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Introducing leadership capability patterns
In April 2014, I was invited to speak at a conference about becoming an accidental leader, when you find yourself leading because it has to be done rather than by design or agreement. In preparing for the talk, I considered all the ways we can show leadership, and what that could look like. As the structure of the talk developed, it became clear that I was talking about patterns of leadership, and this evolved into a framework of capabilities and levels. There was a fair amount of interest in this at the conference, and subsequently online, so I committed to writing a series of articles that explored these capabilities.
Note: this is intended as a collaborative discussion, to continue the development of these patterns into an open resource available to everybody and contributed by anybody.
A framework for leadership capabilities
The framework consists of five pairings, around which patterns of leadership evolve that lead to success:
- People and skills
- Process and tools
- Culture and behaviour
- Purpose and service
- Politics and alignment
Each of these pairings deal with different areas in which there are opportunities to show leadership. The links will take you through a short series of articles on each pairing, describing some of my experiences in each area, what those guiding me suggested, and what I have discovered on the way.
Levels of leadership capability
The levels correspond to increasing capabilities in leadership rather than a sequence or path in which they might be learned or experienced.
- task-focus, people-centric, competence
- project-focus, process-centric, leading
- organisation-focus, strategic, proactive
- culture-focus, behavioural, managed
- connectivity-focus, power-centric, aligned
I would love people to engage with this and contribute to developing this further.
September 28, 2014
Matthew Hodgson (@magia3e)
The framework posits an interesting set of competencies that make up a 5 factor model to define what makes a good leader. Why a 5 factor model? Does the literature support this? Was there research conducted to propose this hypothesis?
Much of the science (psych) literature on leadership in the last 50+ years shows that the only real predictor of success as a leader is bound up in the ability to correctly assess a situation and apply the most appropriate leadership style (or perhaps pattern).
There’s a lot out commentary in management/leadership patterns from the USA (management and leadership styles) but most are culturally bound and rarely apply outside of the USA.
Some considerations:
1. Internal reliability: Do these factors measure what you think they measure?
2. External reliability: When these factors are used over time, do their measurement yield the same results (within an acceptable margin of error).