Genesis of a leader

An example of a growth as a leader

This narrative is a personal story of the writer’s own growth as a leader when serving the Finnish Defence Forces as an officer 1984 – 2012. For reference purposes, stages are reflected three growth models: John Maxwell’s (2011), Jim Collins (2001) and Bill Torbert’s (2004). The paper has two goals: 1) to illustrate evolution of a leader and importance of reflection, 2) to provide references for learning, self-reflection, and self-control.(Pardon me for not being able to include the footnotes with this version)

Short introduction to growth models for leadership

John C. Maxwell is approaching leadership modelling it with five following levels of maturity . His model is providing a clear base for development and values as a leader. He recognises that each level includes the previous levels, and leadership is built by accumulating them in each situation. The following matrix is illustrating Maxwell’s five levels as a leader.

Levels	Features
5. Pinnacle	These leaders have reputation and respect. They use intuition and time their effect intentionally. It requires to develop followers rather than lead followers. They create a legacy within the organization, extended platform for leading.
4. People Development	The key thing is empowering others. Leaders use their position, relationships, and productivity to invest in their followers and develop them until they become leaders. Teamwork is highly appreciated as tasks are distributed but responsibility is centralized. Growth is built by developing people with vision that inspires. This level allows the leader to take larger responsibilities.
3. Production	Leader gains influence and credibility by getting work done and goals achieved. The leader becomes a change agent: tackle problems, support people to the new level of effectiveness. There is a danger in doing things oneself and not with people and forgetting to take care of relationships.
2. Permission	The level is defined by relationships. Treating people as individuals with value provides ground for influence. Gradually there is trust growing between leader and her people as they become more familiar with each other. Leader switches from “Me” to “We” and openness creates the positive working environment. Permission seeking leaders may appear too soft and indecisive.
1. Position	An entry level of all leaders. Position as a manager is based on rights granted by position, title, and rank. Position based “boss/chief” has subordinates who are controlled with rules, policies, and regulations. The level is an invitation to growth for a possible leader. Staying at this level may lead to emphasizing manager’s rights more than responsibilities.

 
Jim Collins with his team analysed all Fortune 500 companies from 1965 to 1995 and found eleven good to great examples . Then the team analysed those 11 with their hypothesis model of six features where leadership was the first. They defined features for level 5 leadership that were an enabler for companies to break from good to great. The levels are explained in the following matrix.

Levels	Features
5 Executive	Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
4 Effective leader	Catalyses commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards.
3 Competent manager	Organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.
2 Contributing team member	Contributes individual capabilities to the achievements of group objectives and work effectively with others in a group setting.
1 Highly capable individual	Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits.

 
Bill Torbert and his team created an action inquiry – a systems thinking approach to describe transformation of a leader . The development process was tested in Boston College. Unlike other models, this provides a roadmap of different paths between stages but for the purpose of this narrative, the model has been simplified to linear growth as illustrated in the following matrix.

