Leadership Development: Accelerating the Development of Post-Conventional Leaders

© Marilyn Hamilton, PhD CGA - All rights reserved

October 7, 2008 

Integral Theory in Action Conference

At the first bi-annual Integral Theory in Action (ITIA) Conference at John F. Kennedy University (JFKU) in August 2008, I had the honour and pleasure of presenting a paper on my 12 years of Learning and Leadership research and a preview poster presentation of my forthcoming book Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. The paper will be published shortly and the book is imminent as well. In the book, I allocate more than one chapter to explore the importance of leadership to the wellbeing of cities.

In an Integral City, I assume “that effective city leadership requires an understanding of dynamic human development, integrated with healthy workplaces, education and healthcare systems. Effective city leaders are interested and invest in leadership of themselves, other individuals, organizations and communities at the appropriate level of complexity. Effective leaders lead from about a half a level ahead of the current level of development, offering a vision that is a stretch but attainable (Hamilton, 2008).”

Introduction

This article is a report on a key theme of the ITIA Conference. I review five presentations on leadership development research, that confirm many of my propositions about the quality and criteria needed to grow leaders for an Integral City. (Using the Spiral Dynamics (SDi) (Beck & Cowan, 1996) levels of complexity, I describe these leaders as Level 8 leaders with capacities that these five papers reference as Level 5 or post-conventional leaders, using the summary levels derived from the work of Bill Torbert and Robert Kegan.)

The five presentations are intertwined because they ground, use and/or apply findings from each other’s work. (It should be noted that each of these papers is available in full format from the ITIA website http://www.integraltheoryconference.org/page/page/5594264.htm  on a CD bibliography and/or audio DVD.)

The first review of the presentation by Bill Torbert and his associates at Boston College, has influenced the second paper by Gauthier and Fowler from JFKU, which has in turn contributed to the third paper which outlines the development of conventional leaders by Stagen Consulting. The fourth paper describes the original work of Bill Joiner (and Stephen Josephs) on Leadership Agility and the fifth is research at the organizational level by John Schmidt and Cynthia McEwen that examines many of the leadership insights from the first four studies with a particular focus on the field of sustainability.

 To start with, I would like to offer a summary of the life conditions that describe the context for developing leaders capable of serving an Integral City.  Gauthier and Fowler  (Gauthier & Fowler, 2008) argue that the leadership development field is impacted by both “enhancing forces and constraining forces”.  Enhancing forces are visible from the emergence of: the talent competition across all sectors creating demand for capable leaders; the adoption by many business schools of the UN Global Compact’s principles for responsible management education; civil society and its influence; social entrepreneur networks; collaborative and multi-sector partnerships for leadership development; cross-generational and international leadership networks; virtual education; ‘cultural creative’ and of ‘post-conventional’ leaders, in Gen X and younger cohorts; partnering paradigms with women as catalysts; and spiritual practice and creativity in wellbeing domains.

Although the authors were considering mostly organizational scale change (rather than city scale change), the constraining forces to effective leadership development programs that they identified also apply to cities: distraction by short-term performance goals; time pressures; quantitative metrics; limited integration of existing leadership programs; limited numbers of qualified change practitioners/educators; prohibitive expense of generative leadership development programs; little focus on the development of collective leadership or collective intelligence; and the domination mindset common to older men. 

On a larger scale of human systems, they noted the “increasing fragmentation of society and growing individualism and materialism with a growing fundamentalism in some societies”. 

Torbert’s ‘Deep Four’ Action Inquiry

The research of Bill Torbert and his associates (Torbert, Livne-Tarandach, Herdman-Barker, Nicolaides, & McCallum, 2008) is well grounded in action as well as theory. Torbert critiques Wilber’s quadrant model as being the “Flat Four” cognitive map. He offers instead his Deep Four of First, Second, and Third Person along with Intention and Attention. Torbert incorporates an adult learning model into his action inquiry and maintains that he does not bifurcate individual and collective realities (another critique of Wilber) but interweaves them into a community of inquiry.  

Torbert proposes that a critical aspect of his leadership development framework is that the action aspect of his approach, provides an external validity through feedback (as does Action Research (Stringer, 1996)).  

Torbert’s associates supply three examples of Action Inquiry: One examines the effect that fear has on locking a leader into his solution-centred mode of operation. Another inquires about the effect of stressful life conditions that cause leaders to downshift from their normal centre of gravity. The third graduate student examines the relationship of leaders to ambiguity. 

