The 4 Pillars of Leadership Development.
THERE ARE FOUR PILLARS TO LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, RELATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIFIC LEADERSHIP SKILLS.
Which one you need to focus on depends on what you need to improve, and which area will give you the best return on investment with the least effort.
While each pillar has multiple things that fit within that area by breaking things down into these four pillars, we can start to decide where it needs the most attention from our leaders and us.
Personal Development Pillar
Personal development is usually one of the first parts that need to be developed. This is because when it all boils down to it, the degree to which the leader has personally developed is either a help or a hindrance in their leadership. It is directly related to if they can engage with their emotional intelligence, regulate their reactions, and be solution orientated or, as others like to call it have a growth mindset. This will have the most significant impact on the other three areas. While I call it a pillar it is more like a foundation for the other three pillars.
Relational Development Pillar
Relational development is the next one because leadership in and of itself is relational. Whether we perceive leadership as task-oriented or process-orientated, leadership can only exist within the capacity of relationships. Therefore, once a leader has a good grasp on their practices and that isn’t what’s getting in the way, relational development will usually come from that and need attention.
Strategic Development Pillar
Strategic development is more organisational or workplace-focused. Leaders often need to learn how to make decisions that may not be ideal now or may not be perfect for their personal preference but are more strategic and sustainable for the business long-term and the people within the business.
Often when we’re coming from management positions, we can skip strategic decision-making simply because we’re usually paid and rewarded for dealing with firefighting and problems up front right now; however strategic development requires us to be able to think beyond just this immediate issue that’s in front of us and to think about how our quick fix may cause ongoing problems.
It also requires us to think about multiple stakeholders and needs in every decision we make, and this is a little more advanced than personal and relational development. While doing this, we will still need to lean on the pillars of personal and relational growth.
This pillar is often learned the hard way simply because the concept of strategic approaches isn’t as helpful as working through a live work problem strategically at that moment and seeing the difference in the impact. It’s also harder to trace. It’s easy to say with strategic development that if I had done this, I might have had this outcome. Still, strategic development often causes gentle but effective ripples throughout the whole organisational system and creates a new decision-making norm. So, the full extent of the impact of effective strategic development is rarely visible to the naked eye.
Leadership Skills Pillar
The next pillar is leadership skills development. This is last because not everybody requires specific leadership skills; some people have developed it while in their management processes, and for others, it comes naturally.
Some of these skills can be technical, like how to put a PowerPoint together and use the software. We saw throughout the pandemic quite strongly that leaders who could avoid specific software before the pandemic were exposed once the pandemic occurred and we moved online. This isn’t the kind of exposure any leader needs or wants because it can create mistrust amongst those who work with them.
The other types of skills development might be more technical, relationally speaking, such as presentations, keynote speeches, particular communication, networking skills, negotiation skills, the capacity to motivate and support long-term change efforts, and the ability to get people to go with you on the journey.
Each leader will need a different set of skills based on the reality of their situation, but all leaders will need personal, relational and strategic development as a generic need how and when they’re applied will be different.
How do I know what development I need to focus on in my leadership or in the leadership of my organisation?
So if you’d like to know how you decide which one you need to work with or which one your team needs to work with, then you need to think about where they have the most significant problems.
- Is it falling in under the title of personal development?
- Is it sitting in under relational development? Are their relationships struggling?
- Is it failing under strategy, and they’re working to be strategic and continually fixing the problem themselves or firefighting?
- Lastly, are you missing a particular set of skills, which limits your ability to do your job to the capacity you need to?
IF YOU FOUND THIS HELPFUL, THEN STAY IN TOUCH …
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