Levels	Main features
7 Alchemist	Moves between levels and utilizes the best applicable action-logic to the situation and group. Meets each situation at the pace and action logic of the group he is interacting. Ability to transform the pace and focus of the current conversation or meeting. Seeks analogies across different domains and promoting collaboration using his spiritual energy. Stands in the tension of opposites and aims to blend them. Has grown beyond his ego and promotes the society and higher values.
6 Strategist	Is more self-aware of action and time. He uses all four conventional approaches when the situation requires and aligns individual, team and organizational goals. He recognises levels of other people and enables their development. He allows others to make mistakes but assures that they will learn from them both at behavioural and strategical levels. Strategist consciously seeks new ways of framing opportunities, dilemmas, and conflicts. He actively seeks resolutions both inner and outer paradoxes and tries to use apparent conflict as empowering leverage. Strategists expressions are spontaneous, both genuine and intense. His focus is on the continuous development of himself and others.
5 Individualist A transition phase	Takes relativistic perspective focusing on both present and historical context. He feels conflicting emotions when facing situations and seeks independence, creative work. He is attracted by difference and change more than similarity and stability.  He influences more by listening and finding patterns rather than advocacy. May not provide certainty and firm leadership often expected by more conventionally oriented employees.
Threshold of self-awareness and self-control
4 Achiever	Works with 1-3 year period juggling creatively with shorter time goals. He shifts between planning, performing and assessing to gain outcomes that matter. Achiever makes incremental, single loop changes in behaviour to eventually reaching the planned results. Satisfaction occurs when “I have achieved outcomes by successfully juggling with quick wins, agreed-on deadlines, and efficient work”. Achiever seeks more long-term effectiveness than short-term efficiency. Achiever values more teamwork and agreements reached through consensus. He welcomes feedback and seeks mutuality in relationships with co-workers. He might though be myopic in comprehending the feedback and does not easily deviate from his proven mind models.
3 Expert	Concentrates on a strategic level as he is improving in mastering his discipline. He emprises projects from 6 months to 12 months by wielding logistical power. He feels satisfaction when “I accomplished the task as efficiently as possible”. The expert does not identify himself with the group but seeks to stand out from others. They are typically hard project workers, seek completion of the task, and willing to learn from experts more acknowledged than themselves. Experts are perfectionists or competitors that find hard to work in teams. They also find it very uncomfortable to work outside their area of mastery.
2 Diplomat	Concentrates on performance by gaining self-control to act effectively. He seeks high-status group members and tries to imitate their routines. The basis of his authority is norms and routines of his organization. He concentrates on routine tasks and feels satisfaction, when he is on time for work, meeting or completing the routine task. He takes the values of significant others the highest good. Behavioural skills – right moves and words in right times – are main tools towards acceptance. At best diplomat provides reliability, loyalty, and goodwill that improves trust and morale in the organization. Diplomats avoid negative situations, cannot criticize others, or question group norms.
1 Opportunist	Concentrates on the physical world and trying to gain control over it. He has short time horizon when trying to grasp opportunities and firefight emergencies as they occur. The opportunist achieves his goal when declaring “I won”. At best opportunist is good at short-term actions to unchartered areas in work. Longer-term these short-term wins will appear to be costly. Opportunist typically avoids responsibility and seeks externalizing blame.

Next chapters are narrating particular features through four stages that writer has lived through last four decades. These features are projected over the levels and descriptions of above three growth paths in intention to show that person can improve his managerial and leadership skills. 

Stage of maturity
Maxwell’s	Position>	Permission	Production	People	Pinnacle
Collins	Individual	Team member	Manager	Leader	Executive
Torbert’s	Opportunist	Diplomat	Expert	Achiever	Individualist	Strategist	Alchemist

The three models have implemented into the same matrix, but their levels or stages are not normalised, so they are not comparable. Bolded, big font indicates the stage and arrow (>) points towards possible transformation as a leader and a person.
 

My story

When I was in my twenties just out from Military College, I thought that being the best operator of all technical systems and leading by excellent example in accomplishing were the only things needed to be a successful leader of Signal troops. I hated every undefined feature in Signals procedures and spent hours in writing how things should be done. I pressed my subordinates with both lengthy instructions and dynamic behaviour. I competed against my peers and superiors in being most skilful, strong and strict young officer in the field of Signals business. 

Up to a certain level, everything went well. Conscripts followed my instructions, sometimes out of fear towards my temper and overarching skills, and sometimes just to get things over with and return to barracks. My peers did not like me because of constant competition, and I did not gain any close friendship with them. My superiors either disliked me and turned their attention somewhere else or trusted me and gave me freedom of action.

I felt left alone with my role of being the best. Gradually, I changed my behaviour to be more supportive towards my peers. I shared my work with them and helped them in their problems. I teamed up with some splendid fellows to study together, and we all were successfully in gaining entrance to General Staff College. I learned that sharing will enable collegial support, and that will get you further than selfish hoarding of information and constant comparison and competition.

Later I realized that I had been risen to behave like that. The whole education system was driven by recognition of individual success .  Through my entire education, competition among students was constant as we were judged every time in exercises, exams, and tests. Only in conscript training some credit was gained by the team as we were together able to survive in skiing through the dark forest, settling a camp and countering an enemy attack just before sunrise. Even that was ruined, when bonus holidays were given based on individual success in shooting, running or exams. Team sociology  was educated at Military College only in theory when competition between cadets was constant, and only sanctions were addressed on team bases. 

After graduation from Military College, I was given a task to compose integrated teams of signal out of a heterogeneous group of conscripts under my responsibility. I did not have any practical experience on building team integrity, but taking them out into the woods, and assigning them with challenges to overcome, were producing results. Otherwise my expert skills and the way of using them to humiliate my conscripts or peers were only counterproductive.

