Share
Facebook Facebook icon Twitter Twitter icon LinkedIn LinkedIn icon Email

Leadership

Why leadership development means losing the comfort zone  

Published 7 October 2024 in Leadership • 9 min read

Hannes Leroy and colleagues from Rotterdam School of Management share research and tools on choosing the right leadership development program for you; one that might just get you out of your comfort zone and challenge your ideology of what effective leadership looks like.  

There is a joke shared by scholars of leadership that every minute somewhere in the world a new approach to leadership is invented. Indeed, there are hundreds of approaches to leadership – with more emerging every day.

Often, the way we select development programs is shaped by our personal ideology of what effective leadership is and how it should be developed.

Over the last few decades in leadership development (LD) research and practice, we have noticed something peculiar: that it is a value-infused enterprise. What do we mean by that? Well, essentially, we all have our own strong ideology around leadership and its development and a plethora of (contrasting) beliefs. These strong ideologies can help create the enthusiasm to release the energy (and time and money) needed for developmental efforts. At the same time, they present a problem. Do our ideologies always meet our developmental needs? Do people always make the best choices to accelerate their development? Or can development be hindered by deeply held ideological preferences?

Before we go any further, ask yourself what your LD ideologies are. Think about them in terms of these three key aspects:

  1. Your vision for what effective leadership looks like.
  2. Your preferred method by which leadership can be developed.
  3. Your desired outcomes.

We encourage you to consider your ideology around these three elements and will share tools and advice to aid you in your reflection.

What is your vision of effective leadership?

In our research, we have looked at the best possible way to map this diversity. Specifically, we have found that the 131 most prominent leadership approaches today can be captured in the circumplex described below.

For ease, we call this the ‘Four Ps of Leadership’. Extending the triple bottom line (planet, people, and profit), we argue that effective leadership focuses on performance, people, progress, and principles (with further subdifferentiation).

Interestingly, these ‘Four Ps’ align with major value preferences. To be more exact, these approaches roughly map onto the main political parties in the European Union (performance-liberal, people-socialist, progress-progressive, and principle-conservative). These political preferences highlight how leadership is a value-driven enterprise.

What often happens is that people will align their perception of effective leadership and choose the program that best fits with their own ideological preference as reflected through their perception of what effective leadership is. Do you like connecting with people? You are more likely to define inclusive leadership as key to effective management – and to find that inclusive leadership is needed in your organization. As a result, you will seek out programs that focus on developing it. But is that the best path toward your or your organization’s development?

We find that executives often choose a trajectory that they already know well and love, rather than challenge themselves and seek development in areas that might not come so naturally to them. However, the real benefit may be in getting out of your comfort zone.

Consider this: If you believe in leadership that promotes benevolence and sustainability, perhaps a course on power and politics would serve you best, as it will target areas that you have not worked on. The goal is not to change your own value preferences but to give insight into areas you do not engage with often. In this example, we can imagine that if you are someone who prefers benevolence and sustainability, the political games played out in an organization will be the furthest removed from your thought pattern, and so a development program that focuses on those aspects of leadership might offer a unique viewpoint and new skillsets that can ultimately help you advance the goals you cherish. Indeed, we have found that those who seek social and sustainable development goals benefit from understanding how they can increase their strategic capacity and tactics to better influence their stakeholders and fulfill their social ambitions.

Below we offer two resources to help you think counter-ideologically in terms of leadership.

On the one hand, Figure 1 highlights different approaches to leadership – the ‘Four Ps’ we mentioned earlier – but also further differentiating in terms of the 8 central values that are recurring for leadership. These represent high-level ideologies of what leaders can strive for in influencing stakeholders in the organization and beyond. For each, we give a concrete example of the type of leadership approach that follows. For instance, a preference for self-direction would encapsulate leadership approaches like empowering, participative, or democratic leadership.

In addition, we include Table 1, which presents the four common preferences for leadership and the counter-ideological option that might maximize your development. 

Figure 1: Vision: Ideologies of effective leadership
Table 1: Ideological preference for leadership vs developmental stretch

From which approach to how to learn

Just as psychotherapy offers different streams or approaches – from behavioral, psychodynamic, and cognitive to systems – there are different ways to develop leaders, all of them effective, albeit in slightly different ways.

