Guiding Emerging, Learning Leaders

What We Offer:

We offer emerging leaders a partnership of equals in service of their aspirations and agenda.  We are a “guide at their side” in their Hero’s Journey.  Together, we encounter their adaptive challenges with a Beginner’s Mind.

Often, our principal contribution to the transformation we witness is nothing more than our ability to listen deeply and reflect empathetically as the leaders process their learning from their current lesson delivered by Experience.

We provide the leaders with something they cannot provide for themselves: they cannot be their own sounding board!  (There’s a critical difference between a sounding board and an echo chamber.)

We guide them through the messiness of their self-limiting beliefs, biases and blind spots.  So that they can fully process and internalize the learning from the current lesson, leaders must have a safe place to openly express their feelings, sort through their confusing thoughts, and craft the language to best express their ideas.

To fully integrate the learning that Experience provides, we must be grounded in our core essence: our primary values, purpose, vision and priorities.  These are our primary drivers that control our actions and shape our thoughts, feelings and behaviors — “our primaries.”  It is from this core knowledge of self – our Eagle Awareness – that we have the strongest presence and greatest influence as leaders.

We have guided many “High Potentials” as they evolved into “Authentic Kinetics.”

The essence of leadership is gaining Buy-in through influence.  It is common for emerging leaders, following the example of their earlier bosses, to forget that people do things for only one of two reasons; either their actions are congruent with their primary values, purpose, vision and priorities OR they are yielding to coercion!  Un-negotiated expectations are an example of coercion.

“A change imposed is a change opposed.”

(From the book: “Who Moved My Cheese?”)

Often, the opposition to un-negotiated expectations is silent but shows up as non-engagement.  As the resentment of un-negotiated expectations accumulates, it shows up as the 3D Virus — Dissonance, Distrust, and Disengagement.

Emerging leaders build their leadership influence capability by developing their seven influence traits: confidence, commitment, courage, passion, empowering, trustworthiness and likability.  (For in-depth information on Influence and related concepts, click HERE.

Through leadership influence, leaders build Designed Team Alliances that create an enthusiastic alignment of an individual’s attitudes and behaviors with the organization’s desired culture.  This alignment is the key to building an All-In, engaged team that successfully executes the organization’s strategic initiative.  (For an in-depth description of Designed Alliances, click HERE.

As an emerging leader, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I have an accelerated personal leadership development plan that brings clarity and balance to my life?
• Am I enjoying a low-stress, fulfilling life adventure of my own design?
• Have I acquired the facility to flow gracefully with the turbulent VUCA environment?
• Do I have a sounding board and a safe place where I can openly express my feelings and confront my self-limiting beliefs and conflicting thoughts?
• Am I learning everything Experience has to teach me from each lesson?  (Or are many lessons being repeated?)

If your answer to any of these – and similar — questions is anything other than a firm “Yes, I’m rock-solid!” we may have something of great value to offer you.

“Guiding the Emerging Leader” is not a predefined program.  The leaders control their agenda.  Each session focuses on the topic of greatest importance – or urgency – to the leader.  This is a pragmatic, self-discovery program. The leaders build their own journal of notes and relevant, practical documents.  In terms of leadership development, this approach provides “just-in-time learning” for dealing with the current issues.

“There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.”  — Laurence J. Peter

We only really know what we experience.  Until that moment of internalizing the lessons of Experience, our training is only information or knowledge.  Our Authentic Leadership Insights model connects the content of workshop or webinar training with the context of the leader’s job.  Coaching accelerates experiential learning, reducing the time required to acquire the wisdom required for successful performance.

The focus is on developing the leader’s seven influence traits and expanding the interpersonal skills required to create intelligent, innovative teams of All-In, engaged employees.  In our VUCA world, teams must respond to:

• Volatility with precise, rapid response to accelerating change.  Successful performance requires speed.
• Uncertainty with innovative contingency plans that anticipate the unexpected.  Successful performance requires flexibility.
• Complexity with rapid, iterative learning to discover adaptive responses to the challenges of complex systems.  Successful performance requires versatility.
• Ambiguities with an incisive, clear focus on the system’s underlying driving forces.  This requires discerning reality without our biases, blind spots, and attachment to beliefs about how things should be.  Successful performance requires deep self-awareness.

Our purpose is to support emerging leaders in becoming the person they wish to become.  We walk beside emerging leaders as they develop the skills required for successful performance in their Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous – VUCA – ecosystem.  This is the new normal; it requires a new model.

Going Forward:

If you are a learning leader who is ready to eliminate the chaos, overwhelm and stress in your life, we welcome the opportunity to become acquainted with you and explore how we may be of service.

Getting Acquainted:

We use a two-step process: the first step is a 15 minute (30 minute max.) phone conversation in which you describe your situation and we answer any questions you may have.  We want you to realize the nature of the commitment you are making to your leadership development and career.  This program is not a silver bullet quick-fix or a “when I get a round tuit” activity.  It requires clear goals and a strong commitment to achieve them.

If we agree to continue to explore an engagement relationship, we will schedule an in-depth strategy session in which we thoroughly explore your needs and expectations.  So that the strategy session is an efficient learning experience, you will complete a brief questionnaire beforehand.

Email your questions, comments or requests to: BeginnersMind@InSearchOfEagles.com. All emails will be answered.