Articles

HR professionals rely too much on formal training for leadership development. More strategic ways of learning and experiences outside the norm will help create future leaders.

Aristotle observed that people become virtuous by acting virtuous; if you do good, you’ll be good. His insight has been confirmed in a wealth of social psychology research showing that people change their minds by first changing their behavior.

In this excerpt from her book, Herminia discusses what she describes as the ‘outsight’ principle: the cycle of acting like a leader and then thinking like a leader; change from the outside in. She argues that people become leaders by acting their way into a leadership position.

Benjamin Franklin could be considered a pioneer of the modern ‘quantified self’ approach to personal improvement. In the late 18th century, he famously used a chart to monitor his behaviour, including acts of virtue, and reviewed his record of daily activities every night.

What if we didn’t think of self-improvement as work? What if we thought of it as play — specifically, as playing with our sense of self?

To become a successful leader, you have to ditch the conventional ‘think before doing’ logic and instead start acting like a leader in order to start thinking like a leader.

“I’m like the fire patrol,” says Jacob, a 35-year-old production manager for a mid-sized European food manufacturer. “I run from one corner to the other, to fix things, just to keep producing.” To step up to a bigger leadership role in his organization, Jacob knows he needs to get out from under all the operational details that are keeping him from thinking about important strategic issues his unit faces.

Increasing leadership capacity is an increasingly important part of a company’s business strategy. Unfortunately, formal leadership development efforts often fall short of expectations. At best, managers gain valuable personal insights but fail to learn how they can apply them to create value for their organization.