Can Leadership Development Bring About a Lasting Change in Attitude?

The last few years in leadership development have been strongly influenced by the concepts of agility and digitalization. Thus, a large number of trainings became available, which offer the development towards e.g. Shared, Digital, Virtual, and Agile Leadership. Even if the context and the contents of these leadership development trainings are partly different, significant similarities can be found. The partly different skills to being successful in these leadership realities are based on the attitude of the leaders. All leadership development trainings, no matter for which leadership concepts, are based on the fact that success depends on the change of attitude and being supportedthroughout the application. The will to change, because circumstances require it, or because we want to, is out of the experience not so simple. New Year's resolutions are good examples of this. There are many reasons why leaders do not change their attitude, and thus their behavior, in the long term. Leadership development must take care of this and think about what needs to be different, in order for leaders to really improve in a sustainable way. 

It takes you around 8 minutes to read this article, but it may provide you with the opportunity to build a sustainable leadership development.

The causal relationship of attitude and behavior

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This question is used as a phrase for many aspects of life, such as who or what caused the conflict. The question is about what was the trigger of a causal relationship? The chain of causalities, or events, describes the mutual relationship between cause and effect. Applied to leadership development, the question arises whether the focus should be on the attitude or the behavior, since attitude shapes our behavior, and successful behavior influences our attitude. A change in behavior is always causally related to the change in attitude and vice versa. Since this is also a causal chain, the more relevant question is: «what is more efficient and effective: to address attitude through successful behavioral change, or to change behavior through insight and attitude adjustment, or should both be addressed?»

Consequences for change management

The aim of leadership development is to change the behavior of managers so that it corresponds to the re­quired skills in the respective leadership realities. Thus, success in behavioral change can be measured. This does not mean that economic success is achieved.

Attitude = overall evaluation of a stimulus object. In other words, how we feel about someone or something. We decide whether we like someone/approve something, or not. The attitude is divided into two aspects:

• Valence = whether we classify someone or something as positive or negative
• Force = how intensely we like or dislike someone and/or approve, or oppose something

There are different models how to change the attitude. It is central that the person first recognizes his or her own attitude or behavior and the need for change. If this is not the case, the best strategy for change will have little success. Pressure from outside to change attitudes and behaviors can lead to people feeling threatened in their freedom of decisions and actions, and opposing the goal of change, remaining in their previous attitudes and acting out of their behavior patterns with even more conviction. This is called reactance.

A stimulus triggers a reaction (behavior), that drives people to do things or not. We can therefore say that the drive is motivation. Successful change is therefore about understanding and accepting personal attitudes and behavior and identifying the reason why (motivation) change has benefits for the person.

The dilemma of leadership development and its view of the past

What does leadership mean in the age of Shared, Digital, Agile, etc. Leadership for leaders and their potential  to change? Leadership development programs almost exclusively have a predetermined framework and con­tent. In most cases, leadership development programs are a reaction to challenges that have been around for some time. Whether an organization develops an internal leadership development program for this purpose, or uses one from a provider, development takes place in phases and usually takes several months to even a few years. On one hand, there is the danger of challenges being around for a long time, until one reacts to tackle them; and on the other hand, the risk of concerned managers being often not involved until the pilot phase. Another concern is that the changes in the challenges themselves, as well as new challenges that arise in the meantime, are not included, because the framework is fixed. This means that the goals, contents, and delivery (e.g. presence/online workshops and e-learning) are set for challenges that have been known for a few years but may no longer be important. This approach does not correspond to agile methods like Scrum, or forms of collaboration such as Design Thinking or Co-Creation. When it comes to Agile, Digital, Shared, etc. Leadership, central element is for which development programs are they offered. How do we want to develop something that corresponds to a part of a culture (behavior = "doing agile" vs. attitude = "being agile") if we do not live it?

Leadership development and the view into the present and future

It is too brief if we now only question the design, development and delivery of leadership development programs and only later on design them using agile methods. This is the essential start. Thus agility is manifested as an attitude of thinking in the organizational culture. In addition to customer orientation, this also ensures that the leadership development programs are always up to date. This results in new requirements regarding the skills and competencies of people who develop and deliver leadership development programs. After the successful creation, the leadership development programs must be delivered along the agile methods.

VUCA seems to be a reality for many organizations and therefore managers. One cause or driver of VUCA is digitalization, which also places new demands on managers. Virtual Leadership is not only required because of the Corona Pandemic, it has been part of global cooperation for years. Shared Leadership is also important, which among other things aims to identify skills, know-how, and experience in teams and organizations, so that specifically the carrier or expert can use and lead in this topic. The Transformational Leadership, which is used, for example, in cultural transformation to align the staff with values and behavior and the requirements for lead­ership in the context of New Work or Work Smart. If we look at the skills that are needed in different leadership situations, we will see that they all have their own characteristics, but much more in common… the agility in an­alyzing the task or project, gathering of experience, knowledge, and know-how to develop possible solutions, the courage to break new ground and the persistence in implementation. It is important for leaders to under­stand when they become more involved in the leadership role and when they hand this role over to others. Sharing or hand over leadership does not mean losing the position, but rather strengthening it.

State-of-the-art leadership development

In all development programs, no matter for what leadership styles or concepts, managers are expected to think and act in a networked way. Although the leadership models above have more in common than specifics, they are often seen isolated and "taught" separately, which is a paradox, because it is probably more the exception rather than the rule that a leader e.g. only leads virtually and absolutely does not need anything else. Skills from the one or more leadership models are also required. The skills are shared in the various leadership models. Developmental interventions, related to a leadership model, match little to the idea of thinking and acting in net­works, and they hardly perceive the environment as a whole, in which work and leadership takes place. It is an unnecessary burden for managers if training measures do not reflect as good as possible the environment, in which they will later apply their findings. The difficulty remains that managers often learn on the basis of models, although they think about implementation in groups and record this in notes. However, they must then abstract the knowledge gained from this and apply it in an adapted form to create their own know-how. The actual appli­cation and testing in a secure environment is usually left out. This diminishes the chances of success that the leaders will undergo sustainable development.

Design of contemporary and future-oriented leadership development

In order to return to the origin of this article, whether leadership development can sustainably change the atti­tude and behavior of managers, the understanding in leadership development must be clarified and sharpened. It is not enough to teach managers in development programs how to set goals, delegate tasks, conduct devel­opment conversations, etc. If learning content is applied in an environment that corresponds to the reality in which managers manage and work together, success is much greater and more sustainable. We can start by thinking about how to conduct development conversations in a volatile work environment, what the content is and what leaders can do to help themselves and the team to cope better in this environment. Furthermore, which tasks leaders can delegate and how to deal with the effort and results when many things are uncertain, but also what leaders and the team can do to bring about security through understanding.

In principle, the following points should be taken into account when developing and implementing leadership development programs:

Approach changes in attitude and behavior in parallel

• Recognition and acceptance of one's own attitude and behavior
• Recognizing the necessity and the advantages as well as revealing the stimulus (motivation/will)
• No pressure from outside - feedback is good as long as it is concrete

Develop and deliver leadership development programs according to agile principles

• Taking up challenges according to VUCA and mixing them with topics - no rigid framework
• Involve clients from the beginning (Co-Creation/Design Thinking) and work with them together
• Managers bring the topics into the programs and work out solutions together

Bundle VUCA, Digital, Virtual, Shared, Transformational and Leadership in New Work/Work Smart

• Focusing on the common skills – specifics features in a further step
• Promoting and actively demanding networked thinking and acting
• Decoupling of job title and role – when should managers lead and when should the others

Skills of people who develop and deliver leadership development programs