Get comfortable inside your own skin! That's often advice that we give to participants in leadership development efforts. Once, it was an easy concept to grasp. Today, self-acceptance becomes increasingly difficult in a culture that promotes immediate satisfaction and the promise of easy change (changing weight, changing personal appearance, having it tomorrow). Our experience establishes that personal development begins with self-acceptance but it is not enough for development. Successful leadership development requires an effective combination of self-acceptance and self-awareness. How do you know if you're moving forward with you personal leadership development?

Checklists can be useful ways of assessing progress for the self-accepting and the self-aware. For those who have neither, or who have limited awareness, checklists are burdensome additions. For those who effectively combine acceptance and awareness a checklist can be effective in the presence of feedback. The worth of the feedback and checklist review cycles increases in the wake of critical leadership incidents.

We want to place development efforts in the context of time. Certain skills may occur in the flash of an instant and other skills develop over time. For individual leaders and leadership developers alike, a framework of leadership development stages is invaluable for the long-haul. If you can identify stages of leader development over a career, you can assist others with real growth and development.

Inventories and assessment centers create periodic opportunities to measure progress. For some aspects of leadership, we want short term-results. These may be results in the areas of project management or crisis management. In other aspects of leadership development, we want longer term results, which may be in the form of relationship management and networking to influence organizational outcomes. In either case, progress in leader development is an area that requires the individual to get "outside" of him or herself to extend both self-acceptance and self-awareness.

When individuals are asked if they would prefer to be known as a leader or as a manager, almost inevitably the response will be leader. The reason might have to do with the question and what social psychologists refer to as socially-appropriate demand. Likewise, when a leader or a leader's team is asked to describe if their environment is dynamic or stable, most eagerly volunteer the response dynamic! There are several forces that contribute to dynamic environments, including globalization, competition, and regulatory change. Knowledge of the differences between stable and dynamic environments assists in shaping leadership responses to change.

In stable environments, leaders are valued for their experience and credentials. In dynamic environments, leaders are valued for their ability to learn. A stable environment might exist when roles and accountabilities are clearly defined and processes are routine. A dynamic environment might exist when roles are defined by the situation and processes are less certain. Both environments require different leadership responses.

Some argue that distance from the customer determines placement in either the dynamic or stable category, arguing that the closer one is to the customer, the more likely the leader is to experience a dynamic environment. The opposite perspective suggests that those who are closer to "function" in an organization (e.g., human resources, finance, legal), the more likely the environment is stable. In practice, these arguments do not hold because they neglect to account for the big picture.

Kurt Lewin, the pioneering social psychologist, developed idea the behavior is a function of the person and his or her environment. Our ability to put times into motion, for the healthy exercise of leadership, requires us to understand environmental influences. As you understand environment, you can use your self-awareness to change and to grow leadership responses that increase team effectiveness.

If any of these five steps seem difficult for you, take heart to the message. Several responses are possible, and we're working with leaders on these issues. We offer workshops designed to assist leaders and others with developing work and life blend. Stay tuned for our upcoming workshops.

Successful executive development is a community effort; it is not an individual effort. For all of the resources that are poured into executive development, many are squandered because of a failure to account for "lift" in executive development. Successful executive development does more than grow an individual; successful leadership development grows an organization. What steps are you taking to lift your executive development efforts from the level of the individual to the level of the organization?

In divisional, product, or geographical organizations, leaders and leadership development have enormous opportunity to create corporate citizenship and to expand leadership pools. Too often, we fail to understand the depth of leadership talent in an organization because of narrow views of organization. In succession, we often don't think beyond our functions or divisions. Effective executive development counters organizational myopia.

The seeds for growing executive development require two abilities. First, it's the ability to network and to foster positive relations across an organization. If you're in the Fortune 100, this is easier said than done. Likewise, in smaller organizations, turf issues can run tough! The second ability is to link executive development to strategic intent. The ability to create this link creates focus on organization executive development, lifting it from individual catharsis.

It's wise to assess the state of your organization development efforts. Too often, we've seen leadership development turn to accounting and control methods to achieve this assessment. If you choose to go that route, be aware that it is full of pitfalls and sinkholes. Effective assessment requires the two abilities identified in the preceding paragraph. If you want effective measurement, make sure influence and alignment to intent exist. Your assessment, guided by the two abilities, will yield a significant return on your resource utilization.

The outcome of leadership development needs to extend beyond Johnny or Sally can do it better. While this is noble, and may assist Johnny or Sally (or Howard or Allison), it's not enough to build robust business that drive economic engines and powerhouses. Additionally, leadership development creates healthy communities. Everyone involved in the enterprise of leadership development helps others by developing leaders that make better places. These better places might be better teams, or better divisions, or better organizations, and even better communities!

Our emphasis in leadership development for perfection or best-in-class is misplaced. Either outcome suggests that leadership development is finite, that it is a destination. Effective leadership development creates opportunities for others to contribute to improvement.

When you place your leadership development efforts in examination, what do the results describe? Do they describe efforts dedicated to foster individual achievement, group leadership, or something that extends beyond the confines of individual, team, and organization? Our efforts to develop leaders strengthen the prospect for social change and better places for everyone.

In creating better places, it's important to have a bias about what good leadership does for an individual and for a community. The absence of bias creates a vanilla-approach, that to-date, hasn't been successful in narrowing the growing leadership gap. Work in leadership development is a noble aspiration, sometimes forgotten in the pace of organizational life.

Join us and others as we discuss emerging topics in leadership development. Each month, Leadership Acts features a monthly teleseminar on a relevant topic for leaders and leadership developers. We invite your participation and your inquiry into our services. Thanks!