4 Pillars of Leadership Development

Experiential Leadership GROWTH

In researching the field of leadership, we found that all subject matter could be fit into four major categories. Each of these categories could be learned or refreshed at any time to support the learning and understanding of the other categories. Please refrain from thinking of these subfields in sequential order but consider which would best support our development right now. We know through our research that we are not born leaders, but leadership is learned skill. In terms of the pursuit of excellence in any subject matter, putting in the time (combined with purposeful reflection and thought) will help our proficiency and success. Let us help you reach your human leadership potential!

In this article:

Personality Assessments & Leader Identity

Leadership Styles & Approaches

Self-Awareness, Development, & Actualization

Mindfulness & Leadership

Personality Assessments & Leader Identity

Understanding Ourselves & those around us help create a leader identity

Leadership Identity Development

As leaders, understanding ourselves and those around us help create a leader identity. Leadership identity development combines awareness, exploration, role identification, leadership differentiation and generatively as phases of development.

Our programs use DISC or Big five, as a tool, to help us work through leader identity development. We will do a background on these tools, a written assessment, interpretation of the results, and then the go through experiential activities that support learning, understanding and application.

For groups that want to understand the personality of an organization, we use Appreciative Inquiry.  If teams, leaders, or organizations are already familiar with these tools or use internal or external trainers, we can focus on experiential DISC, experiential Big Five, or experiential appreciative inquiry.

Our second programming area focuses on a more in-depth understanding and application of leader identity through programs in leadership language and vocabular training, traditional team building choices or leadership mentoring activities to supplement leader identity development.

Program Area 1: Groups have a choice of three activities in terms of personality assessment: Experiential DISC, Big Five, or Appreciative Inquiry (of organization).

Program Area 2: Groups have a choice of three activities in terms of leader Identity facilitation: Leadership Language/ Vocabulary training, Traditional Team

Building activities with leadership reflection, and leadership mentoring programs.

What are the benefits (or outcomes) of investing in personality assessments and leader identity education and training? Participants and leaders will develop a deeper and broader concept of oneself and their colleagues.

Leadership Styles & Approaches

Identify different leadership styles & develop great leaders

Effective Leadership & Leadership Behavior

The development of effective leaders and leadership behavior is a prominent concern in organizations of all types. In order to develop a great leader, leaders need to be able to identify different leadership styles such as autocratic, delegative and various other styles. After identifying these styles, the art and science of leadership centers around when, why, and how to use these different strategies. Programs in this subgroup focus on learning and identifying a variety of leadership styles and approaches on when and how to use these styles.

Program Area 1: Groups have a choice of two activities in terms of leadership styles: Leader/Style pairing challenge or Leader/follower concept matching training.

Program Area 2: Groups have a choice of two activities in terms of leadership approaches to using different styles: Collaborative Vignettes or Acting out/coaching on different leadership-driven scenarios.

What are the benefits (or outcomes) of investing in leadership style and leaders approaches education and training? Participants and leaders will develop a deeper and broader conception of leadership. read more

Self-Awareness, Development, & Actualization Page

Awareness & self-knowledge help shape our motivation, pursuits & leaderships expertise

Leadership Self-Awareness

We, as humans, move and evolve through stages from subjective experiences to an objective reality of which one can be aware. Awareness and self-knowledge help shape our motivation, pursuits, and leadership expertise.

Experiences through purposeful practice and reflection aid our progress through expertise models of leadership development from novice to intermediate to expert. Skills such as effective listening, awareness training, the art of telling our own story, and conflict management style training are the groundwork for great personal gains in leadership self-actualization and transformation. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi Quote: “If you want to change the world, start with yourself”.

Program Area 1: Groups have a choice of two activities in terms of leadership self-awareness and self-development: Construct your life story or personal values articulation training.

Program Area 2: Groups have a choice of two activities in terms of leadership self-awareness and self-development: Coached Development Plan or Leadership Book Immersion.

