develop it (vs the notion it is a born ability and you either have it or you don't), and all people might benefit from it, not just the 'boss'.
• Axioma 2 states the lack of a one-size-fits-all answer, underlying the context sensitive nature.
• LeaderDevelopment is about personal development. It comes by a multitude of developmental experiences. Not all experiences are equally developmental, they need elements of assessment, challenge and support for optimal impact. That impact is also a factor of your own learning ability and the surrounding context.
• Leadership is the collective, organisational ability and greater than the sum of its parts. The result of leadership is direction and alignment and commitment in the organisation.

BTW, what is your favorite experience, quote, speaker or book on leadership?