In the first blog of this series, I asked the question: “Is it possible to learn leadership?”
Some insight came from 2 different perspectives: “looking at” and “looking along.” I believe there are many books and people teaching from the “looking at” perspective.
In the second blog, I “looked at” leadership, compared it to management, and highlighted the most important role of a leader: changing culture.
In the third blog, finally, I introduced a book that I believe “looks along” leadership: Leadership, The Inner Side Of Greatness, by Peter Koestenbaum. As I dug back into this book, I find it truly a great book, and recommend it as a shared experience, a group reading and discussion.
Let’s go back to the initial question: “Is it possible to learn leadership?” Externally, leadership requires a change in how you act. It is what people see when they “look at” you. Internally, how you act, is the result of a transformation in how you think. Transformational thinking first starts with you taking charge of how your mind thinks. (You might want to read that again.)
In Koestenbaum’s book, he builds a mature analysis of the transformed leadership mind and calls it “The Leadership Diamond model.” The Leadership Diamond can be used as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to measure your greatness as a leader. A tool to measure greatness! Is it any wonder that an engineer like me thinks this is really cool?
Per Koestenbaum’s Leadership Diamond model, the 4 principle ways of expressing greatness in thought and action are:
- Vision: a visionary leader always sees the larger perspective, for visioning means to think big and new.
- Reality: a realistic leader always responds to the facts, for realism means to have no illusions.
- Ethics: an ethical leader is always sensitive to people, for ethics means to be of service.
- Courage: a courageous leader always claims the power to initiate, act, and risk, for courage means to act with sustained initiative. 1
When you review these 4 principles, where is your thought and action the strongest? Where is your thought and action the weakest?
1. Peter Koestenbaum, Leadership, The Inner Side of Greatness (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1991) 7