Becoming a strategic partner within your organization takes more than knowledge of the business, understanding education or even possessing great communication skills. Learning leaders today require the knowledge, skills and abilities that allow them to direct the activities of the learning organization and push those activities across organizational boundaries in a purposeful way. Dialogue with other learning leaders about leadership qualities that will move you from order taker to strategic partner. Jennifer A. Moss, Ph.D., Director, Human Capital Lab, Bellevue University

1. Where are the Leaders?
Jennifer Moss, PhD
Director
Bellevue University’s
Human Capital Lab

2. Where are the Leaders?
 Becoming a strategic partner within your
organization takes more than knowledge of
the business, understanding education or even
possessing great communication skills.
 Dialogue with other learning leaders about
leadership qualities that move them from
“order taker” to “strategic partner”.
www.humancapitallab.org

3. Where are the Leaders?
 What is required of learning leaders today is
the knowledge, skills, abilities that allow them
to direct the activities of the learning
organization and push those activities across
organizational boundaries in a purposeful way.

4. Bellevue University’s
Human Capital Lab
 Dedicated to creating the body of knowledge
around human capital management
 Engaged with learning leaders on a daily basis
 Dedicated to advancing the field of learning
 Focused on helping organizations measure the
business impact of learning
www.humancapitallab.org

5. Let’s talk….
What’s stopping leaders from
becoming strategic?
www.humancapitallab.org

6. What Stops Learning Leaders from
Measuring Business Impact
 Grounded Theory Study
 Interviewed 25 Learning Leaders – Top in
their field
 Results: Primary factors – Learning Leader
 Results: Secondary factors ‐ Organization
www.humancapitallab.org

7. Focus for Today
 Leadership
– What is it?
– How do you know it when you see it?
– Why is it so difficult?
www.humancapitallab.org

8. Who are you as a leader?
 What makes a successful
leader?
 What behaviors elicit
optimal performance?
 What leadership styles
work in specific contexts?
 What is Servant Leadership
and Does it exist?
www.humancapitallab.org

9. Questions?
 Leadership and Management…are they the
same?
 What is your definition of the “ideal” leader?
www.humancapitallab.org

10. Why did you go into learning? – Your Job
 Service?
 Science?
 Passion for field?
 Are you getting and giving what you want?
www.humancapitallab.org

11. Servant leadership – Your Learners
 Serve others first – Gandhi, Mother Theresa
 Let followers determine goals
 Comprised of the following
– Altruistic Calling
– Emotional Healing
– Stewardship
– Building Community
– Perceptual Mapping
Characteristics: Strong, Capable, Energetic, Powerful,
Strategic… yet driven to serve others. Been proven to
be the most effective at meeting followers goals
www.humancapitallab.org

12. What makes an effective leader?
 Service and Altruism – effectively
meeting the needs of others
through service
 But…. These leaders are NOT
necessarily Successful.
 Why?
www.humancapitallab.org

13. Hate Organizational Politics?
 Why is it important to build your network?
 What stops you?
 Who do you need to align with to achieve your
goals?
 Who loses out if you don’t build your network?
 Who loses out if you don’t use political skills?
www.humancapitallab.org

14. What makes a Successful Leader? –
Your Organization
 Traditional Definition of Success ‐‐ promotability/
influence/formal power
 Research Results – Interpersonal Political Skills
(Ferris, Davidson, and Perrewe, 2005)
 Networking – who do you know?
 Social Astuteness – do you know how to act?
 Apparent Sincerity – do they believe you?
 Interpersonal Influence – do they follow your lead?
www.humancapitallab.org

15. A Primer on Leadership – Your Team
 Transactional ‐ management
 Transformational Leadership – based in moral good
– Individualized consideration – do you know your people?
– Idealized Influence – do they respect you?
– Inspirational Motivation – do you inspire them?
– Intellectual Stimulation – do you keep them interested?
Proven to be the most effective in obtaining organizational
goals
www.humancapitallab.org

16. Imagine what would happen….
 If your initial Servant motivations could be
realized through the use of incredible
Leadership skills?
 What if Interpersonal Political Skills enabled
you to SERVE?
 How would your work change?
 How would your life change?
www.humancapitallab.org

17. WHO ARE YOU AS A LEADER?
 What specific steps could you take to build
your network and political skills?
 What areas are you most inclined to serve?
 How can you achieve those goals?
www.humancapitallab.org

18. Learning leader as change agent –
necessary to become strategic
 “The myth of leadership is the myth of the lone warrior: the
solitary individual whose heroism and brilliance enable him to
lead the way” (Heifitz, 1994).
 This notion reinforces isolation, despair, and lack of movement
forward
 “How do you stomach the repercussions of the distress caused
by change, while at the same time provoking it?”
 How do you deal with the stress?
www.humancapitallab.org

19. How to deal with the challenge of
leading change
 What “factions in the community” are Get on the balcony –
you seeing?
 alternate between participating
 To which factions do you align?
and observing
 Which community do you want to use
your power to impact?  Identify the true adaptive challenge,
 What superficial issues (schedules, from the “birds‐eye” view
power, structure, lines of authority,
technical, personality differences) are
masking the true issues, represented
by factions?
 How can you break the cycles you see
and move toward improvement?
www.humancapitallab.org

20. From the Balcony:
What is causing the distress?
 What internal contradictions does the stress
represent?
 What are the histories of these contradictions?
 What perspectives have I and others come to
represent to various segments of the community that
are now in conflict?
 In what ways are we in the organization mirroring the
problem dynamics in the community?
www.humancapitallab.org

21. Regulating the distress
 What are the characteristic responses of the
community to disequilibrium (confusion, sense of
threat, confused roles and relationships, conflict)?
 Have you ever witnessed distress reach a breaking
point before, in any context?
 What actions have you seen restore equilibrium?
 What mechanisms do you have to regulate distress?
www.humancapitallab.org

22. Giving the work back to the people
 Leaders often assume the problems are for them to solve,
alone
 Giving work back to people means orchestrating conflict
 We have to know the “texture of interest” in people’s lives
 Changes in whose values, beliefs or behaviors would allow
progress?
 What are the losses for all interested parties?
 How does my role impact these parties?
www.humancapitallab.org

23. You as a leader
 Do you see the difference between yourself and your
role?
 Can you externalize the conflict? “when conflicting
criticisms seem to damn whatever one does, the
distinction between role and self can be life
saving” (Heifitz, 1994, p. 265).
 Differentiate the “message” from yourself
www.humancapitallab.org

24. Who are your partners?
 Confidant: the person whose shoulder you can cry on.
Holding environment for someone who is holding everyone
else
 Ally: the person operating across a formal line of authority or
boundary (fellow principals, strong parent, other stakeholder
groups)
– No direct authority
– Do not disclose everything
www.humancapitallab.org

25. Observing yourself
 Who do you naturally understand?
 How do you react to criticism?
 How do you handle conflict?
 How do you maintain energy?
 Who do you emulate?
Use your partners to help you
answer these questions
www.humancapitallab.org

26. Sanctuary
 How to you re‐energize and gain perspective?
 Have you clearly indentified your sense of purpose?
 What is the purpose of your role?
www.humancapitallab.org

27. Lots covered….
 What’s next for you?
– Interpersonal Political Skills – external
– Transformational Leadership – your team
– Servant Leadership – yourself
– Getting to the Balcony?
www.humancapitallab.org

28. Questions?
Contact Info:
Jennifer Moss
Jennifer.moss@bellevue.edu
www.humancapitallab.org