EXPLORE SELFLESS LEADERSHIP
Leaders working with AuthenticityIntegrityPassion in the Public Interest
Selfless leaders look to serve others. This is not serving in the true sense of the word in terms of attending to or to oblige but rather through guardianship or stewardship. Selfless leadership is is about giving direction, but through an interactive process of intelligent leadership comprising the skills of questioning-listening-responding.
This is really important in encouraging reimagining, rethinking,and reinventing as a means of disrupting traditional ways of doing things.
Reimagining ...
Rethinking ...
Reinventing ...
EXPLORE SELFLESS LEADERSHIP
Explore Selfless Leadership
Throughout the Selfless Leader, six intelligent leadership questions have been applied to help in understanding all aspects of leadership. Stephen Brookes first came across these questions in the early 1980s when he attended the Detective Training School at the Metropolitan Police in London. Just as journalists learn this at journalism school to help them in asking questions about a developing ‘story’, detectives use the questions in the investigation at the scene of a crime.
The Six questions have helped Stephen Brookes throughout his various careers and, more recently, he has used this successfully in determining research objectives. In the Selfless Leader, the six Intelligent Leadership Questions (ILQs) are used to both explore and explain leadership behaviours. In this first section, we use the six ILQs to explore what is meant by ‘Selfless Leadership’.
As you progress through this e-learning platform so you will get to know how to use these six ILQs in improving your leadership practice and those whom you lead.
Six Intelligent Leadership Questions to describe Selfless Leadership
This is the first intelligent leadership question. The explicit theme and style of selfless leadership is that leadership is the property of a community and not that of an individual. Selflessness is a quality that is often lacking across most cultures and institutions, as opposed to self-centred impulses. Selfless Leadership is the central concept of the collective nature of compass leadership. It concerns leading-in-the-round.
Selfless leadership leads for all and not just the selected few or, indeed for the individual leaders’ own ego or motivations. Selfless leaders are the right people who do the right things, for the right reason, in the right way for the right people and in the right places. Accountability will be the defining foundation for assessing if selfless leaders achieve these commendable principles.
Leadership takes place across networks within the context of complex and adaptive systems. Selfless leadership seeks to enable and empower others to engage in collective leadership through all levels of the institution or networks.
Selfless leaders should create a space for adaptive leadership activity by the creation of a holding environment. This could be either a physical or virtual space in which adaptive work can be done through relationships. Leaders can then consider both time and perspective and achieve a balance between both the strategic direction and operational activity. This is what Heifetz calls ‘getting on to the balcony’ [1].
[1] HEIFETZ, R. A. 1994. Leadership without easy answers, Cambridge, Mass. ; London, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Leadership is purposeful in that defines the vision and how practice aims to achieve the outcomes of the vision. The individual will always be at the core of leadership practice, but it is the motivation that will drive the leader’s actions.
The purpose (or the ‘why’) of selfless leadership is that leaders put the wider interests of those who they lead above their own interests. Selfless leadership brings together a range of value-based leadership practices and theories. Although not exhaustive, this includes relational, empathic, authentic, empowering, spiritual and ethical leadership.
A selfless leader values truth across their lives and character. As such, they bring these values into their leadership. This build absolute trust with all whom they interact with.
The time for leadership is now! The only constant in life is change and leadership needs to be forever adaptive to the broader changes that are taking place and impacting on the operating environment. Selfless leaders are in the game for the long haul. Eventually, selfless leaders leave a lasting and positive institutional and social legacy.
They influence people by their continued leadership and demonstrable commitment to the endgame. The payback will be considerable, but this will be by means of an honoured reputation. Successful selfless leaders’ achievements will be emulated long into the future. Short term gains are important but long-term patience is a virtue. This approach will define the difference between expedient outputs and socially desirable outcomes.