In our review of LD techniques, the approaches we have found focus on distinct aspects ranging from cognitive (changing what I know) to behavioral (changing how I act), identity (changing who I am), and system (changing who I am connected to)-oriented approaches. We have noticed in our developmental work that people often seem to prefer one approach over another. Research on their effectiveness, however, seems to suggest that more effective programs try to combine multiple approaches to development.

We encourage you to consider how you might have an ideological preference not only for what you want to develop but also for how that development happens. Perhaps learning new cognitive frameworks can help you view a problem through a different lens. Maybe you need to experience and feel things first before learning follows. Perhaps you need time and quiet reflection to allow you to develop. Perhaps you simply need to consider an approach that is maximally opposite to your own preference.

We know from research that stepping out of our comfort zone can be challenging but often leads to the most significant behavioral change. However, we often self-sabotage because we assume that this new approach will not work for us. In other words, the biggest reason that engaging in a new approach doesn’t work is because we are simply not open to it; we are not developmentally ready. Some of that low developmental readiness comes from having strong ideological preferences for a certain method. Low developmental readiness, however, is inversely related to the potential for development: when things feel uncomfortable, that usually indicates that we are not yet good at or competent in this approach – meaning that this is the area where we have the greatest potential for development.

Imagine that you prefer deep-level identity work – that is, the intensive work of understanding who you are, perhaps in terms of your childhood roots, or past experiences, and building a coherent narrative around it. In this case, you might benefit from a more behavioral approach where you try to experiment with implementing new behaviors. This might help counter a self-absorption paradox, where people who focus intensively on their emotions, thoughts, and past experiences might better understand who they are, but paradoxically experience lower well-being. Furthermore, expanding one’s behavioral repertoire can ensure that one’s development is not just on an internal deep level but is also effectively translated into behavior and results for the leader, others, and the organization. Thus, we encourage you to examine your own ideology around development and explore other approaches.

Below we offer two more resources to help you think counter-ideologically in terms of developmental approach.

Figure 2 highlights different approaches to leadership – the four ways of developing mentioned earlier, further differentiating them in terms of eight common developmental methods. These represent high-level approaches to the types of development available in the market. For each, we share a concrete example of the type of developmental approach that follows under this. Cognitive approaches, for instance, involve a preference for acquiring theories, commonly encapsulating online course material, reading materials, learning by testing, and other methods, all to accumulate knowledge on a certain topic.

In addition, Table 2 presents four common preferences for development and their counter-ideological option.

Figure 2: Method: Approaches for the development of leaders
Table 2: Your ideological preference for development vs your developmental stretch

Understanding impact

We have asked executives all over the world a simple but important question: How do you justify your LD spending? We hope the reaction is as interesting to you as it was to us.

Learning and development is about much more than developing leaders. Some consider participating in LD programs as a tax-free perk of the job, preferably in a five-star hotel in the Caribbean, while others consider it a pretext for strategic redirection of the organization. Some consider it a moral obligation to give leaders access to the personal development they need, while others see it as an opportunity to convince some executives that the organization is not the best fit for them. In considering this plethora of rationales, we noticed that these broad motivations align with four key learning outcomes:

  1. Personal satisfaction.
  2. Behavioral development of leaders.
  3. Better organizational results and strategy.
  4. Team building and reinforcement of the existing organizational culture.

In thinking about reasons to embark on your own or your company’s learning and development journey: Do you believe that LD should make you a better leader, or rather reduce the everyday tensions you encounter in your work? Is the reason you seek to develop individually (i.e., your own growth and career) tied to the organization’s strategic goals? Perhaps it will be useful to explore some of the ideologies for impact that do not come naturally to you.

As an example, imagine that you view learning and development as all about the personal goals and development of the leader. Then, programs become a form of moral obligation on the part of the organization to offer you as a leader an opportunity to grow as a person. When you evaluate – and choose – a program, you will be focused on its intrinsic value for you as an individual.