Transfor- mation	Twenties
Maxwell’s	Position>	Permission	Production	People	Pinnacle
Collins	Individual>	Team member	Manager	Leader	Executive
Torbert’s	Opportunist	Diplomat	>Expert	Achiever	Individualist	Strategist	Alchemist

When I was in my thirties, just out from General Staff College and an eager student of telecommunications technology, I thought that, if I just make sense of every technical detail and compose them properly as a system, I would be able to build a better world. I spend hours in making sense of complex C4I systems, designing better information and telecommunications structures, and defining better processes for telecommunications network operations. I drafted orders that gave very detailed instructions on how to install routers and modems within telco facilities. I thought that strict project management was the key to success. People and systems would bend to my will if they were just managed in a strictest and controlled way all the time.

By collaborating with my peers and subordinates, I was successful in building technical systems, but almost all attempts to change the behaviour of people were failing. I tried to create bridges between telecommunications and information technology people. I provided them with designs combining telecommunications and information technology. I described them use cases, where both network and session engineering was needed to make whole OSI-stack functioning. I had no success in getting them closer and cooperating. Not even having their rooms on the same aisle made any changes to their confrontation. I tried to introduce common processes to improve their combined service production with no results. I was doing my best in sense making and designing systems. I spend nights in drawing logical charts on how processes should be running. Although all logic was speaking towards the change, people were afraid, not sharing the same language or distrusting each other. Moreover, I was not able to take them into the forest to overcome shared challenges.
I threw myself into studies of change management  and iterative development . There I found my first understanding and tools to lead changes by using my personality and human social behaviour . I abandoned strive for significant, one-time change and went after evolution with smaller steps.  I invited people in exercises to share their problems and seek for combined solutions. I spoke with people, visited their sites of work, listened to them, and recognised their skills and achievements. I was seeking their permission to lead them forward.

Later, I realized that I was educated to approach all subjects in a systematic way. All the education in General Staff College and the University of Technology was preparing me to understand and design  material and immaterial systems , not more complex systems that are a mixture of people, machines, and their interrelationships. I was provided with many tools to change technical systems but non to support human being in leaving his/her area of comfort. My communication was based only on analytical and logical facts, and they were not enough to move people from their comfort zones they had built in their history. 
I did not touch their feelings, changed their attitudes, nor was I able to help them to process their fears of new and unclear future. My education was perceiving a human being just as a piece of machinery that followed technical procedures . With my rational explanations and demands, I was seen more as a threat than as a leader that would take everyone along a safe journey towards the better future.

Transfor- mation	Thirties
Maxwell’s	Position	Permission	Production	People	Pinnacle
Collins	Individual	Team member>	Manager	Leader	Executive
Torbert’s	Opportunist	Diplomat	Expert	Achiever	Individualist	Strategist	Alchemist

When I was in my forties, I thought that managing programmes, making sense of everything, meeting people and telling stories of safe roads and better futures were the keys to making things to happen.  I was managing programmes  of hundreds of millions of euros, which were meant to change the behaviour  of thousands of people. Since timetable was tight and I had to detach money from current operations to finance the change, I was forced to use much outside help in planning and executing the transformation. I did manage changes through the whole DOTMLPFII  sphere extending over four years. The transformation was done incrementally, and I did my best to walk my talk among people.  

I was lucky to work with some bright individuals and able people. The technical transformation was achieved according to the schedule partly also because it was executed supported by outside professionals - best in Finland. However, I failed miserably with my people. I was thinking of combined effort of mine and outside professionals within integrated project teams. In the planning phase, my people took the role of audition rather than co-planning. In the design phase, they adapted role of judgement and critic rather than sharing information and gaining competence. In the implementation phase, they were good only to comment proceedings and achievements from seats of stand. In the operation phase, they were incapable of taking over the new systems and their administration as an organization. I had to hand pick individuals amongst them and assign responsibilities in the new organization. Despite the time and money spend in my people, they were not ready to take new steps and improve their competence along the program.

I stumbled over a culture of the workplace. I thought that people I had worked with were eager to make changes after few years of less intensity, but I was wrong. Their culture had reversed from where I had left them four years earlier. They had lost their common spirit and were divided into small groups of “tribes” with rivalling mind-sets. Some people were almost aggressive in their reaction declaring that “the world sucks, and you are from deep with your talks”. Most were perceived things with an attitude of “we have already tried that – it will not work”. Moreover, some people were trying to shine more than actually do. As an organization, they were not ready to start any journey of transformation, so they marginalized themselves to be the audience rather than real players in the field.
I lost those people. It was not enough to give people as clear technical concepts as possible. It was not enough to appoint capable managers to head the projects. It was not enough to talk with individuals and motivate them. Social structure, common spirit and adhered procedures kept good people from changing. I had to work around this group of people, and it left me very frustrated and sad.

