What if leadership development were human-centered rather than project output-centered? What if we trained individuals primarily to become mindful, mature, adaptive leaders first, and then measure program outcomes as a yardstick of their increasing depth in leadership judgment?
If we did that, we'd could take the following approaches:
1. Start with the life purpose of each learner. We would start by having a conversation on the learner's life journey and sense of purpose. Each individual is assumed to have a calling or vocation (or a series of vocations) in her lifetime and bringing out leadership means helping the learner connect to this deeper source of meanings in her life.
2. Understand life stage and life roles. Individuals are in a certain stage in family life, whether they are unattached, just married, caring for toddler, etc which shape their concerns as a person. They also have additional roles and affiliations (ex.father, sister, church leader, civic leader) and their leadership senses may be heightened when those aspects of their lives are woven into the leadership development conversations.
3. Identify adaptive challenges in their sectors that disturb them, and then help them deploy themselves as adaptive leaders. If they are engaged in working on social problems that disturb them, they will find themselves drawn to problem-solving in that space.
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