The Leadership Circle
I have been reading a fascinating book co-authored by Robert Anderson and William Adams called Mastering Leadership. It includes a model called The Leadership Circle.
https://leadershipcircle.com/a-universal-model-of-leadership/
Their teaching here proposes that leadership should be about realizing a balance between achieving results and developing people at the same time.
As shown here, on the horizontal axis this model identifies leadership as including two significant sides, that of Relationship and also of Task. The left half of the circle represents the nature of relationships between people. The right half represents task and getting the job done creatively and effectively.
The vertical axis represents a juxtapose between Creative and Reactive. In a 2015 article, the authors say that as we develop into adulthood we do so by leveraging core strengths; the strengths of relationship (heart), intellect (head) or results (will). Although all of us have all three of these strengths our tendency is for us to organize our character around the strength that is core to our essential nature.
The authors cited their research as suggesting that 70 to 80% of leaders are leading reactively. As shown in the model there are three primary forms of Reactivity- Complying, Protecting and Controlling. However as we move towards a more authentic version of ourselves we shift from Reactive to Creative.
Leaders today are looking to create cultures more conducive to high engagement so as to create more efficiency, self-management, customer-centered and agile workplaces. This means moving above that middle horizontal line shown in the model by consciously practicing self-awareness.
Times are changing and for organizations to be effective today it requires that leaders take a transformational approach and not just the transactional approach of the past.