Later I learnt about organizational cultures  and their maturity for change . I studied social structures in workplaces and was astonished when reading about tribal leadership .

Transfor- mation	Forties
Maxwell’s	Position	Permission	Production>	People	Pinnacle
Collins	Individual	Team member	Manager>	Leader	Executive
Torbert’s	Opportunist	Diplomat	Expert	Achiever>	Individualist	Strategist	Alchemist

When I reached fifties, I took time  and effort in migrating and integrating different cultures within my organization by gradually involving them into new challenges and offering mentoring and help adjusted to each specific need.  I even fabricated some crises to weld people together by outside threat.  I was also distributing projects so that there were always parallel paths in progress to ensure that single failure did not end up as a disaster.  I was able to deliver the planned services with my organization, but I was not successful in transforming them at capability level.

Users were keener on clinging existing tools and procedures than adopting any new ways of working.  My ICT efforts were not transformed to new procedures and further capabilities of fighting forces.  I was using advanced technology, good practices, and best people to deliver world class information services, but my superiors were seeing me more as an expense rather than an enabler. Successes inside were not transferred as a value outside of my organization.

I tried to create examples. I asked Commander to act as an example, use new services himself and demand his subordinates to utilize them also. I was using collaboration tools weekly to manage my distributed organization and thus being an example for my people to market new services further. I required my staff to utilize wiki to manage both current operations and planned issues. We were flat and efficient ICT-organization, but still our clients, the end users, were shy to adopt new ICT services.

Together with other process owners, we initiated doctrinal, organizational and cultural transformations:   

• the renewed fighting of Land Forces together with Chief of Operations and inspectors of Infantry and Sappers utilizing Battle Management System;  
• improved intelligence with the Head of G2; 
• enhanced artillery fires with the Inspector of Artillery; 
• standardizing the C2 processes with the Chief of Readiness;
• implemented a new way in maintaining of programmable electronics together with the Head of G4 .

We defined progressively advancing measures for each field exercise for troops and guides instructors to improve their troops. We composed joint exercises to give meaning for co-operation and new tasks to benefit from new ICT-services.  We produced concepts, guides, presentations and videos to help instructors in their new training. Every public occasion was used to recognise behaviour towards the future model. We planned an information operation to get people and units to change their behaviour and culture. This was possible only with shared understanding and unified effort to make a change towards achieving greater goals than any single unit or branch were able to accomplish.

Only after the owners of the core businesses started transforming, I was able to support them with ICT services and evolve the capabilities of the Land Forces. My staff and people of Signals begun to feel being a part of something bigger and doing meaningful work. That empowered them for further achievements. I learnt that, if you want to make a change, first you have to get people moving, and then you might be able to steer the movement and energy with quick wins, recognition and bright vision. 

Transfor- mation	Fifties
Maxwell’s	Position	Permission	Production	People	Pinnacle
Collins	Individual	Team member	Manager	Leader	Executive
Torbert’s	Opportunist	Diplomat	Expert	Achiever	Individualist	>Strategist	Alchemist

Today, I sometimes feel, that I know how the world is running. For these occasions, I have wallpaper titled Egocentricity . Human being has a tendency for being egocentric: 

• Egocentric memory is a natural tendency to forget information that does not support the adopted line of thinking. 
• Egocentric myopia refers to thinking within an overly narrow point of view.  
• Egocentric righteousness is a tendency to feel superior based on the belief that one has actually figured out how the world works.  
• Egocentric blindness is the natural tendency not to notice facts and evidence that contradict one’s beliefs or values. 

Having this reminder, I try to continue my journey humbly and work harder to improve my understanding of how world functions, people behave, societies interact and technology develops towards more complex and interdependent global system.  

Remembering that even to produce a simple household item like a toaster from scratch is not possible for any one man.  

Bearing in mind the saying of Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” . 

Envisioning, that sometime in the future, I might be feeling the euphoria of finding features of Alchemist  in me.

List of references

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• Coelho, Paul (2014): Alchemist. HarperOne. ISBN: 978-0062315007