Torbert et al, conclude that action logics are critical to success; ie. internal development impacts the performance of leaders in whatever context they operate in. The more developed leaders are the more resilient they will be to the impacts of fear or stress and the faster they will recover from downshifts and regain an advanced level of leadership capacity. 

Furthermore the study of ambiguity reveals that as leaders develop they change their relationship to ambiguity from viewing it as something to be endured or tolerated to an experience that can be surrendered to, or, at the most advanced stages, even generated for the creative opportunities ambiguity avails. 

JFK’s Generative Change Leader Development Research

Alain Gauthier and Marilyn Fowler from JFK University shared their examination of  the emerging field of ‘generative change leader development’ (Gauthier & Fowler, 2008). They gathered their evidence through interviews with colleagues on five continents, as well as from analyses of websites, articles, and books. They studied medium to long-term development programs that integrate the personal, interpersonal and systemic dimensions of change for complex socially responsible purposes.  

In addition to their own work and research on six dimensions of consciousness development, they used Torbert’s Action Logics model to define the different characteristics, capacities and outcomes that distinguish leaders operating at post-conventional stages (6,7,8 in SDi) from their peers at conventional stages (4,5 in SDi).  They used Wilber’s (Wilber, 1996, 2001) Four-Quadrant model to capture the interior, subjective and intersubjective domains of consciousness; and  McIntosh’s (McIntosh, 2007) work to describe and synthesize the developmental lines of “IQ,” cognitive intelligence, “EQ,” emotional intelligence, and “VQ,” values or moral intelligence. 

Gauthier and Fowler consider that directors of leadership development programs have come to shared conclusions. The complex challenges of the world [and cities] require collaboration of leaders and networks with advanced capacities from many different sectors. At the same time collaboration itself requires deep subjective and intersubjective skills because of the depth of challenging life conditions. Teachers of such skills must be able to demonstrate the skills themselves and be transparent in their inner and outer practise. Curriculum developers and program facilitators/co-creators must use a variety of adult learning modes and approaches from multiple cultures (East and West) with local and global relevance.

Gauthier and Fowler (2008) identify the factors that support healthy ego development as: Complex Environments (interpersonal, work, educational); Conscious engagement in life’s problems (inquiry, therapy, deep dialogue); and Awareness and exploration of inner states. Key characteristics of Transformational Leadership Programs include these features: 4-48 months in duration; intensives/fieldwork/coaching; small cohorts (15-25); action learning; toolkit of multiple frameworks, practices, approaches; inner work; peer learning; individual and team coaching; community building; values based behaviour; innovative learning processes; and evolving program design.

The researchers conclude that more study is needed to discover: how to accelerate learning; how to scale up programs to larger cohorts; how to grow group capacity within single organizations; how to build a community of practice with cohorts of graduates; how to effectively evaluate program impacts on individuals, organizations and communities; how to encourage traditional business schools to adopt integral leadership education; how to attract emerging leaders from multiple sectors; how to encourage instructors and coaches to implement inner practices as praxis; how to create integral leadership development for culturally diverse and/or disadvantaged leaders; and how to develop sustainable business models to deliver and continuously develop such programs.

The authors identify deep capacity leader as those “able to move beyond conventional knowledge to actively cultivate post-conventional wisdom”.  They are leaders and change agents who are seen as generative and possess an enhanced ability to ; morally influence others; able to integrate, shift and flex; able to expand influence across increasing dimensions of space, time and moral influence; and willing to invest in growing their own capacity.

In terms very relevant to the effectiveness of leaders in cities, the authors point out that (according to Torbert) approximately 80 percent of the current managerial and professional workforce are at the conventional stage. They note that Cook-Greuter  (2002) explains that leaders with later post-conventional action logics are better able to: think systemically, identify assumptions (about self and others), value collaboration, use multiple perspectives, navigate complexity and paradox, find unity in chaos and transcend polarities, think creatively and seek mutuality.   

They note that Torbert (Rooke & Torbert, 2005) found  that: 

“Managers at pre-conventional and early conventional stages are more often associated with below-average corporate performance … [while] managers at post-conventional stages showed the consistent capacity to innovate and to successfully transform their organizations.”

