Context
Stephen Murgatroyd and Don Simpson have outlined the six
characteristics of renaissance leaders in their book Renaissance Leadership – Rethinking and Leading the Future. In this
book they suggest that renaissance leaders demonstrate six key characteristics
during the normal course of events. These are:
· They practice personal mastery
· They apply a glocal mindset
· They accelerate cross boundary learning
· They think back from the future
· They lead systematic change
· They drive performance with a passion
Athabasca MBA students have, for the last four years, been
exploring these characteristics and contrasting them to others found in the
leadership literature. They have also been interviewing renaissance leaders in
for profit, government, nonprofit and philanthropic settings to explore how
these six characteristics translate into action. The six characteristics have been seen to be
reliable and robust in describing the leadership actions and thought patterns
of true renaissance leaders.
Arts, Creativity and Imagineering – Links to
Personal Mastery
Do we need to add a characteristic which emphasizes arts and
creativity – the work of Imagineering? What about design as a skill set?
Our answer is no, but we do need to be clear that arts,
creativity and Imagineering occur everywhere in our thinking about these six
characteristics.
Sarajane Aris and Stephen Murgatroyd will soon be publishing
a book on personal mastery in which they explore the role of resilience,
compassion, mindful presence, enabling spirit and spirituality, tough love and persistence in the development of
personal mastery. Between them they have seventy five years of clinical and
psychological experience, both as individual therapists and as agents of
organizational change and transformation.
They suggest that creativity and art can be a key part of the
journey to personal mastery:
- Art and creative forms (dance, music, sculpture, drama) are all forms of self-exploration and self-expression.
- Such art is powerful when the creator is fully present and mindful in the process of creation.
- Art and creative work that captures the spirit and spirituality of the individual or group creating it has a powerful impact on those who experience it.
- Audiences for art which show empathy for the creators of that art are demonstrating their compassion and self-understanding by doing so.
- Using art for inspiration and ideas is a way of connecting to others through a sense of spirit and imagination.
They also suggest that creative art and Imagineering are
powerful resources in the development of resilience and in enabling mindful
presence.
Links to Cross-Boundary Learning
Artists and creators (as well as designers and imagineers)
engage in a lot of cross-boundary learning. They adapt and adopt ideas and
processes from one field and apply them to the work in progress. Innovators do
this too (over 95% of all innovations are adapt/adopt not disruptive or
transformative). Creators use cultural context to shape and form their work.
Similarly, renaissance leaders see what they can learn from
completely different disciplines (e.g. health care systems studying FedEx to
better understand process re-engineering, creators of artificial limbs looking
at architecture to help imagine better designs) to inform their own work.
Systematically engaging in cross boundary learning and
seeing art, music, drama as amongst the disciplines to “cross the boundaries
for” is a characteristic of renaissance leaders.
Links to a Glocal
Mindset
Art, music, drama, film, dance, sculpture are all universal
languages. A film made in Sweden focused on a murder on a bridge becomes
amongst the “most watched” TV series in Britain. Ibsen’s play The Seagul is performed all over the
world. Why? Because they speak to truths and the human spirit which cuts across
boundaries. Just as a powerful brand (in itself a combination of art, spirit
and values lived in the daily experience of an organization) can be universal,
so too can art.
But the idea of the glocal mindset is more than
understanding and connecting globally. It also involves acting locally.
Powerful glocal leaders think globally, engage globally and act locally. The
Edmonton Symphony Orchestra looked at the youth-music developments in Venezuala
(El Sistema) - free classical music education that promotes human opportunity
and development for impoverished children which has produced some great
musicians but also has reduced crime, ill-health and created a sense of
community – and is replicating it in inner city Edmonton.
It doesn't have to be music. Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn
of Haas & Hahn have found an ingenious and stunning way to
empower some of the world’s most impoverished communities through art. They
pain houses and develop community murals. Favela Painting has become a
community-driven artistic intervention that has transformed slums and neglected
neighborhoods, from Haiti to Philadelphia, into prideful works of art.
And, just as Haas & Hahn describe in their TED
Talk, these transformations are impossible without the support of the
community. Therefore at the start of each project, the two artists host a
neighborhood barbecue, as they have learned that food is the best (and
quickest) way to any community’s heart.
