The Four Functions Of Leaders

On Tuesday, I gathered with other learning professionals for our new bi-monthly "State of L&D" conversation series.

We explored an article in Forbes around whether leadership skills could be taught, and where the author describes "Four Functions of Leaders"

They are:

"Four Functions Of Leaders." (Though, he does wonder if these can be taught.)

They are:

👉 Convene: “Creating containers where dialogue, responsibility, and shared ownership surface naturally."
👉 Stimulate: “Asking questions others avoid" and "Disturb false harmony." Are leaders creating space for "good controversy" as Priya Parker calls it?

👉 Ground: "Something to hold on to." "Acting as the tether to purpose, values, and strategy when everything else feels chaotic."
👉 Model: “Your team learns more from watching you navigate one impossible decision than from a dozen leadership seminars."

We spent time self-reflecting on these for ourselves as leaders, and also for the work that we do with leaders. Where are we doing well, and where are there gaps?

From there, we did a question storm or question burst (as per Hal Gregersen).

• Can one leader embody them all?
• What am I avoiding by over stimulating?
• Does modeling the practice, teach the practice? Is it enough to transfer the practice?
• What the shadow side of these?
• Is leader actually still the word of the time? And leadership? Is that the direction to explore?
• How is grounding supposed to work when there isn’t a shared purpose, values and strategy?
• Why are these functions called functions and not something else?
• Can leadership be taught? If it can’t be taught, then what are we doing? Are leaders born?
• Is it better to teach these when you’re really great at them, or when you’re still in the mud trying to learn them yourselves? What is most effective?
• What containers do people truly want?
• How will improving convening skills support leader loneliness?
• Is our self-assessment of these functions actually true?

We finished with everyone picking one question to focus on in the weeks to come.
(...)
👉Of the four functions, which one is your favorite?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.
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