Notes #49 A Look at Leadership Development

In this "issue" of Leaders Notes, we step back a little at take a more philosophical look at Leadership Development itself.  And at how one can approach leadership development.  I think this is an important topic to discuss.  This series was created to serve as a sort of informal, on-going “supplemental training” in leadership development, highlighting various resources (written mainly, but also videos and courses) that one may use to further their own and others leadership development.

Too often I find that many people, due to not being involved with more then one organization, have never bothered to take a look at how leadership development can be handled.  There are many ways one can approach leadership development, and it’s not a good idea to think that only one approach is the “right” one or the only one.  As I've been involved in leadership development with several organizations for many years, I've had discussions with others, especially as some of the groups I am involved in have revamped, in some cases extensively, their LD programs.

Notes #48 Habitudes

Habitudes are an interesting series of books (and resources) aimed to help students learn leadership.  There are 6 books in the series, which have the full title of Habitudes: Images that form leadership habits and attitudes.  These books were developed by Tim Elmore thru his company Growing Leaders, which aims to help students (high school and college age) develop as leaders.  Each Habitudes book has 13 images (the communications one has 16 images).  With each image is a short article on the leadership concept tied to that image.  This is then followed by a short Reflect and Respond section, then a self assessment, then an Exercise.  The communication volume uses different terms, but it’s the same purpose.

Notes #47 Change

Change is something that all of us must deal with in our lives.  As leaders, not only must we deal with change, but sometimes we need to be ‘change agents’, bringing about change in our organizations.  Change can be something that is looked forward to.  Change can be something that is feared and avoided.  We need to understand how to handle change and how to manage it.

A great quote from Einstein that is appropriate here: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.”  What is needed is a change in what you do to get the results you want.  If your group is stuck in a rut, keep that in mind.