In regard to the learning process, the authors identify three critical engagements: self-inquiry, peer learning and coaching.  They go on to identify six different dimensions of internal development they have designed into the JFKU leadership development program : Systems View; Paradigm Understanding; Philosophical, Psychological, Spiritual Knowledge; Intersubjective and Relational Awareness; Somatic Awareness; and Cosmic and Evolutionary Understanding. They conclude with a summary of  the most commonly reported improvements from their program: a larger sense of self-identity; greater sense of personal presence and spiritual awareness;more authentic communications; greater ability to collaborate and develop community; greater self trust; and increased creativity and innovation.

Stagen Consulting Shares An Experiment in Whole System Change and Integral Leadership Development

Barrett Brown (Brown, 2008), a Senior Consultant with Stagen Consulting described how the firm applies much of this research on leadership development to a very particular market (which would be represented in the Integral City map by the developers). Stagen delivers its leadership consulting services exclusively to mid-market $25 – $250 million companies with 100% private ownership. Stagen has taken Torbert’s analysis of leadership demographics and aimed its services squarely at the Diplomat, Expert and Achiever market where 80% of the leaders are. In terms of Adizes (Adizes, 1999) organizational map these companies are in the Go-Go to Adolescence Phase with intentions to get to Prime. Stagen has organized its services to focus on 3 dimensions: Individual, Team, Organization. Within the organization it delivers development for People (Leadership, Execution, Cultures) and Operations (Strategy, Execution, Economics). With considerable deference in how it values relationships with its clients, Stagen invests up to seven months of gratis services, as it builds interpersonal connections, that they intend to be long term and multi-year in nature. Stagen’s philosophy maintains that such deep time relationship lead to engagement; values trump contracts; capacity building is their objective not dependency; and a whole systems approach is necessary to achieve their ends.

Stagen has used the research of Cooke-Greuter to identify the importance of ego development. They have identified (from the research of Gauthier and Fowler (2008) noted above) the factors that support healthy ego development and offer four quarters of Integral Leadership Modules to address those needs:

Q1: Learning, Meaning, Attention Management

Q2: Execution, Transformation, Strategic Thinking

Q3: Conscious Communication, Understanding People

Q4: High Performance Teamwork, Integration Practicum

Optional modules explore change, innovation and human performance.

Stagen has a support system for the program which helps participants self/peer evaluate and measure progress.

As a vehicle for its success Stagen has learned to translate integral jargon into business mainstream language that lets leaders, teams and the organization see themselves in the dynamics, performance enhancement processes and system change models that make sense to them. 

Joiner’s Leadership Agility in Action

Bill Joiner reported on the work he and colleague, Stephen Josephs have undertaken in the action arenas of pivotal conversations (between individuals), teams and organizational change (Bill Joiner, 2008). Joiner and Josephs are authors of Leadership Agility (2007) and they define agility as the quality of leadership needed to respond to accelerating change and increasing complexity. In their research they have noted the exponential increase in both the change and complexity vectors since globalization emerged in a significant way in 1999. They identify 9 levels of leadership development in three categories (note: equivalent SDi levels in square brackets): Pre-Heroic (explorer [2], enthusiast[3], operator[early4]); Heroic/Conventional (conformer [4], expert[late4], achiever[5]); and Post-heroic/Post-Conventional ( catalyst[6], co-creator[7], synergist[8]). The key levels they focus on are the 5 post conventional stages of expert, achiever, catalyst, co-creator and synergist.

Like Torbert, Joiner identifies the critical skills of awareness and intention as being particularly evident in the two highest levels of leadership development.

Furthermore, like Gauthier and Fowler they note that the practice of meditation is more common to leaders who rate at the post heroic levels than earlier levels of development. 

Schmidt and McEwen’s Leadership and Corporate Sustainability Challenge

Schmidt and McEwen (Schmidt & McEwen, 2008) summarize their research on leaders and sustainability in the context of 10 organizations. Their analysis first used Joiner & Joseph’s (2007) five levels of development and translated them into corresponding gears of sustainability approaches: compliance, volunteering, partnering, integrating and redesigning.  They conclude that it is leadership mindsets that are instrumental in enabling organizational change. Effective leaders are able to exhibit both Translation and Transformation capabilities. Because they have identified the high need for sustainability actions to be transformative in order for either integration or redesign to occur, they identify the leadership development that is needed to power these “gears”. They quote McKinsey as saying, that business must become agents of transformation because “issues …[are] so complex …[including poor public governance] … CEO’s recognize … tension between business models … and the limited natural resources.”

