At KONU, we believe that, to be effective, we must rethink and re-do “leadership development” so that it prepares us to lean into and lead progress through the challenges of today. To get there, leadership development must shift to be more…
2. Experiential
3. Risky
This blog is the second of a 3-part series about each of these fundamental shifts.
Part II: Leadership Development is Experiential
Remember when you learned how to drive a car? You likely sat down for theory lessons, learning about traffic signs, speed limits, and right of way rules. But then, at some point, you also sat in the driver’s seat of a car – and drove. Where you nervous? Did your hands sweat? (Mine did!). No doubt, learning how to drive a car happens when we are actually driving. And the learning likely involved driving too close to that other car in the lane, even missing a red light, or confusing the clutch and the gas pedal – and then debriefing with an instructor what went well and what did not.
In the same way, leadership development doesn’t happen simply through theoretical training – by reading about leadership theories or studying cases of others’ leadership. While theory can be useful for our foundational understanding of leadership, learning how to exercise leadership is best done by actually exercising leadership (sweat and all) – and then debriefing to learn what went well and what did not. Thus, effective leadership development must be experiential in that it must
draw on participants’ actual experiences of exercising leadership AND
encourage participants to practice and experience, rather than simply “talk about”, leadership.
So, how do we create experiential spaces in which participants can “practice, exercise, and learn leadership” instead of “learning about leadership?”
The way that KONU brings “learning leadership” into leadership development workshops is through methods that allow participants to learn from real experiences. These are twofold: 1) experiences happening in the here-and-now of the workshop itself and 2) current experiences participants are grappling with in their day-to-day work.
(1) Using the Here-and-Now of the Workshop Group
Leadership development workshops and programs are themselves in many ways replicas of the real world – and can be used as “laboratories” to learn about group dynamics and practice leadership. To do so, we generate here-and-now exercises that use the dynamics of the workshop group to “experience” core leadership concepts and provide a space for participants to exercise leadership. One such exercise is the authority vacuum described below:
Exercise: Authority Vacuum in the Here and Now
Monday Morning, 9am. A group of 20 managers from a medium-sized company in the service industry are sitting in a circle. It’s the first day of their one-year leadership program. After a round of introductions, the facilitators present the workshop objectives: The program is designed to help managers initiate and accompany change processes effectively, across organizational hierarchies and divisions. A facilitator presents the group with the first task. She writes on the flipchart: "Learn and experience the difference between leadership and authority in the here and now."
The facilitator sits down and remains silent. Confused looks in the group, whispering. After a few moments, a participant asks what the facilitator means. The facilitator remains silent, her facial expressions blank. Another participant says: "I don't think they're giving us an answer." Cue nervous laughter.
A participant suggests: "Maybe we should talk about situations in which we have experienced authority or leadership." Silence. A participant gets up to go to the restroom; another participant goes to get a coffee. Then one participant speaks up and says: "I think we need a bit more structure. Let’s split into small groups and discuss." Relief is palpable. Small groups form. After ten minutes, the facilitator intervenes: "Isn't it interesting that the group seems to feel more comfortable in small groups? I wonder whether this is actually helping the group learn about authority dynamics in the here-and-now, or whether the group is avoiding the task." One participant defends the small group work, while another wishes to return to the large group. A discussion ensues. After ten more minutes, the facilitator ends the exercise.
Each group reacts differently to this exercise. And yet there are universal, recurring patterns that the facilitator now debriefs with the group.
Emotions: In the first debrief step, participants are invited to name the feelings they had during the exercise: Confusion, nervousness, even anger.
By asking participants to name emotions, we build their awareness of the emotions that surface when they are leading change – and build their capacity to manage those emotions productively, including regulating the “heat” of change to levels that are tolerable to the group.
Actions: In the second debriefing step, participants reflect on their actions during the exercise. What did they do and what did they avoid? They were silent, they tried to create order, to facilitate, to voice their opinion, they told jokes, they tried to provoke the unspeaking facilitator.
By asking participants to reflect on actions, we help participants recognize the behaviors they default to in moments of challenge. And we begin expanding their leadership repertoire, by identifying the actions that others took as well as as-of-yet inconceivable actions they or others might have taken.
Expectations of authority: In the final step, we ask participants to name their expectations of us, the facilitators (the “authorities”): "clarify the task", "give us some helpful feedback”, “tell us what’s going on”, etc.
In this debrief, participants inductively come up with the services authorities are expected to provide – protection, direction, and order. It is precisely the “absence” of authority during the exercise that beautifully illuminates the purpose of authority in groups. We encourage participants to examine their own relationship with authority ("I view authority skeptically”, "I seek approval from authority.") and to begin assuming a more neutral view of authority in order to develop their capacity to use their authority wisely and purposefully when exercising leadership.
For many participants, this short exercise is an unsettling but profoundly developmental experience. Participants feel insecure because it is not clear what is expected of them, leaving them feeling disoriented (development stage 3). Gradually, they learn to name the cause of their insecurity and to deal with it more confidently (development stage 4). The exercise also trains the participants' ability to observe their own behavior and that of the group (i.e. the social system) - in other words, they become more mindful and think more systemically.