While such individual development is indeed important, perhaps a leadership team that suffers from clashing personalities and misunderstandings would benefit from a program that is aimed at the team to get everyone on the same page, or perhaps create a sense of psychological safety. While all four orientations are important, it can be especially powerful to approach development from a different perspective and explore programs that have a more collective focus.

Below you will find two final resources to help you think counter-ideologically about your motivation for and the intended impact of the development training you want.

Figure 3 highlights different foci of development programs – the four types of motivations mentioned earlier, further refining them to eight common motivations for individuals and organizations undertaking learning and development identified by research. These represent high-level categories of motivations that characterize the needs of individuals and organizations, ranging from individually to organizationally focused. For each, we give a concrete example of the type of outcome that characterizes this motivation.

For instance, development programs that aim to produce better leaders, focus on skill training, and developing key leadership skills that are known to increase follower performance. In addition, Table 3 presents four common motivations for development and the counter-ideological option that might maximize it.

Figure 3 Impact: Motivations for undertaking leadership development
Table 3: Your ideological preference for development vs your developmental stretch

Making the best decision for you – and for your organization

Learning and development is a balancing act between multiple, potentially opposing, spheres of development. We have advocated for people aiming to accelerate their development to get out of their (ideological) comfort zone to seek development in other, counter-normative areas.

More broadly, when considering your own development as a leader or the LD of your organization, we advocate for a balanced perspective on the different ideological perspectives. This requires an open conversation across and beyond ideologies. It means being open to diverse perspectives. Because appreciating this diversity of perspectives will significantly leverage your effectiveness as a leader.

Authors

Hannes Leroy

Hannes Leroy is Professor in Leadership Development at Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), Erasmus University, Netherlands. As Academic Director of the Erasmus Center of Leadership, Leroy helps to oversee the quality of leadership development at different levels (undergraduate, graduate, post-graduate, and executive education). As a steward of the League of Leadership initiative, he oversees an international consortium of top business schools worldwide with the mission of enhancing quality standards of leadership development. Aligned with these efforts, Leroy has published numerous studies on leadership and its development in top journals, has taught a wide variety of leadership classes, and is the principal coordinator of various leadership development curricula.

Moran Anisman-Razin

Moran Anisman-Razin is an Associate Professor in Work and Organizational Psychology at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, and a visiting research scholar at Duke University’s Behavioral Science and Policy Center. Previously, she was a research associate at Duke University (2017-2021). Her research focuses on courage in organizations, leadership, and leadership development. She aims to advance evidence-based leadership practices and enhance the understanding of effective leadership and its impact. She is particularly interested in everyday courageous actions at work and ways to increase such behaviors.

Pisitta Vongswasdi

Pisitta Vongswasdi is an assistant professor at WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management, Düsseldorf, Germany. She received a BA in economics from Chulalongkorn University, an MSc in sociology from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in management from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Netherlands. Her research and teaching interests are in organizational behavior. She has published articles on leadership development, teams, diversity, entrepreneurship, and mindfulness at work.

Johannes Claeys

Johannes Claeys is Assistant Professor of Management at IESEG School of Management, France. He received his PhD from the University of Tilburg. His current research interests include leadership development, leader vulnerability, and spiritual leadership. Claeys is an academic director of the Leadership Center at IÉSEG and has designed, implemented, and evaluated over 100 leadership programs for business schools and companies across the globe.

Related

Can you TWINT it? 

12 February 2025 • by Didier Bonnet in Leadership

TWINT, Switzerland's digital payment app, has more than five million users and is a household name, but the path to profitability has been extremely difficult. In the second IMD Nordic Executive Dialogue,...

Learn Brain Circuits

Join us for daily exercises focusing on issues from team building to developing an actionable sustainability plan to personal development. Go on - they only take five minutes.
 
Read more 

Explore Leadership

What makes a great leader? Do you need charisma? How do you inspire your team? Our experts offer actionable insights through first-person narratives, behind-the-scenes interviews and The Help Desk.
 
Read more

Join Membership

Log in here to join in the conversation with the I by IMD community. Your subscription grants you access to the quarterly magazine plus daily articles, videos, podcasts and learning exercises.
 
Sign up
X

Log in or register to enjoy the full experience

Explore first person business intelligence from top minds curated for a global executive audience