Leaders past, present, and future are
individuals who have faced opportunities and obstacles; and triumphed in the
face of these circumstances. Some of these leaders succeeded because they were
able to jump over the hurdles in their path by deploying a set of skills that
have been tried and true. Great Leaders, however, became triumphant by building
new skills and evolving themselves to meet the challenges and opportunities in
their midst. This reflects the most fundamental aspects of leadership development – that great leaders
observe and adapt. Great leadership requires more than a fixed set of
skills, abilities, and traits. Today, underlying all of the requirements of being
and staying a great leader is agility – flexible, being able to move and
change. Think bamboo in hurricane vs. oak tree.
What is a Modern
Leader? The modern leader is a Leader who never stops learning. She knows that
her skills that she has depended on in the past are not necessarily going to be
the ones that take her into the future. The Modern Leader, rises up to the challenge
of a dynamic and ever-changing landscape which requires looking ahead, and
consistently reflecting on how and what they need to do to stay on top of their
game to avoid becoming a dinosaur.
In today’s
world, becoming and staying a Modern Leader takes effort. Not continually
growing and stretching yourself leads to a lack of innovation,
stagnation, and obsolescence. There are significant risks to you as a leader if
you assume what you currently do well today will still work tomorrow. At
different stages you need various skills; skills that are strengths at one
point are no longer crucial at another. Research by Eichinger and
Lombardo concluded that aspiring leaders who were modest, open to growth,
change, and eager for continual development were more likely to be promoted
than those who had overly high esteem of their current abilities.
The source for
ongoing leadership development does not come from focusing on what you already
naturally do well. Becoming a Modern Leader comes from tapping into and
realizing your Latent or Middle skills. Middle skills are the majority
of skills that you possess outside your default strengths that with focus and
practice, become new pillars of your success. Optimizing the right Middle
skills at the right time leads to ongoing leadership growth. The very
foundation of leadership development and coaching is centered on identifying and
developing Middle skills on a continual basis.
Companies around
the world spend tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of
dollars to develop individual leaders. The most effective method for developing
leadership skills is through executive coaching. The most effective executive
coaching begins with an understanding of the person’s current state –
traditionally through a 360-degree assessment that incorporates feedback from
the important people in a leader’s professional life including boss, peers,
direct reports, and customers.
From the
assessment, ranking of specific skills, competencies, or behaviors are listed.
The top scoring items (i.e., the top 15-20%) are considered a person’s
strengths, or what we call one’s Default Skills. These are skills that we tend
to be good at naturally and default to using because it comes easy. The lower
scoring items (i.e., the bottom 15-20%) are what we call Deficient Skills.
These skills are often mistakenly identified as key development opportunities.
At first pass, it makes sense that the lowest scoring items are assumed to be
glaring opportunities for change. In between go-to Default Skills and Deficient
Skills lay middle scoring items (60%-70%). It is these middle skills that
present the greatest opportunity for continual leadership develop. They are
often overlooked because our tendency to go to the extremes, but upon closer
examination you start to see that to quickly transform latent skills into new strengths
does not require as big an investment compared to the Deficient Skills. This
helps leaders quickly add more skills into the strengths bucket. Though they
may not be natural talents or gifts, they can quickly become learned skills
that serve to make the leader even more successful. For more information
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