Where is leadership development headed?

It's a question I periodically ask myself and I've found that there are two paths to explore in answer this question: the designed and the unexpected in leadership development.

The Designed
The designed is anything from university programs, like Stanford's highly prestigious executive education programs, to corporate run leadership development like Franklin Covey, Center for Creative Leadership, Ken Blanchard, and National Training Laboratories. The designed would also include any in-house leadership development programs created by the organization like Mars University, Sony Global, and Caterpillar's leadership development programs. Many organizations take a blended approach in that leadership development is a mix of both internally developed content combined with external programs from a university and/or corporate run leadership group. These programs number into the thousands.

The Unexpected 
The unexpected consists of anything that individuals are finding on their own to develop their leadership. This can include books, articles, and other published material (77 Great Books on Leadership) and also includes leadership development that is off the beaten path like: shamanic work in Peru or David Whyte'sConversational Leadership. This kind of leadership development is often guided by individual coaches, therapists, and/or spiritual guides. It's open-ended, customized to the individual, and non-specific in outcomes and therefore hard to measure in terms of effectiveness.

A side note: Tony Robbins is interesting in that his organization walks a fine line between the designed and the unexpected.

What's Been Done Before

In my experience, a great leadership development program is a mix of both internally and externally developed content. That's where most programs are today, but very few programs incorporate the unexpected side of leadership development solely because it's so unpredictable in terms of outcomes and organizations are all about quantifiable results.

Another structure that's been around a decade or more is to have an emerging leader work on both a personal project and team or group project, with the latter focused on addressing a specific need within the business. This approach is very successful and productive and provides an immediate ROI on the program itself. All leadership development programs should have a solid ROI.

We've seen high-ropes coursework, MBA case studies, videotaping leaders in scenarios, servant leadership events with social benefits, and even meditation and mindfulness programs...

...so what comes next?

What's Edge In Leadership Development?

When I sit down and meditate on what's missing, I often find myself writing posts like "8 College Classes That Would Have Helped Your Career" and "Higher Education is Broken, But Not How You Imagine" and this is similar in theme, but more specific to corporate leadership development.

Fight Club -- We all grew up learning a specific fight style. As specific as "Flying Crane Fist" or "Tiger" in the Shaolin fighting system. By fight style I'm referring to conflict style, which shares many similarities of physical conflict styles like: linear and circular, soft and hard and there's nothing like learning a martial art to teach you about conflict. I'd throw every single individual in a LDP into formal martial art if I could and my students think I'm kidding when I say I'd love to have a ring in the classroom. 

Leaders need to learn their own preferred style of conflict, be able to identify other styles, and learn to flex their own style and adapt to the situation at hand. Most organizations depend on a collaborative conflict style, but that doesn't mean that's the only style of conflict going on. You still have many situations where avoidance, compete, and accommodate are legitimate strategies.

Psychic Warriors -- Do you know how to set a grounding cord for yourself? How about one for the room? Clear psychic hooks from your being? Protect yourself against psychic attacks? Read people's chakra blocks? Think I'm silly for saying something like grounding cord? Tomorrow's leaders will be deeply grounded and know how to deal with all of the above.

Storytelling -- one of my favorite exercises is to ask leaders to tell me their life story in "45 minutes or less" and see what comes up. Narratives, as the Ancient Greeks knew, are deeply important. Our experience of reality is directly related to the stories we tell ourselves. The role of CEO is to be the 'Storyteller in Chief' and all organizations themselves are telling a story. Teams have subplots and their own narratives going on. Being aware of stories, myths, themes, and effective storytelling is essential to tomorrow's leader.

Strategy -- As a cultural anthropology major I studied play and games. The two games I loved studying the most were Chess and Go. Each speaks a different strategic language, one no better than the other, just different. Leaders of tomorrow will not only need to think strategically, but be able to flex and select their strategic foundation to what the situation requires. Leaders must learn to play Go, while switching to basketball, then to Chess, then back to Go. Basically Calvinball, if you get the reference.