[1] All is flux, nothing stays still (Heraclitus Greek philosopher)
The modus operandi (the means adopted) identifies and bridges the gap between the vision and the socially desired outcomes through intelligence-led approaches. Selfless leadership aims to transform the vision to achieve outcomes in a manner that is both ethical and authentic. All aspects of leadership are linked. Success will be influenced by the extent to which dynamic interactions take place.
The practice of selfless leadership is therefore supported by the process of “Leading through 360° Intelligent Networks, Knowledge and Skills.” [1]
In developing leaders our process promotes an Applied Leadership Challenge (ALC). The aim of ALCs is to align a collective vision for leading in the public interest. ALCs apply learning to practice through intelligent leadership within complex network contexts and at all levels of leadership. The process balances challenge with a climate which supports constructive dissent. Selfless leaders will welcome constructive criticism and actively promote the cultural acceptance for this alongside the feedback channels.
[1] LINKS360® is a registered trademark owned and licensed by Compass Leadership Limited and supports the frameworks and inventories outlined throughout its activities.
Selfless leadership includes the importance of individual leadership development and practice but embracing and building this within the collective. The role of the selfless leader is to ask the intelligent question and then enable and empower collective others to add to this question and to come up with solutions. Those who are closest to the problem are more likely to solve them.
Having set the question, selfless leaders will first ask of themselves and their teams, the intelligent question. For example, “what is the right thing to do?” and then, “how best can we achieve this?” Achieving the outcome in a way that is consistent with shared values drives the team’s collective ambition and goals. Selfless leadership engenders trust by relinquishing control and granting freedom to every team member to take necessary action. Risk management is proportionate, and every effort is made to avoid bureaucratic obstacles and data paralysis.
GUIDANCE AND HIGHLIGHTS
Guidance and Topic Summaries
HISTORY OF LEADERSHIP
This section provides a brief outline of the history of leadership. You are taken on a hitchhikers guide of 4,000 years of thinking and writing about leadership. We start with the Old World Leaders (the “OWLs”), progress to the New World Leaders (the “NWLs”) and then finally consider the Global World Leaders (the “GWLs”).
From the Classics … to … New World … and Global Leaders
From Individual to Collective LeadershipLeading together through shared values |
| After many years of practising and studying leadership, Stephen Brookes had been musing over the problem of individual versus collective leadership approaches. He eventually coined the phrase public leadership – as a form of collective leadership. The term was based on his research over some ten years which studied both public and community leadership within multi-agency partnership working. Collective leadership is defined as a “form of leadership based on shared values for achieving impact in the public interest, rather than individual leadership based on self-interest. |
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There are three brief E-learning Nuggets (max. 15 mins for all) which introduce you to a brief history of leadership (providing you with a summary of the distinction between OWLs, NWLs and GWLs), why we need to reimagine and how to reflect and review new ideas. Across all three nuggets we use the six Intelligent Leadership Questions as our framework for inquiry. |  |
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In this E-learning Activity, you can explore more about the three different periods of leadership thinking and why and how we need to reimagine our leadership style from an individual to a collective style. We delve further into the anatomy of collective leaders and illustrate how this can make a difference for leading in the public interest. |  |
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An E-learning Session provides a more comprehensive analysis of the different periods of thinking and literature concerning leadership majoring on the collective leadership approach. The following sessions provide the opportunity for aligning the learning with blended learning programmes focused on collective leadership as a new way of thinking and applying leadership. |  |
| Click to the right if you wish to choose to read more about this subject. |
LEADERSHIP3
Leadership is complex. A characteristic of complexity is that it is unlikely that the issues or problems underpinning it are likely to be fully resolved. In this sense, it shares these characteristics with those of wicked problems. There are various three-dimensional approaches to leadership. In this brief summary we look at the major triad:
The Basic Dimensions of Leadership 3
LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE
CAPACITY & CAPABILITY
Leadership3Aligning the Three Dimensions |
| These three dimensions are important in supporting the organisations efforts to improve services and products through transformational leadership. Transformational leadership requires teams to work together towards a common purpose. This is what we describe as synergy. Drawing on the work of Buckminster Fuller, this is an exploratory strategy of starting with the whole and the known behaviour of some of its parts and then progressively discovering the integral unknowns. We support this by using the complementary process of cybernetics which is the study of control or regulation mechanisms in both human and machine systems. A key feature is that all systems (apart from the Universe) are created by humans. They are thus fallible! This process of looking at the whole and its constituent parts represents the approach more commonly known as complex adaptive systems. If we get this right it helps us to understand the characteristics of both transformational leadership and innovation and creativity. Managing risk is an important element of this but the tipping point – we suggest – is moving beyond the known knowns and focusing our attention on the unknowns. Breaking boundaries and reinventing the core business will often be required. |
Leadership QuomodoPut quite simply, Leadership Quomodo describes the “How?” of leadership. This is the question that is so often neglected when compared to the ‘what?” ‘who?’ and ‘where’ questions. ‘When?’ and ‘Why?’ are also often neglected.
