Improving Leadership Performance

Drawbacks of Conventional Approaches

Conventional approaches often fall short of expectations for a number of reasons:

• Firstly, they implicitly - and sometimes explicitly - adopt a 'paragon of virtue' behavioural model, which few if any successful leaders actually conform to.
• Secondly, individuals operate within a context of dynamic objectives and specific relationships, which these approaches tend to ignore, over-simplify or attempt to simulate out of context.
• Thirdly, they tend to focus on perceived weaknesses (the gap between the competency model and observed behaviour), rather than exploiting the unique strengths of the individuals and groups.
• Fourthly, these approaches tend to ignore the hidden, messier and informal aspects of organisational dynamics, which have a critical impact on leadership performance.

The development of individual leaders and leadership teams should therefore take place within the context of the specific challenges and relationships that those individuals and teams face 'here and now'. The other tools can have a valuable role to play; but these should be used contingently, to provide supporting data rather than acting as the main levers of leadership development. Also, leaders need to understand and engage with the a-rational dynamics of organisations.