Leadership development - what are the best tools for the job? Below you will find a picture inspired by a recent leadership event. Below the image is a link to a larger, printable version. Please do let me know if it prints out ok. This picture is intended for you to use as a prompt to trigger constructive discussion on the realities of change and leadership with your colleagues at work. Show it to a colleague and ask them to describe what they see, how they feel about it and what it means for them at work. Please let me know what sort of discussion emerged, what you talked about and how valuable was the exercise. If you send me some of the ideas you discussed I can make a picture for you! If you have any feedback or ideas about other content or uses for such pictures do let me know. Julian Burton, julian@delta7.com, 077 9000 7560, www.delta7.com

tool.pdf [170kb]

The biggest barrier to change is the way we talk about it! The scientific methods and vocabularies used in leadership development have a de-humanising and dis-empowering influence on people. They are asked to judge each other and themselves in a way that is unproductive and unhelpful.There is a link between these "scientific methods" and the widespread confusion and lack of clarity witnessed in most organisations. I invite you to question and examine their effect on the quality of working relationships in your organisation. I see a huge gulf between this needless complexity that jargon and abstractions create and the desperate need for a more grounded and human approach to change and leadership development.

leading.pdf [250kb]

I am interested in challenging unhelpful ways of seeing the world and want to provoke dialogue that critically examines the nature of "development" practices that are normally taken for granted. These pictures represents what I imagine as the reality behind the rhetoric, and I ask myself, "am I the only one with this in mind?". I offer my work in the hope we can start a discussion on the real nature of leadership and its development. Would you like to see some more pictures? "One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous." Carl Sagan -The Fine Art of Baloney Detection "Speaking differently rather than arguing well is the chief instrument of cultural change" Richard Rorty "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things; because the innovator will have for enemies all who have done well under the old conditions and only lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new". Machiavelli