Psychology 1508: The Psychology of Leadership

Most men and women go through their lives using no more than a fractionusually a rather small fractionof the potentialities within them. The reservoir of unused human talent and energy is vast, and learning to tap that reservoir more effectively is one of the exciting tasks ahead for humankind. Among the untapped capabilities are leadership gifts... We can do better. Much, much better. John Gardner, On Leadership

In this new century, nothing will matter more than the education of future leaders and the development of new ideas. Larry Summers

Making a Difference
The Ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their person. Confucius

Making a Difference
Leadership development is character development. Jim Kouzes

We believe that developing the capacities needed for effective leadershipsuch as self-awareness, systemic thinking, and creativityis synonymous with what is often labeled personal development. Ellen Van Velsor
The process of becoming a leader is much the same as the process of becoming an integrated human being. For the leader, as for any integrated person, life itself is the career. Warren Bennis

Quiet Leadership

Quiet Leadership
Of all the will toward the ideal in mankind only a small part can manifest itself in public action. All the rest of this force must be content with small and obscure deeds. The sum of these, however, is a thousand times stronger than the acts of those who receive wide public recognition. The latter, compared to the former, are like the foam on the waves of a deep ocean. Albert Schweitzer

Quiet Leadership
Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. George Eliot

Stories: Writing our Autobiography

The life-story approach to authentic leader development suggests that self-knowledge, selfconcept clarity, and the internalization of the leaders role into the self-concept are achieved through the construction of stories. In this regard, it is different from most leadership development programs, which tend to focus on the acquisition of concepts, skills, and behaviors either in courses and workshops or through onthe-job experiences, mentoring and coaching. Shamir & Eilam

Action Learning
Skills cannot be mastered by reading books, listening to lectures, or doing case analyses. Instead, skill training involves observation of positive models (i.e. of people whose behavior illustrates highly competent execution of that which is being taught) coupled with repeated practice and feedback. Richard Hackman Action learning has emerged as the hottest approach in the leadership field... the fastest and most lasting learning is produced when people are engaged in finding real solutions to real problems. Giber et al.

Action Learning
Action
(Your Life)

Ideal action Personally meaningful Challenging

Reflection
(1508)

Where have all the leaders gone?

Where are the Jeffersons and Lincolns of today? The answer, I am convinced, is that they are among us. Out there in the settings with which we are all familiar are the unawakened leaders, feeling no overpowering call to lead and hardly aware of the potential within. John Gardner These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. Great necessities call forth great leaders. Abigail Adams

Philip Stone