Corporate and organization leaders face challenges every day. Learning to become a more effective leader was the focus of Grand Valley State University’s Hauenstein Center’s Peter C. Cook Leadership Academy hosting the best-selling author of the book “Deep Change.”
WGVU spoke with one of the nation’s leadership experts before Thursday evening’s Wheelhouse Talk.
“How do we exhibit the highest levels of leadership?”
Research by Robert Quinn, professor emeritus at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, has developed a model around asking yourself four simple questions. What result do I want to create? Am I internally directed? Am I other-focused? Am I externally open?
“When I learn how to effectively ask those four questions of myself I can be in any situation, no matter how negative it is, where normally I act like a victim. If I learn as a discipline, ask those four questions and answer them, I shift from being comfort-centered to being purpose-centered. That means I’m suddenly proactive. Everybody else is reactive in most situations, including the boss. That puts me in a very different place. If I ask, ‘Am I internally directed?’ What does it mean to have 2-percent more courage in that situation? Then, all of a sudden I’m authentic. I’m going to say what I really feel and feel what I really say. If I ask the third question, ‘Am I other-focused?’ Suddenly I’m asking, instead of worrying about me, I’m saying ‘What is he feeling at the very roots of his soul? What is she feeling? What are the needs in this system? What is the highest common good? ’ That’s a transformational question as are the other three. It immediately puts me in a different perspective. And the fourth question is ‘Am I externally open?’ Am I willing to learn from these people even if they’re in lower positions than I am or lower status than I am or they look different from me?”
Quinn explains anyone can learn to ask those four questions of themselves and says it will transform anyone from a conventional version of themselves to a higher performing version.
Patrick Center, WGVU News.