Links to Think Back from the Future
2015 is the anniversary of Back to the Future, made in 1985. The film imagined what life would
be like in 2015. The writers and designers got several things right:
- · tablet computers,
- · wall-mounted TV screens,
- · wireless videogames and
- · people playing with their handheld devices at the dinner table
- · hoverboards (which became available in October 2014)
Not
all of their predictions were right – we’re still expecting men to wear double
ties and no one has been making the sequels to Jaws which would have is watching
Jaws 19 in 2015. But this is not a bad list of successes. Similar successes can
be seen from Star Trek, Asimov’s 1947
short story Runaround. As a genre,
science fiction is useful in imagining the future.
But
so too are futuristic writings in medicine and health. When the X Prize
foundation in partnership with Nokia offered a prize for a wireless handheld
diagnostic device and a larger Qualicom X-Prize for a Tri-Corder (wireless
handheld device that performs diagnostic functions) worth US$10 million. The
winning device has to measure specific sets of health conditions:
- · Required Core Health Conditions (13): Anemia, Atrial Fibrillation (AFib), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Diabetes, Hepatitis A, Leukocytosis, Pneumonia, Otitis Media, Sleep Apnea, Stroke, Tuberculosis, Urinary Tract Infection, Absence of condition.
- · Elective Health Conditions (Choice of 3): Allergens (airborne), Cholesterol Screen, Food-borne Illness, HIV Screen, Hypertension, Hypothyroidism/Hyperthyroidism, Melanoma, Mononucleosis, Osteoporosis, Pertussis (Whooping Cough), Shingles, Strep Throat.
- · Required Health Vital Signs (5): Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, Oxygen Saturation, Respiratory Rate, Temperature.
What
was the inspiration for these prizes and challenges? Science fiction (in
particular the device shown on Star Trek
as used by Leonard “Bones” McCoy).
Links to Leading Systematic Change
At various period in history, the nature of an art form
changes. Painting has passed through a variety of phases – Bauhaus, Cubism,
Expressionism, Minimalism, Arts and Crafts, and many more – each led by an
artist or group of artist who develop a passionate and thought-through
framework for their work. Despite rejection, challenge, criticism, and ridicule
they persist.
Leaders who want to lead systematic change practice three
things:
1. Thinking
ahead: being bold,
visionary and forward-thinking in aspiring to create a great organization. Key
here is the foresight to avoid distractions such as the naysayers and
contrapreneurs: focusing short-term gains in test scores or the privileging of
‘quick-fixes’ sometimes offered by technology vendors or change consultants.
2.
Delivering within: materially supporting and committing to the values
and goals one sets. A prime example here is the tendency to side-step the
issues of poverty and the readiness to learn factors that could build
tremendous capacity to improve educational development.
3.
Leading across: working across organizational and supply
chain boundaries to learn from each other. This includes sustaining networks
that cross local, regional, national and international boundaries to address
complex and nettlesome problems such as improving organizational climate and
employee engagement.
Looking at the history of change in art, music, cinema,
drama, architecture, design, dance can help inspire leaders to persist in this
important work. We might usefully ask how do the creative arts support the
three tasks associated with leading systematic change?
Links to Driving Performance with Passion
When an orchestra meets a conductor for the first time they
are generally skeptical, especially major world-class orchestras. Yet some
conductors change the dynamics of an orchestra and have an impact at a
spiritual level which affects their playing and the audiences experience of the
music. Not all conductors do this – some are really dull – but some do –
Bernstein, Sir Simon Rattle, Leif Segerstam, Sir Georg Solti and several
more.
The same is the case for choreographers with ballet
companies, singers with bands, key players in jazz quartets, principal
violinists in string quartets and other genres. What happens here is that the
person of the conductor or the singer in the band becomes a factor in the
performance. Rather than just watching a baton or listening to a voice, what
the other players experience is the spirit and energy of this person. That is,
their passion for the music and for the performance informs the performance and
the work of others.
Studying such performers and understanding not “how they do
it” but “how what they do changes what others do” can help us all be better
leaders.
Conclusion
I wanted to explore the question “is something missing from
the six characteristics of renaissance leaders” that would help us better
incorporate creativity, Imagineering and the arts in our understanding of the
work of leaders. My conclusion is no, there is nothing missing from the “big
idea” of the six characteristics, but we can do a lot more in helping people
see the connections between the six and the nature and practice of art,
creativity, design and Imagineering.
