Generative Leadership

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GenerativeLeadership
Dr. Tracy EdwardsPresident and CEOLethbridge
Collegetracy.edwards_at_lethbridgecollege.ab.ca
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Presentation available atwww.lethbridgecollege.a
b.ca/presentationLeague of Innovation
MonographShaping Organizational Culture
Through Generative Leadership
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With thanks!
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Overview

• Introduction the Lethbridge story
• Leadership philosophy and literature
• Understanding and leading the Generative Process

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Leading in Turbulent Times. . .
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A new president gets to know her college. . .
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Understanding the culture . . .
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Levels of Culture
Visible organizational structures (hard to
decipher)
See!
Artifacts
Strategies, goals, philosophies
Espoused Values
Say!
Unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs,
perceptions, thoughts, and feelings (ultimate
source of values and action)
Basic Underlying Assumptions
Do!
Schein (1985) Organizational Culture and
Leadership
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Changing the Culture. . .
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TEMPERATURE
Lethbridge College
Checking the
at LC
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The Temperature Check Task Team. . .
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Introducing. . . Melvis!
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My Five Point Leadership ALERT
uthenticity

• A

istening

• L

mpathy

• E

elationships/Respect
rust

• T

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Changing Culture, Building Leaders
Jean Madill, Vice-PresidentDr. Tracy Edwards,
President Lethbridge College jean.madill_at_lethbrid
gecollege.ab.catracy.edwards_at_lethbridgecollege.ab
.ca
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Lethbridge CollegeVision, Mission, Values,
Mandate and Goals
Human Resource Strategies
Leadership Advance(Internal)
Chair Academy(External)
Leadership Academy Program (Internal)
Instructional CertificateProgram (Internal)
Conferences, Seminars, Workshops (External)
Management SeminarSeries(Workforce Development)
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The Achilles Heel of Leaders

• Believe they know it all
• Believe they are in charge
• Believe the rules dont apply to them
• Believe they will never fail
• Believe they did it all by themselves
• Believe they are better than the little people
• Believe they are the organization

Kouzes and Posner (2006) A Leaders Legacy
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Guiding Literature. . .
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But whats next?
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Generative Process/Leadership

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If you want to understand an organizations
culture, go to a meeting.
E. Schein (1999) The Corporate Culture Survival
Guide
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Adaptive vs Generative Processes
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A problem that is generatively complex cannot be
solved with a prepackaged solution from the past.
A solution has to be worked out as the
situtation unfolds, through a creative, emergent,
generative process.
A. Kahane (2004) Solving Tough Problems
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Generative Leadership for Generative Processes
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The Role of the Leader in Setting the Stage
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Generative Leadership in Action

• Recognizing lenses

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Generative Leadership Action

• Suspending judgment

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Generative Leadership in Action

• Openness to possibility

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No great idea ever entered the mind through an
open mouth.
Source Unknown
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Generative Leadership in Action

• Ignoring old scripts

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And now at this point in the meeting, Id like
to shift the blame away from me toward someone
else.
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Generative Leadership in Action

• No re-loading

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Creating a Safe Place. . .
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Trust is openness. Trust is valuing other
people such that you respect their opinions and
perspectives. You listen to them. Trust means
moving outside your comfort zone and letting go
of always doing it your way, or even the way that
its always been done before.
Kouzes and Posner (2006) A Leaders Legacy
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Participant Expectations
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The Generative Process. . .

• Pay attention to your state of being and how you
  are talking and listening
• Speak up
• Remember, you dont know the truth about anything
• Engage with and listen to others who have a stake
  in the system

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GP (more). . .

• Reflect on your own role in the system
• Listen with empathy
• Listen to what is being said not just by yourself
  and others but through all of you
• Stop talking!!
• Relax and be fully present

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How are we doing?
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Progress to date. . .

• Solutions_at_Lethbridge
• Interest-based bargaining
• Leadership Academy
• Moose on the Table discussions
• Decline in grievances
• A new sense of energy!
• Increasing trust. . .

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Generative Leadership Shaping New Futures for
Todays Schools
Publishing in 2008!
by Karl J. Klimek, Kathryn D. Sullivan, Elsie
Ritzenhein
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Theres a deep human yearning to make a
difference
Kouzes and Posner (2003) Academic
Administrators Guide to Exemplary Leadership
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We can only speak in terms of relationships.
Ethics for the New Millennium Dalai Lama, 1999

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Questions/comments/feedback?
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GenerativeLeadership
Dr. Tracy EdwardsPresident and CEOLethbridge
Collegetracy.edwards_at_lethbridgecollege.ab.ca