They utilize an AQAL approach that embraces a balanced development of leadership and organizational experience, behaviours, cultures, and systems. (They cite Barrett Brown’s  (Brown, 2006) analysis of sustainability books where 40% of the proposed actions are systems based, indicating that much work is required in the other three quadrants.) Schmidt and McEwen’s research indicates that the mindsets that determine the business strategy selected in organizations, will need to be supported by metrics and alignment correction to make progress on sustainability.

Conclusions

The review of these five papers discloses and substantiates the significant role that leadership development has to play in developing an Integral City. Each paper explores leadership through the lenses of stage development and notices that leaders with increasing capacity are more equipped to engage with the complexity, paradox, non-linear stresses, ambiguity and multitude of perspectives that mark the realities of today’s city. The authors have tested their theories through the lenses of integral frameworks using multiple methodologies and gathered data with a plurality of methods: interviews, observation, self/peer/coach evaluations, introspection, action inquiry, and inter-organizational comparisons.  Together they are beginning to shape a rigorous integrally methodological plural examination (Wilber, 2001, 2006) of leadership development. They all conclude that the need for advanced leadership development is critical in today’s complex world and that the resources to deliver leaders with advanced capacities are not sufficient to the current demands that we face from: global, multi-scale, unsustainable, stressful, cross-sector complicities, productivity challenges, resource depletion and generational values shifts.

However, by their experiments and research all the authors demonstrate that gradual and steady gains are being made: curricula are emerging in both academia and the private sector;  criteria for instructors have been identified; a growing body of knowledge is becoming available that leadership development must embrace integral realities  (both deep and flat) and stages; and the deliberation and design that are needed are being actively tested and refined both formally and informally across multiple sectors.

These authors are leadership developers in their own right and their courage and example (which spans three generations) must give us hope and inspiration that every small step for each conventional leader contributes to an eventual leap for post-conventional leadership-kind.

References:

Adizes, I. (1999). Managing Corporate Lifecycles. Paramus, NJ: Prentice Hall Press.

Beck, D., & Cowan, C. (1996). Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership and Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.

Brown, B. (2006). Integrating the Major Research Methodologies Used in Sustainable Development. Unpublished article.

Brown, B. (2008). Stagen: Applied Integral Consulting for Mid-Market Companies: An Experiment in Whole System Change and Integral Leadership Development. Paper presented at the Conference - Integral Theory In Action: Serving Self, Community and Kosmos.

Cook-Greuter, S. (2002). The development of action logics in detail [Electronic Version]. Retrieved 7.2002 from www.cook-greuter.com.

Gauthier, A., & Fowler, M. (2008). Integrally-Informed Approaches to Transformational Leadership Development Paper presented at the Conference - Integral Theory In Action: Serving Self, Community and Kosmos.

Hamilton, M. (2008). Integral City: Evolutionary Intelligences for the Human Hive. Gabriola Island BC: New Society Publishers.

Joiner, B. (2008). Levels of Leadership Agility:An Integral Model for Leadership Development. Paper presented at the Conference - Integral Theory In Action: Serving Self, Community and Kosmos.

Joiner, B., & Josephs, S. (2007). Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

McIntosh, S. (2007). Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution: How the Integral Worldview is Transforming Politics, Culture and Spirituality. St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House.

Rooke, D., & Torbert, W. (2005). Seven transformations of Leadership. Harvard Business Review (April).

Schmidt, J., & McEwen, C. (2008). Leadership and the Corporate Sustainability Challenge. Paper presented at the Conference - Integral Theory In Action: Serving Self, Community and Kosmos.

Stringer, E. T. (1996). Action Research: A Handbook for Practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Torbert, W. R., Livne-Tarandach, R., Herdman-Barker, E., Nicolaides, A., & McCallum, D. (2008). Developmental Action Inquiry:A Distinct Integral Theory That Actually Integrates Developmental Theory, Practice, and Research. Paper presented at the Conference - Integral Theory In Action: Serving Self, Community and Kosmos.

Wilber, K. (1996). A Brief History of Everything, . Boston,: Shambhala Publications Inc.,.

Wilber, K. (2001). Marriage of Sense and Soul. New York: Random House.

Wilber, K. (2006). Integral Spirituality. Boston: Shambhala Publications Inc.

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