Mind/Body Wisdom -- one of my favorite programs was to take a group out to Chautauqua and work with vision. I'd have them toggle between microscopic focus, on the structure of a blade of grass for example, then to the macroscopic, the clouds in the sky or the horizon. Just back and forth. I'd provide paths into both views, let them go at it for awhile and then come back and share with the group. I'd never mention business once, but leaders would come away with all kinds of realizations and ah-ha's. That's true of every single sense in your body. Embodied leadership is what's electric.

Dreaming and Visioning -- Why so many corporate vision statements fail is that they're not grounded in the visual. (Also why so many corporate mission statements fail as well - they're not actually grounded in a mission.) A proper vision statement is developed first without words or any kind of vocabulary. You see it first. Seeing is the hard part. Dreamwork can help leaders develop visual acuity. My hero in visioning these days is Elon Musk. Dude thinks visually before he speaks one word; it's why the visions are so compelling.

The Pilgrimage as Retreat -- It's a personal vision of mine to someday soon take the pilgrimage on Shikoku island in Japan. I think the ability to craft a pilgrimage that's meaningful to you is an important leadership skill. Turning around and being able to help others develop their own person pilgrimage is just as important. A pilgrimage doesn't have to be formal or connected to a faith like the Haj, Shikoku Island, or Camino de Santiago, but it must be meaningful and full of omens and portents.

Maturation & Developmental Levels -- No matter if you're working with Ken Blanchard, Integral, or Developmental Psychology there's an importance in understanding and recognizing development levels. In the West we have a tendency to "live and let live" and yet there's something invaluable about being able to identify the steps of maturation. Understanding someone's level of maturation, as well as your own, helps you understand unspoken goals and personal missions and identify the likely major stumbling blocks.

Flexibility & Adaptability -- Maybe the hardest thing to teach and the most important; it directly relates to imagination and ego. The ego likes to get set in its ways and is resistant to change. My former mentor would always say to me, "There's only change and resistance to change." Any failure is a failure of imagination, be it a deal, an organization going out of business, or a divorce. Imagination can only develop when the ego is willing to let go of its insistent view of reality.

Creativity -- Creativity to me is play and fun. They're synonymous in my world view. If you're being creative, then you're being playful and having fun. I think trying to develop creativity in leaders is a tedious task, but having fun with them, working with them on how to play in a way that lends itself to innovation and renewal is invigorating.

Relationships -- When you boil it down, leadership is a conversation between people. No action is taken without first having the conversation. one of the best teachers I've ever had would say, "Always ask yourself what the person in front of you wants." Relationships are the building blocks of systems. Systems themselves maybe more powerful than the individual, but all systems hinge on relationships and, ultimately, a conversation.

Sadism and Masochism -- All of us have a bit of masochism and sadism inside ourselves and in our relationships. It's important to be conscious of how that plays out. I don't trust leaders or organizations that aren't at least somewhat aware of their shadow. The terrible price of innocence is impotence.

The Design of Form and Function -- I imagine the leadership classes I'd like to build most: to take a group of leaders to where electric guitars made, have them study the work of Kenji Ekuan and the design ethos of Dieter Rams, have them spend time in solitude in nature, take a ballet class. Leaders give form to the world. Function drives form.

Rhythm and Cadence -- There is such a thing as leadership cadence and it's important -- the speed at which people, groups, teams, and organizations make decisions. I can imagine a class where the starting material is, "A Music Lesson" by Victor Wooten and you go from there. Explore rhythms around the world, learn your own internal rhythms, and those of your team and your organization.

Horsemanship -- Yes, horses Twitter. :-) There's no animal out there that can read humans like horses and provide immediate feedback. How a person handles a horse tells you everything about who they are as leaders and there is nothing else like a relationship with a horse that will help ground your leadership.

I'm thinking you're probably going to have to sign a wavier to take these leadership courses, but they'll be well worth it.