Next Steps …This section provides a brief outline of the history of leadership. You are taken on a hitchhikers guide of 4,000 years of thinking and writing about leadership. We start with the Old World Leaders (the “OWLs”), progress to the New World Leaders (the “NWLs”) and then finally consider the Global World Leaders (the “GWLs”).
From the Classics … to … New World … and Global Leaders
GUIDANCE FOR BROWSING
Welcome to the Selfless Leader Portal. The aim is to provide you with a range of support in helping you to understand leadership and how this improved understanding will assist you in improving your leadership practice. It matters not what level of leadership you work at or what your current level of understanding is. This first page provides you with a glimpse of some of the essential elements of leadership generally and selfless leadership specifically. This integrated suite of web resources is structured at three levels:The first level provides you with a basic understanding of leadership and gives you a very brief insight as to the essential components of selfless leadership; what this means, how it puts the public interest at the heart of what leaders do and how you can develop your own leadership style. You will then be able to consider organisational aspects of change in terms of renewing and reviewing change and the important aspects of leading reform. Click each tab in the top menu to open each of the six pages. Read in order starting with ‘reimagine’ at the left. The learning is simple and straight forward and you can complete your reading at this level within one to two hours. Each page offers three e-learning interactions with an average length of 3 minutes and non any longer than 5 mins.At the second level, you have the opportunity to ‘drill down’ further into the various sections of the portal from within each of the level 1 pages. Within this guidance, each of the main sections are summarised in the tables to the left. If you click on each of the tabs you will get a flavour for the key learning points of these sections. There is a link to take you to a ‘more reading …’ section and a further link that provides access to the Knowledge and Practice Hub (see below for the third level). At this second level you should be able to complete your reading within four to six hours.At the third level, you are given the option to register to gain access to the Knowledge and Practice Hub. This is a detailed and comprehensive resource bank which provides more detail research and commentary about selfless leadership as a form of leading in the public interest. The Collective Leadership approach underpins our approach. By registering, you will have access to interactive resources and scenarios. We also encourage you to take part in the selfless leadership discussion forum to share knowledge.PLEASE NOTE: If you are registered on a formal leadership development programme with Compass Leadership Limited, in addition to the Knowledge and Practice Hub, your learning and development will be supported by our dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (or Digital Campus). This is built on the Moodle Platform and provides comprehensive online support for your learning from design through to delivery and assessment.
Continue (if logged in)
Learning Periods
E-Learning Nuggets: An average of 5 mins but no more than 15 mins per nugget, providing a brief summary only.
At this second level you should be able to complete your reading within four to six hours in total and no one activity is more than 30 minutes. Each activity at this level is described as an E-Learning Activity: a standalone activity comprising either/both text and interactive scenarios. You will have the opportunity to view a demonstration of resources at this level, but you will be required to register with us to gain full access as an online fellow.
