CarolynCunningham

What is good leadership? How can we become more effective leaders? If you ask twenty people these questions, you could get twenty different and valid answers. We each have our own “leadership model” – a distinct perspective on what leadership is and what good leadership looks like. What follows in this

While much of Consilience reflects a rich tapestry of contributions by many brilliant minds, there are several ways it contributes uniquely to the dialogue on leadership. Consilience offers an integrated outside-in and inside-out approach to leadership development, by simultaneously addressing the very real external pressures on leadership to “produce” and

As a culture, we are fascinated with leadership. What is a leader? (Am I one?) What is good leadership? (Am I a good leader?) How do leaders develop? (This is hard! How can I get better at it?) How can I help develop other leaders? (They are struggling to be

What is Leadership? We are all leaders of something – whether it be our own lives, families, and relationships – or a project, team, business unit, organization or nation. Leadership is not the sole domain of the highest authority in a hierarchy or even of a single individual, but can include individuals

Leadership engages the head, body, heart and essential core and peak performance is achieved when we optimize and integrate these. Our cognitive thinking “head” (aka pre-frontal cortex) generates ideas and “selects” the data we notice based on what we deem is important. It is fueled by curiosity. Our physical body

Our ability to “see” – our ability to make meaning – is one leadership meta competency. It resides in the domain of cognition, including logic, knowledge, expertise, information, data, discernment and judgement. Externally and collectively, at the organizational level, a strong seeing meta competency is demonstrated in a shared, compelling vision and/

Our ability to feel and create connection between ourselves and others is a second meta competency of leadership. Leadership is fundamentally social and relational. The adage goes that if no one follows you, you are not a leader – suggesting that leadership (“envisioning, enacting and enrolling”) does not happen in a

Doing is a third meta competency. This meta competency involves the ability to generate action, both at the individual and organizational levels. It includes not only understanding the human physiology that produces action and plays a key role in learning, but also the subtle but powerful role awareness of one’

The fourth and most subtle meta competence is “being.” Our being is who we are at our essence, our innermost core self. It is the site of our internal presence (i.e., our internal state at any given moment). It is the seat of our wisdom, resilience and creative potential.

The primary agent of developing our meta competencies is our wise “Neutral Witness,” the part of us that observes ourselves, with compassion and without judgement, while we think, act, feel and be. The Neutral Witness is the stealth super power behind effective leadership; it is largely invisible and yet has

Writing about each meta competency separately helps illuminate the distinctions of each, and yet the meta competencies are depicted in a Venn diagram, because they not only overlap and inform each other, but each also dynamically co-arises with and co-creates each other. Meta Competencies Overlap and Inform Each OtherAt the

Scientific research now supports what long-time meditators have always purported. Mindfulness practices can contribute to a host of health and performance benefits, including improving attention, decreasing stress, increasing resilience, decreasing depression, improving immune responses, and decreasing inflammation. Neuroscientist Sara Lazar (Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital) used MRI scans to compare

Many believe that as humans, we have an inborn imperative for growth and development. But how does leadership grow and develop – and how can that growth and development be accelerated or deepened? 183 What do the meta competencies have to do with it? What is the role of the Neutral

Leadership can employ the Performance Prism, the meta competencies, and the Neutral Witness to accelerate its development. There are many applications, including but not limited to the following: Enhancing the performance of an individual leader through supporting specific behavioral change Improving a specific aspect of leadership (e.g., decision-making, change

Each leader has a unique “behavioral footprint,” with areas of strength and challenge. As leaders become more seasoned and sophisticated, it is usually the challenges that are endemic to their behavioral footprint, often in their blind spot, that interfere most with their performance. Rarely is it lack of knowledge, experience

Now let’s examine how leadership can optimize the performance of an organizational entity, whether it is a project, team, function, business unit, the interface between any of these, or the organization as a whole. In the diagnostic and prescriptive analysis, we will first explore the entity as a whole,

Leadership advisors 221 can use this model to accelerate the learning, development and performance of their clients. 222 How? Employing the Performance Prism, they can help clients raise their awareness of and their ability to address the blend of forces that shape leadership: strategic imperative / vision, operations, relationships and personal

In summary, leadership is both individual and collective, and can be demonstrated at the personal level (e.g., leadership of one’s own life and relationships), at the group level (e.g., within or across teams, business units or families), at the enterprise level (e.g., within or across nonprofit,

[1] To emphasize both individual and collective leadership, this discussion uses the term “leadership” rather than individual “leaders,” except when referring to the internal explorations that take place inside individuals. [2] Several leadership researchers have come up with similar-but-different ways of describing leadership. I discovered these after developing this model