There is nothing more powerful than a day outdoors with purposeful activity and active reflection.  Join us to open up a deeper level of personal and leadership self-awareness and actualization.

What are the benefits (or outcomes) of investing in leadership style and leaders approaches education and training? Participants and leaders will advance through personal growth and developmental trajectories.

Mindfulness & Leadership

Mindful awareness & present-centered consciousness

Leadership Growth & Consciousness

There is an extremely wide range of ways to discuss mindfulness, mindful awareness, and present-centered consciousness. It is a concept and practice that has been around for hundreds of years and has recently become a large and important trend in the western world of science and business. We aim to help articulate some of the ways we can discuss mindfulness as well as explore how this concept and practice can benefit people in a leadership position.

Mindfulness can be considered a concept or construct that refers to a specific mental state, skill, or trait. It generally refers to a non-judgmental awareness of the present moment through any of our senses. The word mindfulness can also be used to refer to a specific practice in which one uses concerted effort to place their attention on the present moment arising in awareness.

These practices, whether formal or informal, have the purpose of inducing a state of mindful awareness, improving mindfulness skills, or increasing trait-level mindfulness. Both the construct and the practice of mindfulness can relate to the intrapersonal phenomena in which the focus is within the individual’s behavior, mind, reactions, etc. They can also refer to interpersonal processes in which there is an interaction with people beyond the individual typically in reference to things like compassion or loving-kindness.

One of the main benefits a leader can expect from a mindfulness practice or training program is an improved sense of presence. Presence is often described as being “fully in the here and now”. This is distinct from states in which attention seems to be away from the present moment, such as distraction, absent-mindedness, daydreaming, worrying about the future, or ruminating about the past. A deeper sense of presence can be invaluable in many different ways including a reduction in multi-tasking, which tends to reduce efficiency and effectiveness and avoiding unhealthy and ineffective aspects of paying attention to the past or the future. More presence can even help to counteract tendencies towards ruminating on past failures.

An incredibly important feature of every mindfulness practice is intention. Keeping in mind, or remembering, the intention to keep one’s attention focused on a particular stimulus such as the breath, as well as remembering to return one’s attention to the breath when it has wandered away is one of the defining features of a successful practice. This skill of intention can easily translate into any leadership context in which leaders who might get easily overwhelmed by the myriad demands on their attention might find it valuable to learn how to hold onto their intentions throughout the day, throughout the year, and throughout any difficulties that will inevitably arise to serve as a distraction from one’s original pursuits.

Maintaining attention on any one thing for an extended period of time can be very difficult. In many meditation and mindfulness settings, people need time to build the necessary skills that will guide their continued practice and development. In these cases, self-compassion can be crucial in helping people to bring back, over and over again, a wandering mind without getting frustrated, demotivated, angry, and caught up in conceptual self-criticism. This practice of self-compassion can also go a long way in a leadership context. If leaders can take this compassionate attitude towards failures and bring it to their professional projects they may be more likely to persist in the face of repeated failures, without criticizing themselves too harshly or giving up prematurely because of frustration. In addition to this, as leaders experience the value of being compassionate towards themselves they may become more compassionate towards their colleagues and subordinates. feelings such as compassion and loving-kindness are the purpose, or end goal of many mindfulness practices, it is not merely a means to attain personal goals.

Program Area 1: Group has a choice of three activities in terms of mindfulness and leadership: Meditation & labeling practices, Mindfulness Hikes, Mindfulness Tracker Training Activities.

Program Area 1: Group has a choice of four activities in terms of mindfulness and leadership: Centeredness: Settle, Sense, Shift; Way of the Warrior; Sand Mandala.

What are the benefits (or outcomes) of investing in leadership style and leaders approaches education and training? Participants and leaders will develop a deeper sense of presence, peace, and balance between doing and being.

The 4 Pillars of Leadership Development