Mapping the Leadership Journey
When you talk to the average leader in business or in ministry, one thing is certain, the life of a leader is more like a journey into uncharted territory than a plotted course of rational and clear decisions that tell the leader what to do and where to go next. For this reason, leaders’ journeys takes them to the edge of themselves, their competence, their understanding, their experience; and offers them exciting challenges, opportunities for growth, heartbreak, self-doubt, self-renewal, and the potential to do something really significant at key turning points in their careers. Although their individual stories may differ, the journeys share many of the same defining moments.
What if it were possible to offer leaders a map or guidebook that captured the experiences of others who had walked these paths before them, highlighting the lessons learned along the way and the perspective that allowed them to move forward? This map would allow leaders to navigate the key steps in their journey, with the help of other leaders who were willing to offer their advice, personal stories, challenges on the path, and the potential that opened up to them as they approached the horizon. What if you or the leaders around you could access that map? From the beginning, Project Aduro has focused on documenting the leadership journey and building maps to help leaders move deliberately toward whatever horizon they have identified for themselves and their organizations.
How Leaders Really Develop
The majority of leadership development doesn’t happen in a classroom; it happens on-the-job, in trial-by-fire experiences that push leaders to the edge of their comfort zones. Yet, most organizations and leaders continue to focus the majority of their resources on management training programs, never leveraging the rich developmental terrain in which they operate every day. Likewise, the church continues to rely heavily on seminary to develop pastoral leadership skills; then offering little beyond books and the occasional seminar to pastors in the following years.
Project Aduro is focused on developing the resources and tools that leaders can use to navigate through leadership challenges and capture the lessons that are passing them by. Our vision is to provide catalysts that leaders can use to discover their own potential and release the potential of the leaders who they are responsible for.
Our Focus
Project Aduro is dedicated to (1) driving research to identify how business and not-for-profit leaders can leverage the key experiences and challenges that they face to develop their leadership potential in real-time; and (2) converting this knowledge into practical resources and tools that leaders can use to maximize their development. Project Aduro work falls into three focus areas:
Business Leaders: Building research, resources and tools that business leaders can use to fully leverage experience to maximize their own development and build organizational systems to strategically leverage on-the-job experience for all leaders in their organization.
Pastoral Leaders: Conducting research to identify the key experiences in the development of pastors and building resources and tools that help them navigate through these events, emerging stronger on the other side.
Christian Leaders: Building resources and tools that Christian business and not-for-profit leaders can use throughout their own leadership journey to grow as leaders and respond to their vocational calling – leadership that makes a difference.
Project Research & Deliverables
Pastoral Leadership Development
What are the critical developmental moments for Pastors after seminary? What are the most important turning points in their development as leaders and as followers of Christ? What advice would pastors who have gone before them offer? This agenda was launched in 2005 through two research grants provided through the Lilly Foundation. Our work has focused on the developmental journey of senior pastors within the church.
Phase 1: Research Agenda (Including previously funded projects): These research topics will be published in research and popular journals and provide the foundation for forthcoming books.
The Pastoral Journey: Identifying the key events that are critical in the development of senior pastors and the lessons important lessons they have learned along the way.
Learning Agility: Strategies Pastors Can Use to Maximize their Development (Previously funded project): Research on how pastors can navigate through the key events in their development capture the leadership lessons that may be passing them by every day.
Pastoral Effectiveness: Identifying the individual and organizational measures of success in pastoral leadership.
Phase 2: The Pastor’s Leadership Journey (Book): Each chapter will highlight the key experiences in the pastor’s journey. The book will include description of the events, real stories, the lessons to be learned, and questions that pastors can use to reflect on their own leadership journey.
Phase 3: Seminary/Denominational Curriculum Development: The development of an on-the-job development course for pastors that will utilize the tools and research identified in the first four phases of this project. This course, integrated into seminary curriculum, will focus on preparing pastoral leaders for the high pressure situations and developmental opportunities they will face in their leadership roles. The course will also identify areas of strength, area for development, and give pastors the opportunity to identify their own learning strategies on the job.
Phase 4: Pastoral Leadership Development Website and Tools: The development of an interactive website portal where pastors will have access to resources to help them navigate their ongoing leadership journey. This site will allow pastors to identify their current leadership challenges, strategies to navigate through the challenges, and the lessons they will be challenged to learn. This site will build online mentoring groups and advisory boards for each pastor The content will translate the research findings into resources and tools that seminaries, denominational leadership, and pastors themselves can use to grow in their leadership skills.
Business and Non-Profit Leadership Development
If you could only focus on two things to ensure that 1) your business would still exist five years from now and, 2) your business was a place that was worth working for, what are the two things you would do? For many of us, the answer would be find people with the greatest leadership potential, and then develop that potential using cutting edge tools, conversations, and resources. Now, ask yourself this question….how do you develop leadership potential? The team at Project Aduro has spent the last decade studying the developmental journey of hundreds of leaders and built tools, processes and resources with one question in mind. How do we create proven strategies and resources that leaders will use as they run their business, effective, and engaging? The phases below outline our work in this area over the next three years.
