Leadership development is my passion! As someone who designs leadership experiences, I often face the challenge of selecting the right skills and capabilities to focus on in my workshops.
With AI estimating that over a million books have been written on leadership, the sheer volume of knowledge is staggering. Even with my personal study of 100+ books on the subject, narrowing down an effective skill set for a workshop can feel overwhelming. Listing all the desirable business acumen, interpersonal abilities, and character traits of effective leaders would produce a massive, impractical list.
So, what’s a leadership learning designer like me to do?
The answer: Start with a different question.
My question is simple yet profound: Why would anyone want to follow you? After all, leadership without followers is not really leadership. This question became the foundation of my research and approach.
In my exploration, I asked others to think of someone—living or not—whom they would willingly follow if that person were present and invited them to join. I then asked, Why would you follow them? What qualities or actions make their leadership compelling?
The answers were strikingly consistent. People are drawn to follow:
A person of GREAT CHARACTER
A leader who believes in SERVING THEIR FOLLOWERS
Now, this was something concrete. Two essential qualities—a manageable core to shape a leadership development framework around.
From here, I considered another layer: how leadership traits and skills evolve across different levels of organizational leadership, from self-leadership to leading teams and ultimately to leading an entire organization. How does each stage demand a shift in skills and mindset?
Without further ado, here’s the framework I developed to design impactful leadership programs across various levels within an organization.
The Leadership Development Framework
Lead Self – Foundation of Integrity
The first step in leadership is mastering self-leadership, with Integrity as the core concept. This is about aligning your actions with your words—practicing what you preach. Integrity forms the foundation of your leadership character. Four essential skills contribute to this:
Excellence: Strive to be exceptional in your field, constantly growing and mastering technical skills.
Trustworthiness: Build trust by embodying sincerity, competence, reliability, credibility, empathy, and integrity, and develop the skills to repair trust if broken.
Values Alignment: Make decisions based on your values, ensuring your actions reflect them. When your work aligns with your core values, it can even become a calling, a place where passion meets purpose.
Stewardship: Carefully manage the resources entrusted to you—your time, talents, and treasures.
With a foundation of integrity, you can advance to leading others.
Lead Others – The Principle of Service
In leading others, Service is essential. Serving builds relationships, engagement, and followership. After all, leadership without followers isn’t really leadership. To serve others effectively, you’ll need these key skills:
Coaching Growth: Support others in their pursuit of excellence.
Providing Feedback: Offer feedback that promotes growth and restores trust and be open to receiving feedback as well.
Conflict Resolution: Serve as a peacemaker by facilitating resolutions that align with shared values and create win-win outcomes.
Encounter Listening: Build relationships by truly knowing others through deep understanding and showing empathy.
Once you gain that followership, you’re prepared for the next level: leading the organization.
Lead the Charge – The Balance of Polarities
At the organizational level, leadership often centers around change. To lead change effectively, your followers need to believe in your character and know you prioritize service. The core concept at this level is Polarity—the ability to balance competing demands and make nuanced decisions in complex situations. Four critical polarities to master include:
The WHAT Polarity: Balance the Present with the Past and Future. Respect past achievements while inspiring forward momentum. Ensure your vision is grounded in practical strategies and the core competencies of your organization.
The HOW Polarity: Balance Forward Progress with Flexibility. Building trust is key to getting buy-in, while remaining open to feedback and adapting based on what’s working or where adjustments are needed.
The WHY Polarity: Integrate Head and Heart. Balance data-driven decisions with consideration for people’s emotions, concerns, and intuitions, creating solutions that resonate logically and emotionally.
The WHO Polarity: Know when to Lead and when to Follow. Guide the journey while also supporting and empowering others, practicing humility alongside strong professional will.
Building on Each Level
Each skill level builds on the previous one, forming a cohesive growth path. For example:
Excellence: You can only coach growth in others if you’ve committed to your own development. At the organizational level, ensure that your team is continually developing the skills needed to meet future goals.
Trust: You must have developed skills for building and mending trust on a personal level before you can effectively offer or receive feedback. At the organizational level, honest feedback is essential to maintain flexibility and make timely adjustments to plans.
In summary, this framework provides a practical roadmap for developing leaders who embody integrity, prioritize service, and drive meaningful change. By mastering essential skills at each level, leaders can effectively lead with purpose while fostering a dedicated and engaged followership every step of the way.
Want to delve deeper into the skills of leadership? Check out my book, Joyful Leadership.