OUR WHOLE SYSTEMS APPROACH

The Leadership System consists of five major components, each reinforcing and adding to the others

Discovery & diagnosis, organizational communication, the Leadership Circle Profile™ administration, client relationship management, etc. Beginning with the most comprehensive example to a single Leader to Leader™ workshop, we meet clients where they are at and help them to become more effective leaders.
A half- to full-day workshop that frames a client’s collective view of leadership and functions as the kick-off for our Leadership System™. It embeds our Core Leadership Framework™ to guide all future development work, and delivers Leadership Circle Profile feedback in a peer-group context. It also begins the feedback assimilation process (individual time, pairs discussion, group process) and organizes participants for next steps (debriefs, Leader to Leader sessions with cohorts, Pulse Surveys™).
A cohort-based series of half day to full day leadership effectiveness sessions that span one to two years of work (between six to 16 session). Built upon The Leadership Circle® framework, the 16 available sessions encompass a full curriculum of hard-hitting leadership topics, and provide regular opportunities for peer coaching and accountability. Each session is facilitated by an experienced leadership coach, certified in the Leadership System™. Leader to Leader™ can be delivered face to face or virtually.
These near-real time surveys reinforce a leader’s commitment to take action on their Leadership Development Plan™ (One Big Thing™) by inviting an accountability team (Accountability Circle™) of colleagues to give that leader direct feedback on how their behavior-change experiments are working. Measurement of performance against goals is vital to the functioning of any system.
Every engagement is enhanced by one-on-one coaching. The payback for leaders is almost always worth the investment. The combination of peer cohort coaching in Leader to Leader™ with one-on-one leadership coaching is like jet fuel.

THE LEADERSHIP SYSTEM FOUNDATION

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OUR WHOLE SYSTEMS APPROACH

In their book, The Whole Systems Approach, Bill and Cindy Adams detail six interlocking systems that must be tended to during major organizational change. Ensuring that these six systems are aligned and functioning well is the responsibility of the organization’s leadership, which is itself a system to be continually improved.

The Leadership System™ is, at its essence, a leadership development system, designed to increase our clients’ individual and collective leadership effectiveness. And, while doing so, help them to increase the effectiveness of the other five systems.

BUILT ON ADULT LEARNING THEORY

Underlying the design of the Leadership System™ is solid adult learning theory. David Kolb, in his landmark work, Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development, positioned that four linked styles of learning were necessary for adults to truly learn and change. See below:

CONCRETE EXPERIENCE

Adults utilize experiences as anchors for learning. We like to learn from the stuff of work and life. Therefore, our Leadership System™ connects directly with the real challenges and objectives of our client leaders at every turn, and in every conversation.

REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION

We learn as we reflect on our experiences to make meaning from them. As an experience is filtered through our consciousness, or structure of mind, a narrative is created that gives the experience unique meaning for us. In the best learning experiences, we reflect on the experience from a variety of angles, giving us a broader perspective in which to hold it. The Leader to Leader™ cohorts help provide that valuable perspective for each of their members as they seek to make meaning out of their leadership experiences.

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ABSTRACT CONCEPTUALIZATION

As an experience is reflected on from a variety of angles, a generalizable theory, principle, or concept often emerges. A “rule of thumb” or a conclusion about what to do in certain types of leadership situations begins to gel for a leader.

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

In this step of the learning process, the leader takes the new lesson learned and puts it into practice in a series of behavioral experiments. For example, if the lesson concerns the skill of having authentic conversations, particularly the structure for beginning an authentic conversation, the leader will commit to trying it out in several key circumstances, which will create…more concrete experiences! And the cycle begins anew.

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