Mentoring in a Systemic Leadership Context

These thoughts inspired by "Leaders urge airmen to turn to peer mentors" from the USAF AIM Points (here)

Mentoring is a key concept in transformational leadership. Mentoring, in the personal communication mode, that leads to the development of personnel into what the larger organization needs them to be can be very powerful. I have personally sought out my own mentors, choosing those who have excelled, lead successful projects, and do so composure and tact. By looking towards these people, I hope to learn their lessons and being applying them in my own way.

Mandatory mentoring, on the other hand, tends to become a "check the box" activity. In different circumstances, I saw other people do their mandatory mentoring with people they didn't know and not caring to learn from them. My wife always hated her mandatory mentoring sessions with women in higher-up management roles - you see, my wife wanted to become a master engineer, and wanted nothing to do with supervision and management. She couldn't learn what she needed to succeed from her mentor.

Ultimately, the organization does need to place value on people getting a chance to mentor and be mentored. This enables the training of the next generation to be done "above the line", and not have the mentor and mentored feel like they are "slacking". But if too much value is placed on mentoring, the activity runs the risk of becoming an organizational mandate, a contingent-reward, or worse - a directed activity.

Does your organization do mentoring? How do you feel about your mentoring relationships? Read More......

Initial Foray into Systemic Leadership

Systemic Leadership is a theoretical leadership construct being developed by Captain DeWitt Latimer and myself. It did not spring forth fully formed but rather has evolved based on the realities of leadership in the 21st century. We will be providing additional and extensive materials that help develop the theoretical framework for the theory as the blog expands. However, before I address the theoretical model I would like to provide the readers with insight into the components that have helped to formulate this theory.

It would be difficult for any theory to spring forth unparented and the development of Systemic Leadership is no exception to that rule. In the following series of blog entries I will be discussing the relevance, content , and current impact of the following theories; (a) the Living Systems Theory developed by James G. Miller, (b) the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator developed by Katharine Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, (c) Psychological Types developed by Charles G. Jung, (d) Transformational Leadership developed by James M. Burns, and (e) the Full Range of Leadership developed by Bernard Bass and James Avolio. These are the principal theoretical underpinnings to Systemic Leadership.

Before I enter into a discussion of this construct I would like to make sure that the readers understand that Systemic Leadership (SL) is not attempting to present just another leadership theory. There are certainly more than enough theories about leaders and leadership to keep multitudes of leadership researchers occupied and equally numerous self-help leadership ventures to provide seminars a-plenty that purport to have the answer to good/sound/effective leadership. I classify the sponsors of all such theoretical work to either be academic leadership researchers or leadership consultants. The one keeps expanding the scope of questions about leadership as a concept while the other provides canned answers (processes) to prospective leaders or interested lay people.

SL as a theory has a much more pragmatic purpose in mind - to provide the necessary leverage to managers and leaders in their pursuit of organizational and task success. DeWitt and I have made a pact between us that this work will have application relevance from the very beginning or the work will not continue!

We welcome you, the readers, to participate in the further development and continued refinement of Systemic Leadership Theory. Leaders have demonstrated across the centurys that leadership theories have a limited place in the grand scheme of things but they need to be more relevant if we are to understand how leadership becomes a real lever for success in the 21st century. Read More......