For example, a participant shared how difficult he finds it to hold steady in the face of the silence – and how his default move is to speak up just to break that silence. For him, leadership development may mean building his stomach for silence and uncertainty and waiting before they intervene.
Another participant reflects on how the here-and-now exercises helped her develop her skill to lead in settings of conflict: "I was told by the workshop group that my default behavior is to mediate and that that wasn’t helpful. I was initially shocked – I saw myself as a peacebuilder who is doing the group a great service. But by reflecting further I realized that I was often also quelling necessary conflict. I realized I needed to build up my own stomach for conflict and develop the skill of 'reading' group dynamics: When should I be letting a conflict unfold – and when not?".
Through such exercises, we create experiences that allow participants to learn about core leadership concepts (e.g. authority) and to exercise leadership (by trying to mobilize the group towards purposeful action) in the here-and-now of the workshop group itself – and to develop in their own leadership, as they reflect on their own and others’ behaviors during the exercise.
Here’s a second way that we bring real experiences into leadership development:
(2) The Case for Our Own Cases
Rather than relying on “ready-made” business school type cases in our programs, we invite participants to share a current, personal case of a leadership challenge or failure for consultation from their peers. Such cases have a much stronger practical relevance to participants: If we can capture lessons from our own case material and see new options, those lessons will stick so much more than if we were to present a curated case. Moreover, working participants’ own cases makes the learning experience more than just cognitive: We are emotionally attached to our own cases, particularly when they involve challenge or failure. Bringing in real cases allows us to bring “below the neck” learning into leadership development programs – engaging participants more fully and building their muscle to learn from and exercise leadership in complex situations. Finally, when we use real cases, learning becomes collaborative. When the case is not prepared, there’s no easy, expert answers from facilitators. Instead, all participants share the responsibility for discovery and learning – and all walk away having flexed their leadership muscles, instead of having “merely” downloaded insights from an “all-knowing leadership expert.”
How It Works: Peer Case Consultations on Leadership Challenges and Failures
Participants are asked to bring to the leadership development program a case of a leadership challenge or failure. Participants take turns acting as case presenters and consultants. The process is outlined in the box below:
Case Consultation in Practice
It’s 3pm, almost at the end of a day-long leadership development training. The small group gets together to hear the case of the Marketing manager – she’s working on standardizing communications but finds that stakeholders keep pushing back, wanting to use their unique voice and own branding instead. She asks the group’s help to figure out how to bring people along with this new change.
The group asks questions: “What have you tried so far? Who else is involved?” Then, the timer chirps, and the presenter goes off video.
The time is quick, and the group begins their discussion with frustration: “I wish I’d had time to ask another question!” They reluctantly move to offering interpretations of the challenge. “Maybe it’s about not having clear direction, and the stakeholders need more top-down rules!” chimes in one participant. Another challenges, “Maybe it’s too many rules, and people are losing their sense of identity in this new top-down push!” A third voice adds, “We haven’t heard anything about which stakeholders are going along with the new rules. Maybe we’ve assumed that there is resistance from the whole group, and we’re missing some stakeholders that could help bring the change into action.”
When the group moves to action options, the consultants brainstorm ideas: “The marketing manager could reach out to her boss for help.” “She could hold an all-team meeting to provide time and space for the resistance and frustration.”
When the presenter comes back to share her reflections, she’s surprised: “It seems so obvious now to hear that I should ask people why they don’t want to follow the new guidelines, but I’ve been so focused on implementing this policy that I never slowed down to do that!”
The group then debriefs its experience. One group member shares: “I wish we’d been more thoughtful about the questions we asked initially, so we could have learned more early on and consulted better.” The group nods thoughtfully, letting the learnings sink in.
Surfacing Learnings
Case consultations on “real” cases provide both the case presenters and the case “consultants” manifold opportunities to practice leadership capacities in the here-and-now. These include:
Grappling with the “messiness” of real-life cases in which it’s rarely clear what to focus on and what information may be missing, and in which we are often only presented one view of the case (that of the case presenter)
Asking open-ended questions from a place of curiosity in order to learn more - rather than jumping to conclusions or “having the answers”
Thinking systemically by identifying the stakeholders involved in a challenge and offering hypotheses on what their perspectives on the challenge may be
Offering multiple interpretations (and listening to others’ interpretations) of the challenge at hand
Offering (and receiving) ideas for next steps and action options, even in the absence of complete information
Staying open to new ideas and resisting the (reactive) urge to defend yourself, your interpretation of the case, and your actions to date
Taking time to reflect on and learn from a group’s experience
Wrapping Up
Leadership is a practice – and practice requires practicing. By making leadership development experiential, we allow participants to practice leadership in the here-and-now of leadership development programs. That way, participants come out of programs not having learned about leadership but having built the muscles to put leadership into action.
The key idea behind this type of experiential learning is that we are learning together, not just showing off what we already know – it is an experiential PLAYground and not a PROVEground.
If leadership development is particularly impactful when it focuses on development and on experience, then why do many such programs shy away from such approaches – staying on the PROVE- rather than the PLAYground? I’ll explore this further in my final blog post in this series: Leadership Development is Risky (cue anticipation and sweaty palms).