Phase 1: Leadership Development On the Edge (book): The chapters in this book will focus on how leaders can strategically identify the key experiences in their development, navigate through them, and emerge with significantly greater leadership capacity on the other side.
Phase 2: Leadership Development Tools & Website: Develop a website portal that leaders cant use to build customized development maps that utilize the experience of others leaders we have studied. This portal would allow leaders and organizational members to build networks and advisory boards, to import other feedback they have received, and map the next steps in their journey that not only fulfill their developmental goals, but also ensure that their leadership is making a difference. Resources and tools will include:
Leadership Development Outside of the Classroom: Research-based tools that leaders can use to help themselves and their team capture the learning and development that is passing them by every day.
Building a Learning-Rich Organizational Culture: Guidebook and process for creating a stretch culture in your organization.
Leading Under Pressure: Assessment and tool for leading when it matters most.
Leading on the Edge: Tool focused on making the most of your experiences when you are at the edge.
Learning from Experience Assessment and Tool: A tool leaders can use to assess their development to date against the experiences and lessons learned by others, as well as a build a deliberate strategy for their future development.
Phase 3: Leveraging On-the-Job Leadership Development in Your Company (book): This book will focus on how organizations can build systems to strategically leverage on-the-job development of leaders in their company to build the leaders that are needed today and in the future.
Partnering with Organizations (Ongoing): Help organizations build systems of on-the-job development aligned with their business strategy to identify the experiences, leadership competencies, and relationships that are critical to develop leaders in their organization.
Christian Leadership Development
What does it mean to be a Christian business leader? How have your experiences impacted the way you lead today, your calling and vocation, and the things that matter most to you in your work and life? How are you different as a leader as a result of Christ’s presence in every aspect of your work? What does leadership development have to do with you as a leader in business? We believe that God is present in every aspect of your work and life, and not just the times when you are expressing your faith with co-workers. What if developing others were a part of your calling as a business leader? What would you need to develop the potential in those you lead? This aspect of our work is focused on understanding the developmental journey of Christian organizational leaders and the impact of their faith on their own development, the lessons they have learned in the development of others, and their pursuit of significance in their leadership.
Phase 1: Research on the Developmental Journey of Christian Business Leaders: Replication of the Pastoral study focusing the new work on 100 Christian business leaders. Additional research questions will include issues related to vocation, faith integration in work, strategies for leading in adversity, and measures of leadership significance. Two published papers will be completed at the end of the project along with a curriculum for two workshops.
Phase 2: Driving for Results and Driving to Make a Difference: Research-Based Strategies for Success and Significance (Book): This book will focus on the struggles that Christian leaders face to make a difference in their work in the face of so many challenges. How do they move from success to significance and bring calling to their leadership role?
Phase 3: Christian Leadership Development Website (potential integration with the pastoral development website): The development of a website portal where Christian business and non-profit leaders can create and update their personal development plan. This site would allow leaders to identify their current leadership challenge, the lessons other leaders said were most important to learn in each challenge, and the personal strategies and situational factors that made these experiences such rich learning opportunities. The site would also offer the possibility of creating an online mentoring group and advisory board for each leader. Mentors and network members could provide advice on specific events, make suggestions to the leader’s development plan, highlight other network connections, etc.
Project Aduro –Founding Partners
Robert B. McKenna is Chair of the Department of Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University and serves as a consultant to a variety of organizations in the areas of leadership development and organizational change. A sampling of his clients includes The Boeing Company, Microsoft, Foster Farms, the United Way, and a broad range of denominational churches. Dr. McKenna’s most recent publications include a chapter in The 21st Century Executive: Innovative Practices for Building Leaders at the Top, and several research and popular articles on the topic of leading during time of adversity, chaos, and pressure. Dr. McKenna has had the opportunity to present his experience and research to managers and executives at all levels of responsibility. He believes that whether you are a new employee, a first line manager, or CEO of the organization, you and your organization are best served if you are fully engaged in your job and all aspects of your life, challenged on a daily basis, and finding meaning in your work. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Claremont Graduate University.
For Dr. McKenna’s vita, go to
http://www.spu.edu/depts/spfc/aboutus/facultydir/McKenna_05.pdf
Paul R. Yost is Senior Research Specialist in the People and Organization Capability group at Microsoft where his work includes leadership talent management, executive assessment, leadership performance metrics, and other ongoing research. He is also an Associate Professor of Organizational Psychology at Seattle Pacific University. Before Microsoft, Paul was with the Boeing Company where his work focused on leadership development, learning from experience, leadership program design and evaluation, and administration of the corporate employee survey. Previous experience includes work in managerial training, assessment centers, team effectiveness, and selection systems in positions held at GEICO and Battelle Research. Dr. Yost received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Maryland.
For Dr. Yost’s vita, go to http://www.spu.edu/depts/spfc/aboutus/facultydir/documents/Yost06.pdf#search=%22Paul%20Yost%22
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