This is a more structured and detailed Blended Learning Session focused on the relevant subject matter. There is also an option to take part in a leadership discussion forum to share knowledge. If you are enrolled on a leadership development programme this learning will also be incorporated within our Virtual Learning Environment (Digital Campus) through the Knowledge and Practice Hub (registration required). An average of 60 minutes per session.
Go to the Knowledge HubCLICK HERE to go to the Knowledge Hub. This will give you access to the resources within the Hub.If y0u are a registered user, you can use the link below to go to the main menu options. If you are also participating in a programme with Compass Leadership Limited whether individually or in partnership with your organisation, the Knowledge Hub is also linked to our Total Learning Consortium Virtual Learning Environment
Understanding the Drivers of Influence |
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| These three dimensions are important in supporting the organisations efforts to improve services and products through transformational leadership. Transformational leadership requires teams to work together towards a common purpose. This is what we describe as synergy. Drawing on the work of Buckminster Fuller, this is an exploratory strategy of starting with the whole and the known behaviour of some of its parts and then progressively discovering the integral unknowns. We support this by using the complementary process of cybernetics which is the study of control or regulation mechanisms in both human and machine systems. A key feature is that all systems (apart from the Universe) are created by humans. They are thus fallible! This process of looking at the whole and its constituent parts represents the approach more commonly known as complex adaptive systems. If we get this right it helps us to understand the characteristics of both transformational leadership and innovation and creativity. Managing risk is an important element of this but the tipping point – we suggest – is moving beyond the known knowns and focusing our attention on the unknowns. Breaking boundaries and reinventing the core business will often be required. | ||
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Explore this brief E-learning Nugget that outlines why we need to reimagine leadership, rethink our leadership style and what reinvented models of leadership we have created. | |
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This E-learning Activity walks you through the contexts for change, our approach to three dimensions of leadership based on responding to chaos and complexity. | |
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This E-learning Session offers a more comprehensive analysis of our Leadership3 model which underpins our reimaginised leadership approaches based on the presenting problem, capacity and capability and leadership styles. | |
| Click to the right if you wish to choose to read more about this subject. | ||
Understanding the How? of Leadership |
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 In simple terms, ‘Quomodo’ defines the manner or the way in which practice takes place in achieving public interest outcomes and the means adopted. It thus directly addresses the two important ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions of selfless leadership. It also assists in clarifying the ‘what’, identifying the ‘who’, defining the ‘where’ and determining the when.
The Selfless Leader (SL) briefly touched on the term quomodo in helping to define how leadership is practised and the manner in which this is done. It drew upon its’ original interrogative framework encompassing the SL’s six intelligent leadership questions (ILQs), influenced by Rudyard Kipling’s six honest serving men. You will recall that the ILQ framework was introduced at the outset of this portal. |
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This is a brief E-learning Nugget that provides you with a summary of the distinction between OWLs, NWLs and GWLs and why we need to reimagine how leadership could be. It briefly links to the increasingly popular notion of collective leadership and the anatomy of a collective leaders. | |
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In this E-learning Activity, you can explore more about the three different periods of leadership thinking and why and how we need to reimagine our leadership style from an individual to a collective style. We delve further into the anatomy of collective leaders and illustrate how this can make a difference for leading in the public interest. | |
|
An E-learning Session provides a more comprehensive analysis of the different periods of thinking and literature concerning leadership majoring on the collective leadership approach. The following sessions provide the opportunity for aligning the learning with blended learning programmes focused on collective leadership as a new way of thinking and applying leadership. | |
| Click to the right if you wish to choose to read more about this subject. | ||
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This is a brief E-learning Nugget that provides you with a brief summary of the distinction between OWLs, NWLs and GWLs. | |
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In this E-learning Activity, you can explore more about the three different periods of leadership thinking. | |
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This E-learning Session provides a more comprehensive analysis of the different periods of thinking and literature concerning leadership and provides the opportunity for aligning with blended learning programmes.. | |
| Click to the right if you wish to choose to read more about this subject. |
