In Learning Moments we look at the emerging field of NeuroLeadership and a tool to measure resilience. In Did You Know?  we announce our new look website.  We introduce you to our latest coach in Meet the AnD Coaches, and the Good Read in this edition is an article on how talented women make a difference. Our  AnD Stories are called the Dance of Diversity and the Cape Crusader – who is Noel Pearson.

LEARNING MOMENTS

Kate writes:

NeuroLeadership

A NeuroLeadership Institute has been established with the research objective of improving leadership effectiveness by developing a science for leadership and leadership development that takes into account the physiology of the mind and the brain – an area thus far ignored in management and leadership research.

The institute is taking an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the neural basis of leadership and management practices such as decision making, problem solving, emotional regulation, collaborating with and influencing others and the process of facilitating change.  See neuroleadership.org 

Adversity Quotient

The Psychology section of the May ’08 edition of BOSS magazine asks:  “if you accidentally delete an important email, on a scale of one to five, how long will the consequences of this last? – one is ‘forever’ and five is ‘quickly passes’ ?”  Your answer to this and about 100 other questions will demonstrate your capacity for resilience and can form the basis of a profile called your Adversity Quotient (AQ).

Developed by Paul Stoltz, the AQ Profile covers  responses to small disasters such as spilling your coffee all over yourself through to the trauma of the death of a loved one.  The profile measures four dimensions of resilience:  Control, Ownership, Reach and Endurance. 

Stolz (peaklearning.com): Who wins?  The person who has the right combination of AQ, virtues and strengths.  .. If you have the right strengths as a human being, do the right things, have AQ to bring those out consistently … you’ll live to be a highly respected and admirable, if not great, human being.

DID YOU KNOW?

Our website (andconsulting.org) has had a face lift!  It has a new design courtesty of Bush Digital Branding and Marketing that matches the look of our coaching and promotion documents.  The text has been culled, the testimonials have been updated and we have focussed our minds on the importance of having key words in the text to make AnD easily found online. 

The Value Adding newsletter is also included as a blog so take a look at http://andconsulting.org/blog and let us know what you think.

MEET THE AnD COACHES

AnD Consulting is best descrbed as a virtual organisation It works on a collaborative model with Kate Ramsay as MD and Lead Coach being supported by associate coaches.  Each associate coach is  accredited in AnD’s Leadership Coaching methodology and they take coaching referrals from AnD on a commission basis.

There are now ten AnD Associate Coaches who are based in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and northern NSW.  Our newest member is Melbourne based and his name is Russell Fakira.  Take a look at the About Us section of AnD’s website to learn more about Russell and the nine other AnD coaches.

A GOOD READ

Kate writes: For those of you who share my concern that the number of women in executive roles in corporate Australia remains low  Centered Leadership: How talented women thrive is worth a look.  It was in the number 4, 2008 edition of The McKinsey Quarterly.  Written by Joanne  Barsh, Susie Cranston and Rebecca A. Craske it describes how the McKinsey Leadership Project set out to find what drives and sustains successful female leaders. The purpose of the project was to find ways to help younger women navigate their paths to leadership as well as to find some new ways that organizations can retain their high potential women. 

The project team acknowledged three characteristics that particularly distinguish women from their male counterparts in the workplace:  women more often opt out, they carry the double burden of motherhood and management and they tend to experience more emotional ups and downs than most men. 

The project interviewed 85 women around the world who are successful in diverse fields.  Some lead 10,000 people or more, others five or even fewer but each of these women has the goal of making a difference in the wider world.  As well as the interviews, the team   looked at the academic literature, consulted experts in leadership, psychology, organizational behaviour and biology and conferred with hundreds of colleagues at McKinsey. 

From the data generated the project team developed a model called Centered Leadership.  The model has five broad and interrelated dimensions that are brought alive in the article through case studies about some of the 85 women interviewed.  The dimensions are:

Meaning – finding your strengths and putting them to work in the service of an inspiring purpose.

Managing energy – knowing where your energy comes from, where it goes, and what you can do to manage it.

Positive framing – adopting a more constructive way to view your world, expand your horizons and gain the resilience to move ahead even when bad things happen.

Connecting – identifying who can help you grow, building stronger relationships, and increasing your sense of belonging.

Engaging – finding your voice, becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities and the inherent risks they bring, and collaborating with others.

At the time of writing McKinsey had introduced the Centered Leadership model to a thousand women and half as many men in regional and global learning programs.  As a result some participants had sought sponsors for the first time, others were giving their careers greater focus by putting up their hands for new projects and many reported an increase in their energy and motivation.   Surely all good early signs that the program is having an impact.

Contact Kate if  you would like the article.

TWO AnD STORIES

AnD Consulting is named to represent an and/both way of being rather than the either/or way our western conditioning taught us.  When we view the world through an and/both lens we can embrace concepts that would otherwise appear to be mutually exclusive to each other. 

To illustrate this and/both mindset in action our first AnD story is from an essay in the Sep/Oct, 2008 edition of Resurgence Magazine – Diverse Solutions for the 21st century (resurgence.org).  Satish Kumar, in a piece on sustainability called the Dance of Diversity writes: 

The way forward is in the harmonious relationship between

Ecology and economy

Idealism and realism

Nature and culture

Environment and development

Tradition and progress

Unity and diversity.

Our second AnD story, called Cape Crusader, is taken from an essay written by John Hirst in the June, 2009 edition of The Australian Literary Review.  It is about Noel Pearson and his book Up from the Mission: Selected Writings (Black Inc). 

Hirst suggests Pearson gives the most considered account of his position on the way forward for his people in a chapter in his book called The Quest for a Radical Centre. The chapter explores the tension in social policy between rights versus responsibilities, social order versus liberty, efficiency versus equality, and structure versus behaviour and he pronounces, “the resolution of each … lies in their dialectical synthesis, not in the absolute triumph of one side or in a weak compromise”. 

Pearson believes that to achieve this synthesis there must be constant tension between pragmatism and idealism:

Lofty idealism without pragmatism is worthless. What is pragmatism without idealism?  At best it is management, but not leadership.”

Food for thought indeed to leaders all!