When I was twelve I watched a documentary series first shown in 1994 and presented by Desmond Morris called The Human Animal. While I suspect the intro of naked people walking through a busy city street did more for the interest of a kid just entering puberty then the promise of the scientific import of the material, I nevertheless loved the series and the way it approached the study of people from a zoological perspective. Something I had never thought of before.

It was my first introduction to linguistic and social anthropology, although it would be some time before I learned that’s what it was.

Over a decade later and I’m now studying leadership development.

The significance of social anthropology to anyone either wanting to either become a leader or develop someone else to become a leader should be obvious. After-all, we’ve already said that one of the purposes of the leader is to forge the team and social anthropology is the study of how humans behave in social groups.

The tales and stories of social anthropologists are full of jungle treks, mountain hikes, paddling between islands in canoes and bumping across rough desert terrain in 4x4s. And although many of them have now moved towards studying modernity rather then… *tires to remember the PC term*… um, people with sticks, they have taken the tools they developed during those expeditions and turned them towards us.

Social anthropologists study how people behave by observing them in their natural conditions. They don’t pull them into labs, in controlled conditions and ask them to give shocks to each other (although they seem to be very fond of sticking needles in people). They are very much interested in how the many facets of human individuality, culture, religion, hierarchy, wealth, gender, lineage, education etc. come together to form behaviors between people.

Social anthropologists are impartial observers (ideally). And one of the best tools that leaders can get out of a study of social anthropology is a healthy habit of observing human behavior and questioning its causes and purpose.

There’s long running joke in the anthropology world comparing those who go out and actually observe people to those who stay at home reading the reports of those who do the field work. The latter often being referred to as “armchair anthropologists”. A leader is never an armchair anthropologist. Sure, go and buy books, listen to courses and watch documentaries. But more then that, whenever you’re with other people, watch how they behave and try to figure out why; Their body language, voice tone, emotions, who they pay attention to and who they ignore, everything.

Understanding people makes you a better leader… duh.

- James

OK, what has history got to do with leadership development?

Five things: Vision, Belief, Perspective, Certainty and Second hand experience.

Vision

Leaders have two kinds of vision:

• A vision of their reality where they do nothing and,
• A vision of their reality where they change it.

A study of history makes the first one more accurate and the second one more meaningful.

In physics if you wished to predict the trajectory of an object currently in flight you would wish to know:

• Where the object came from and how fast it was moving (history).
• Where the object is now and how fast it is moving (current affairs).

You would then take the two and calculate where the object will be in the future.

Human affairs are far more complex then simple physics but the principle is the same, to see the future you must have an understanding of both the past and the present.

Belief

By studying history you immerse yourself in the events that shaped the world and the people that were the catalysts for it. Great leaders often have an ‘anything is possible’ attitude, one that can be developed and strengthened by seeing beyond the mundane of everyday life. Each story about someone who overcame incredible odds to lead the people around him strengthens your resolve.

Perspective

So many things have happened in the course of human existence. So many lives lived, so much joy, so much sadness, so much glory and so much fear. When you start to get a handle on how others have lived you appreciate your own fortune that much more and are that less likely to lose control at someone because they spilled your coffee.

Certainty

Followers look to their leaders to be rocks during periods of uncertainty. Certainty can be gained from many sources and one of them is in knowing the history of your people and in a greater sense, the history of the human race. It can give you a place to stand, a feeling that ‘I have been put here for a purpose and I will not rest in pursuit of that purpose’.

Second hand experience

Every lesson learned from the mistakes or experience of the people of the past is one more lesson you won’t have to learn the hard and expensive way. Not being paralysed by the fear to fail is vital but knowing how to learn to reduce the chances of failure is just as important.

As your knowledge of our worlds past, and the people that lived in it, increases so you will be able to see the patterns around you everyday that illuminate both problem and opportunity.

One last thing. In my study of great leaders of the past one thing has almost always struck me. The fact that almost every great leader that the average person can name, all of them, were great students of history. They were probably on to a good thing

- James

In my last blog post I defined leadership development as the improvement of your personal ability to lead, a process of self improvement.

Now, when you are working to become a great leader on your own this is as far as it needs to go. However when you are attempting to develop someone else as a leader I consider this to be an umbrella term which encompasses three fields which need to be treated separately:

• Leadology –  The study of power and people (teaching knowledge).
• Leadership training – The practice of the skills used in leading (training skills).
• Leadership coaching – Building the habits necessary to become an effective leader (coaching habit).

It is important to make the distinction because all three require different approaches and methodologies. You can be a great teacher and a poor coach, or a great trainer but a poor teacher.

These three skills, teaching; training and coaching, are important not only to the person wishing to develop leadership in others but also to the self-developed leader. This is because developing people is essential to being able to lead. It is one of the key attributes that followers need from their leaders… “Will I be able to grow with this person?”

Some more definitions to aid understanding of the above definitions:

• Power – The ability to make something happen in potentia.
• Leading – The realising of power and people to change the status quo.
• Leader – A person who both studies leadology and who leads.

I should add that these are my definitions for these words, the dictionary will say something quite different. However I believe language is a toolbox that should serve the needs of man, not the other way around and so within the context of leadership development this is what I mean when I use these words.

When I discuss how to develop leadership in other posts I will do so from the POV of someone developing leadership in others. Self-developing leaders can adapt the ideas to themselves with far greater ease then the other way around.

Leadership development is the improvement of your personal ability to lead.  It is a process of self improvement.

Leaders are concerned with two primary functions. These are functions that only the leader can perform, everything else can, in theory, be done by someone else.

1. Forging the team
2. Having and articulating vision

Therefore, all of the areas that I focus on improve a persons ability to do one or both of the above things.

I break up the development of a leader into three categories:

1. Knowledge (mental models of how the external world works)
2. Skill (the ability to manipulate the external world)
3. Habit (action without thought)

I further break these down into certain key areas that I believe all leaders should develop if they wish to become competent in their craft.

There are many, many more areas that should be developed too but I present here my key ones.

• Knowledge
  • History
  • Psychology
  • Anthropology
  • Management
  • Current affairs
  • Self
  • Ethics
• Skill
  • Understanding
  • Thinking
  • Persuasion
  • Investing
  • Mathematics
• Habit
  • Correct sleep
  • Correct diet
  • Exercise
  • Respect
  • Compassion
  • Reflection
  • Goal setting
  • Positive thinking
  • Reading
  • Note taking
  • Questioning

This is the basis of my thoughts on leadership development. In the words of the great Warren Bennis…

“It is clear to me now that the process of becoming a leader and the process of becoming a fully integrated human being are one and the same, both grounded in self-discovery.” – Warren Bennis

- James