Collaboration Capability

The above leadership development model was co-created recently whilst I was working with a senior leader of a Fortune 500 Company. He was expressing his mixture of pride and frustration at the leadership development of his managers. On the one hand his people had great technical skills and were exemplary at execution. He assessed their ability to collaborate and manage conflict as high, but in need of the occasional reminder. On the other hand he felt his people were failing to influence and impact the global business, their partners and their clients and their ability to tell a new story about the companies transformation was weak to say the least.

As a leadership consultant & coach, I rarely need to get involved with Technical Skills or Execution Ability; but Collaboration Capability, Influence and Impact and Story Telling for Transformation are topics and mindsets I spend every day working with. Collaboration Capability is the skill and mindset to see beyond your own team or business unit and realize that you are part of one company. With this mindset, the inevitable conflicts of time and resources are just seen as different perspectives and people work through them. Influence Impact is the ability to assertively get your message across in a way that aligns you intent with the needs or wants of the other party. Lack of influence impact is a major cause of career and business stagnation. Influence Impact is a core leadership development competency Story Telling for Transformation is the newest and oldest leadership skill. Our early ancestors used story telling to pass on life sustaining messages; and modern leaders use the power story to frame and re-frame meaning to get buy-in from employees, partners and the market. This article was first published on my Linkedin page, where I promised to create a video if it got enough views. Well leadership development is a hot topic as I received 4,000 views in the first 24 hours – so here is the video:

First published at selfleader.com.