Applied Leadership Development Program
  • Home
  • Core Programs
    • Applied Leadership Development Program (ALDP)
    • Relationship Training
    • Executive Coaching
  • Products
    • Books
    • Leadership 360 Assessment
    • Motivation Assessment
    • Relationship Support Assessment
    • Versatility Assessment
  • Leadership Insights
    • How is Our CEO Performing?
    • Breaking the 4th Wall of Inequality
    • Be Mindful of Socialized Observations
    • Becoming a Leader Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
    • Unsheltering The Organization: Collaboration vs. Coordination
    • COVID-19 Time Is on My (Our) Side
    • Distress In A High VUCA Coronavirus Pandemic
    • Diversity is Not Just a Numbers Game
    • Resolving Conflicts Like a Grownup
    • Your Career in the 2020’s: Roaring, Boring or Crashing
    • Nine-Step Leadership Guide to a Beautiful Holiday Family Gathering
    • Can Companies Afford to Leave Relationships Among Employees to Chance?
    • BP’s Leaves Alaska – Leadership Lessons
    • It’s All About The Glow
    • Leadership “Top 40”
    • Leading a Holiday Family Gathering
    • Versatility: A New Imperative for Leaders
    • Fracturing the Ice
    • Dumb and Dumber
    • Is Your Team “High Performing?”
    • The Cure for Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
    • Leadership in a Fortune Cookie
    • Trump’s Empathy
    • United Airlines: A System Failure?
    • Leadership Above the Clouds
    • Fake News
    • Lessons for Leaders
    • Wells Fargo’s “Scandal”
    • Destressifying
    • A Topical Update
    • Empathic Effort vs. Empathic Accuracy
    • That “Culture Thing”
    • Governors as Leaders- Leadership Insight
    • Organization Transformation
    • Own Your Self Story
    • Are You Talking to Your Boss?
    • Ask for a raise?
    • What Message are You Sending? The role of messaging in performance management.
    • GM Leadership Lesson Update
    • Something Went Wrong With The Process
    • Outliers and Behavior
  • Speaking
  • About
    • Why Us?
    • Our Team
    • The 9 Steps
    • Testimonials
    • News
      • Frontiers 184: Beyond BP – The Next Chapter
      • C.A.P. Podcast on Leadership for Women Entrepreneurs
      • Interview with Houston Business Journal: Here’s what makes a great CEO
      • Interview with Executive Leadership
      • Press Releases
      • Interview with Central Valley Business Times
      • William McKnight Interview
      • We Are What We Do
      • Leadership is About Behavior at Happi
      • Happi
  • Contact
19
Dec

Outliers and Behavior

Posted by Al Bolea in Uncategorized with 0 comments.

A client suggested a book by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success.  I found the book insightful and the first five chapters are highly relevant for leadership.

Those of you who have attended the Applied Leadership Seminar know that I do not believe that leaders are “naturally born.”  My position is that leadership is about behavior which is (and can be) acquired.  If a person adopts the behavior of great leaders then they will become one.  The distance one has to travel to become proficient as a leader varies greatly depending on each person’s starting point, but in all cases it requires hard work.  In the seminar I provide a model for hard work based on research done by neuroscientist David Rock.  The model is as follow:

Positive Behavioral Change = (Experience + Expectation) x Attention x Veto Power

…where

Experience is about practicing new behaviors until they become hardwired,

Expectation is about the belief in one’s potential to grow,

Attention is about focusing new behaviors broadly in one’s life, and

Veto Power is about choosing to stop poor leadership behaviors.

Deploying the model results in behavioral shifts as neurons and synapses are created in the brain (mental maps) initially after as few as three repetitions of the new behavior.

Gladwell’s Outliers provides more depth to a few aspects of the neurological model.  Through references to academic research and a biographical analysis of the lives and careers of Bill Joy (Sun Microsystem founder), Mozart, The Beatles, Bill Gates, and chess grandmaster, Bobby Fischer, Gladwell illustrates that:

Experience and Attention:  People who get to the very top in any field don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else…they work much, much harder.  Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good.  It’s the thing you do that makes you good.  The 10,000-Hour Rule:  studies have concluded that 10,000 hours of practice are required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert in anything.  It takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to achieve true mastery.

Expectation:  Extraordinary achievement is less about talent than it is about opportunity.   These opportunities are co-created through relationships with people, places and things that move outwards and shape a person’s reality over time. Intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated.  Low achievers neither lack something expensive or impossible to find, nor something hardwired innately in their brains.  At a critical point in their development they lacked relationships within a community around them that could have prepared them for excellence in the world.  For those who lacked this community, if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape your own opportunities.

I recommend the book for all aspiring leaders and those who wish to nurture the potential in their children, loved ones, friends, staff, colleagues and their organization.

[ssba] [ssba_hide]
  • 0

There are no comments so far

Leave a Comment

Don't worry. We never use your email for spam.

Don't worry. We never use your email for spam.


becoming-a-leader-nine-elements-of-leadership-mastery by al bolea and leanne atwater

New Edition: Becoming a Leader: Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery

Becoming a Leader: Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery is a must-have resource for practicing managers, consultants, and practitioners, as well as applicable to graduate and undergraduate courses on leadership. Read More ►

Order Today

applied leadership development book by al bolea and leanne atwater

Wow! This work transcends typical book text to become a development experience with self-assessment exercises for old, new, and next-generation leaders. True to its title, Applied Leadership Development delivers plenty of applications in the art and science of leadership. Read More ►

Order Today

Latest Posts

  • How is Our CEO Performing?
  • Breaking the 4th Wall of Inequality
  • Be Mindful of Socialized Observations
  • Becoming a Leader Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
  • Unsheltering The Organization: Collaboration vs. Coordination
  • COVID-19 Time Is on My (Our) Side
  • Distress In A High VUCA Coronavirus Pandemic

Sign up to receive Leadership Insight articles.

Contact

ALDP©
Applied Leadership Development Program
Copyright 2016 · Applied Leadership Development Program |