THE STUDY OF LEADERSHIP traditionally starts by focusing on the

leader’s personal awareness of themselves and their style in interacting with

others. From first line to top line executives, mastering yourself and your
interactions permits effective communication, clear performance expectations,
and teamwork. The second stage concentrates on process knowledge and skills
to produce value. Work can only be accomplished when key skills are applied.
Both two leadership dimensions succeed in a relatively stable environment since
interpersonal relationship principles are relatively stable and skill requirements
typically change slowly over time.
A third dimension recently became an essential leadership component. It
requires agility in setting wise and timely direction or goals based on changing
circumstances and situations. The ability of leaders to conduct a situational
triage mirrors what medical professionals employ when handling a crisis.

They scan all the patients’ issues, weigh the alternatives and set a course of
action based on handling the most critical cases first. Now that change and
crises regularly impact those outside the medical profession, all leaders need to
learn how to conduct a triage to ensure that critical steps take priority.

The ability to capture changing realities that produce stellar results defines a
truly successful executive.

However, keeping these three in balance is like walking a tightrope. It is hard

and challenging, but it is necessary to move forward. When imbalance surfaces,
the problem can be diagnosed by examining how it has impacted the
organization.

1. When people and personal connections swamp process and priorities, the
result is the perception that favouritism, politics, cliques and pet projects
drive decision making.
2. If process inordinately drives decision making at the cost of people and
priorities, the evidence is that bureaucracy and red tape are drowning out
innovation, service, collaboration, and productivity.
3. When priority setting unrealistically prevails over people and process, the
result is disengagement, turnover, and productivity issues.
The best way to ensure leaders effectively employ and balance all three
essential leadership dimensions is through transparent and open communication,
mutual respect and a reward system that recognizes initiative.

A Leadership Development Crisis

I believe that this leadership crisis is a leadership development crisis. While it’s

true that leadership development has become a corporate priority, the
development systems of most organizations are outdated and tend to create and
reward leaders who are one-dimensional. At a time when the challenges facing
leaders and their organizations have never been more complex or daunting, it’s
clear that we need fully developed leaders.

The following are what I believe to be the two major factors that have led to this
crisis:

First, the traditional methods used to train and educate leaders have not kept
pace with the monumental changes taking place in the world. Potential leaders
receive essentially the same education as did their predecessors — education
that was appropriate to the demands of a different era. The primary focus in too
many universities and corporations is still on how business skills will produce
leaders who have strong functional, technical and financial capabilities. When
leadership development is provided, it is often treated in separate programs as if
it were an isolated issue apart from the business challenges leaders face. And
issues dealing with personal effectiveness are still frequently seen as too
“touchy feely” and not dealt with at all.

Second, on-the-job experiences and development frequently do not produce the

leadership our organizations need. Many argue that 70% of learning takes place
on the job but what is it that our leaders are learning? Most develop a narrow
functional-technical perspective as a result of spending their entire career in one
area. Many are risk-averse due to the severe consequences of making mistakes,
which severely inhibits learning. Few have any work experience out of their
home country (that’s getting to be a big problem given the global economy and
competition). Too many neglect family and friends to meet the demands of the
job, and a system that frequently encourages and rewards workaholism.

These experiences historically foster management rather than leadership skills.

When they are placed in leadership positions, their style is often traditional and
authoritarian, which is demonstrated by their need to over-manage, to be seen as
the “expert,” to solve all problems, make all decisions, and maintain
control. Capable of managing but unfit to lead is a fitting description of these
executives.

That the training and job development system produces capable managers is
undisputed. But we are now during a world in which even the best is ineffective
unless they can also lead.

Three-Dimensional Leadership:

In place of a system that has tended to produce one-dimensional managers, I

propose a more holistic, three-dimensional leadership development framework,
a comprehensive process that recognizes that leaders need capabilities that are
significantly different from the past.

The three-dimensional framework calls for the development of an

individual’s business, leadership, and personal effectiveness skills:

 Business Dimension: Mind-sets and capabilities needed to identify and

address critical business challenges
 Leadership Dimension: Fully developed leadership capacity needed to
lead the organization confidently into the future
 Personal Dimension: Personal effectiveness skills needed to achieve
excellence, balance and ongoing renewal

The three-dimensional framework does not diminish the importance of

the business dimension — the focus of traditional executive development.
Instead, it strengthens the leadership and personal dimensions to balance and
integrate all three areas. Each is an equally essential element of the leadership
equation. It is not enough to be a consummate business expert; an executive
must also be an excellent leader, while at the same time possessing exceptional
personal effectiveness skills.

Developing Three-Dimensional Leaders

The business dimension is developed by providing executives with the

capabilities needed to identify and address critical business challenges.
Therefore, development efforts might be focused on such things as creating new
organizations, building market-focused and customer-focused organizations,
leading change, winning in the global marketplace, creating a learning
organization, fostering innovation, and leveraging technology.

The leadership dimension might concentrate on a study of a broad range of

classical and contemporary theories and skills so that leaders can develop their
own personal expression of leadership. Based on integrity and authenticity,
leadership is a combination of both competence and character.

Attention to the personal dimension has suffered most because of the mistaken

view that business and personal matters can and should be separated, and
because corporate cultures often reward individuals who are consumed with
business. Based on the belief that individuals cannot be effective leaders if they
are ineffectual in their personal lives, executives need to learn skills such as
clarifying individual purpose, vision, values and talents on the one hand, and
effectively integrating work, personal goals and priorities on the other.

Look to the Horizon

Organizational survival and success, it is clear, are directly linked to our

willingness to cultivate leaders. And now it has become evident that true leaders
develop all facets of their potential in order to lead, not just the narrow few
needed to manage.

The three-dimensional framework recognizes that most people use only a

fraction of their potential to lead and that the challenges faced by our
organizations require the full development and expression of a wide range of
leadership capabilities. Organizations can use this framework to examine their
development systems to see if they have balanced and integrated all three
dimensions. Individuals can use the framework to be sure they are getting the
training and experiences needed to ensure they are becoming the kind of leaders
they wish to be.