It Is So Important to Develop Leadership Skills in students by Uncovering the Blind Spot of Leadership skills through case studies & group discussions. - The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

It Is So Important to Develop Leadership Skills in students by Uncovering the Blind Spot of Leadership skills through case studies & group discussions. - The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor. 

Dr Mrs Sarita A.Dhawale

Ashoka Center For Business and Computer Studies, Nashik

No one is born with all the essential leadership qualities. Becoming a good leader requires important leadership skills. Learning and developing good leadership skills as a student leader will serve the student well when they leave a learning environment and step into the business world. Whether you’re new to the role of leader or you’ve been a student leader for some time, challenge yourself to learn important skills that will make you a better leader. Leadership is about shaping and shifting how individuals and groups attend to and subsequently respond to a situation. A true leader, in my opinion, is optimistic and always see the glass half full in all circumstances in an organisation. 

Though we live in a time of massive institutional failure, collectively creating results that nobody wants. We never welcome the situation where Organisational change, Climate change. Hunger, Poverty, Violence, Terrorism which replicates a dome of issues and where the foundations of our social, economic, ecological, and spiritual wellbeing are in peril.

We shall convey to students that “Why do our attempts to deal with the challenges of our time so often fail? “ . The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the deeper dimension of leadership and transformational change. This “blind spot” exists not only in our collective leadership but also in our everyday social interactions. We are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social action come into being.

We know a great deal about what leaders do and how they do it. But we know very little about the inner place, the source from which they operate. That we need to penetrate in today’s young generations that, Successful leadership depends on the quality of attention and intention that the leader brings to any situation. To know them when two leaders in the same circumstances doing the same thing can bring about completely different outcomes, depending on the inner place from which each operates. 

I learned very late this from the author Bill O’Brien, who’d served as CEO of Hanover Insurance, “The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.”  The nature of this inner place in leaders is something of a mystery to us. 

In the arena of management and leading transformational change, we know very little about this inner dimension, and very seldom are specific techniques applied to enhance management performance from the inside out. This lack of knowledge institutes a blind spot in our approach to leadership and management. Following are some observations.

Slowing Down to Understand

At its core, leadership is about shaping and shifting how individuals and groups attend to and subsequently respond to a situation. But most leaders are unable to recognize, let alone change, the structural habits of attention used in their organizations. Learning to recognize the habits of attention in a business culture requires, among other things, a particular kind of listening. 

From last 15 years of my journey, I am observing people’s interactions in organizations, and have noted four different types of listening: downloading, factual listening, empathic listening, and generative listening. 

Listening 1: Downloading

“Yeah, I know that already.” I call this type of listening downloading—listening by reconfirming habitual judgments. When everything you hear confirms what you already know, you are listening by downloading. 

Listening 2: Factual

“Ooh, look at that!” This type of listening is factual or object-focused: listening by paying attention to facts and to novel or disconfirming data. You switch off your inner voice of judgment and focus on what differs from what you already know. Factual listening is the basic mode of good science. You let the data talk to you. You ask questions, and you pay careful attention to the responses you get.

Listening 3: Empathic

“Oh, yes, I know exactly how you feel.” This deeper level of listening is empathic listening. When we are engaged in real dialogue and paying careful attention, we can become aware of a profound shift in the place from which our listening originates. Sometimes, when we say “I know how you feel,” our emphasis is on a kind of mental or abstract knowing. But it requires an open heart to really feel how another feels. 

Listening 4: Generative

“I can’t express what I experience in words. My whole being has slowed down. I feel quieter and more present and more my real self. I am connected to something larger than myself.” This type of listening connects us to an even deeper realm of emergence. It is called as “generative listening,” 

Deep Attention and Awareness require for Leadership:

To be effective leaders, we must first understand the field, or inner space, from which we are operating. These differing structures affect not only the way we listen but also how group members communicate with one another, and how institutions form their geometries of power to be united together for common organisational goal.

• Thinking (individual)

• Conversing (group)

• Structuring System (Institutions)

• Ecosystem coordination (Global systems)

Most systems, organizations, and societies today lack the two essentials that enable us to play the macro violin: 

(1) Leaders who convene the right sets of players (frontline people who are connected with one another through the same value chain)

 (2) A social technology that allows a multi-stakeholder gathering to shift from debating to co-creating the new.

With the central component of being a leader being to understand and accept the fact that you now have responsibilities that can affect a wide range of people, leaders must see to it that they’re getting the best out of everyone in their group. Thus, if one group member fails to complete a task, it is the leader’s responsibility to hold that person accountable while still finding a way for that task to be completed. Hence it is very important to develop leadership skills in students to develop sense of responsibility.

In summary, Theory U illuminates a hidden dimension of leadership—the inner place from which leaders operate. Profound change today not only requires a shift of the mind, it requires a shift of will and a shift of the heart. I have come to refer to this deeper shift as being able to facilitate that shift is the essence of leadership today.