Part II
I began Part I last week with the question: What are the core competency skills required for effective self-actualizing leaders? and commented that I’ve been looking for the answer to that question since I began my studies in Self-Actualization Psychology in 2003. Part I identified two core competencies for leaders and then 7 more as I related the seven core skills of Coaching Mastery to self-actualizing leadership.
But there’s more. In Coaching Mastery we also train eight-skills as a change-agent working with psychologically healthy people. And in these eight-skills plus two-more that I’ll add here, we have 5 Leadership Axes for when a leader is leading transformation for a group, organization, or nation. And these also are core competencies for effective self-actualizing leaders. If that interests you, then read on.
A leader first and foremost lives in the future. He or she then returns to facilitate the envisioning of that more compelling human future in the now. But to get there, change is required. People need to change their behaviors, communications, beliefs, values, understandings, frames, meanings, identities, and so on. And that requires that leaders be change-agents and know how to facilitate change and transformation processes. Do you?
What we introduced into Meta-Coaching several years ago was the Axes of Change Model. The majority of the distinctions of this model is now in the first book in the Meta-Coaching series, Changing Change (2004 by myself and Michelle Duval). Unlike therapy models of change (which assume people will inevitably resist change, relapse, lack the ego-strength to face change, are not wired for continual change with their self-actualizing drive, and “are” problems, rather than their frames are the problems), the Meta-Coaching model of change operates from very different premises.
For psychologically healthy people we used the premises of Self-Actualization Psychology to note four primary mechanisms that actually bring about change that we can believe in and fully experience. These are: motivation, decision, creation, and integration. To complement this for leaders leading organizations, I have added solutions. And using 5 meta-programs, this gives us 10 leadership skills or roles for facilitating self-actualizing change.
Self-Actualizing Transformation:
There are two leadership competencies for leading the inspiration that energizes the motivation of followers to envision a more compelling future.
This is based on the motivation meta-program of away-from dis-values and toward desired values. Leaders first facilitate seeing what is clearly as well as awakening a new vision of what’s possible and then use the creative tension between them (Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline) for energy to forge a pathway to an exciting future.
1) Leader as Challenger
2) Leader as Visionary
Awakener There are two leadership competencies for leading the creation of meaning that informs and invigorates followers with a robust sense of meaningfulness.
This is based on the internal and external reference meta-program that facilitates the creation of meaning in two dimensions, in mind and semantics as the inner game and in body and neurology as the outer game. Leaders identify and transform the frames that govern the game and that open up new possibilities for an entirely new way to function and to be.
3) Leader as Framer
4) Leader as Activist
There are two leadership competencies for leading the engagement for a full commitment to the vision and for signing-on mind and heart of the followers.
This is based on the response style meta-program from reflective to active. Leaders first engage in town-meeting dialogues that begin the self-actualizing conversation and conclude by enrolling people for a decision and commitment. This takes the group or community to a collaborative engagement where we can achieve so much more together than alone or apart.
5) Leader as Collaborator
6) Leader as Enroller
There are two leadership competencies for leading a clear understanding of the problems and the solutions that together the organization will create and innovate.
This is based on the staging meta-program of pessimism and optimism which enables a leader to first clearly define the actual problem (and not a symptom, peripheral issue, semantic riddle, or self-reflexive paradox) and then focus in a visionary way on the solutions that resolve the problem that is blocking the future. Leaders facilitate conversations that generate well-formed outcomes, problems, solutions, and innovations.
7) Leader as Problem Definer
8) Leader as Problem Solver
There are two leadership competencies for leading the organization’s kaizen or continual learning and improvement in quality and service.
This is based on the comparison meta-program of matching and mismatching where we perceive and sort for either sameness or difference. Leaders cheerlead by honoring, supporting, and celebrating every small success along the way so that they can then challenge and refine what isn’t working as well as it could possibly work. This generates the experience of kaizen in an organization.
9) Leader as Cheerleader
10) Leader as Refiner
So there you have it.
Ten additional core competencies for effective self-actualizing leaders.
Where can you find more about this? Well, while it is not published in a book (yet), it is written in the training manual of the Unleashing Leadership workshop and it is part of the conversation we have with that leadership development program.
Dr. Michael Hall
Unleashing Leadership Workshop
The latest book in the Self-Actualization Series and in the Meta-Coach series is Unleashing Leadership: Self-Actualizing Leaders and Companies (2009).
As a leadership development workshop, discover how to identify your leadership potentials and unleash them — whether for self-leadership or leadership in an opportunity that awaits you.
Dec. 11-13, Imola, Italy
Sponsored by Bless You!
Nicola Riva and Lucia Giovannini
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