Building Blocks of Leadership

by Elmer S Soriano

Just as chemistry has the building blocks of protons, electrons, and neutrons, I've begun thinking of the building blocks of leadership. Here are a few essentials that I think are good ways of learning leadership quickly and with more depth.

1. Chunk - chunking is the brain process that occurs when inputs come together into a coherent whole in an individual's brain. It is closely related to adult learning.

2. Stories - chunks are comprehended frequently through stories, and leaders have a key role in inducing insight and choicefulness among their learner's as they join the leader through a Hero's Journey. Case 1

3. Frameworks - frameworks are maps that enable individuals to navigate through known and unknown territories. With the adaptive leadership framework, a leader may be better oriented in working on the frontiers of what is known and unknown.

4. Emergence - emergence the the product of multiple complex interactions. A leader is sensitive to emergence and deploys interventions that engage emergence so that the dynamic is more likely to flow in the direction of the preferred reality.

5. Design thinking - is an approach to design and problem solving that takes advantage of the previous four elements here. The assumption is that social problems are results of complex dynamics and that solutions can be designed to induce a more positive dynamic through design thinking. For social problems, design thinking can be applied to introducing institutional innovations. Case 2

I have attempted to teach leadership using these building blocks. The results are mixed and the aim is for the Civika Teaching and Learning Lab to get better at teaching leadership through simpler and more robust concepts and learning methods.

The Adaptive Leadership-Bridging Leadership translation dictionary is one application of these building blocks in deconstructing both frameworks. (click here)

Image credits:
https://www.greenwood.com.au/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/brain1.jpg