Introduction to Consilience
What is good leadership? How can we become more effective leaders? If you ask twenty people these questions, you could get twenty different and valid answers. We each have our own “leadership model” – a distinct perspective on what leadership is and what good leadership looks like. What follows in this series of blog entries is my own evolving, emergent model of leadership – what I believe are the bedrocks of strong leadership and how these translate into “leadership meta competencies” that are the key to enhancing leadership performance. These views have been informed by decades of experience advising leaders, by my observations of “what works,” and by the thought leadership of many great thinkers, practitioners, and writers from different domains. This perspective draws on and is supported by the hard sciences (e.g., neurology, biology, chemistry), the developmental sciences (e.g., psychology, adult development), business and leadership literature, and ancient wisdom traditions. I am struck and inspired by how many of these ideas are echoed across disciplines, cultures and centuries. (Hence, I named this discussion “Consilience,” which is the discovery of common findings among independent disciplines.) While the purpose of this work is to explicate my leadership model, I encourage you to digest, question, and challenge my model, on the path to refining your own distinct perspective.
The following set of blog posts are intended to be read sequentially, with the latter ideas building on the prior ones.
Four Meta Competencies that Fuel Performance
The Neutral Witness: Leadership Super Power
Interplay Between Meta Competencies
Five Step Process of Change: How Leaders Deepen and Accelerate Their Development
Practical Applications for Accelerating Leadership Development
Enhancing the Performance of a Client: How Advisors Can Use This Model
© 2021 Carolyn Volpe Cunningham