Human Developmental Processes as Key to Creating Impactful Leadership

Abstract

In this chapter the impact of the vanishing managerial hierarchy in shared leadership and its impact on the psychology of circles and circle members is reflected upon, and the crucial need for adult-developmental processes (meaning-making and thinking) supporting people in non-hierarchic organizations is outlined. To date leadership and followership has been thought about as wedded to individuals in a clearly articulated hierarchy of responsibility levels. The absence of such levels opens a terra incognita that is difficult to navigate without knowledge of how individuals evolve over their lifespans as fully rounded adults. The hypothesis presented here is that distributed leadership and followership is developmentally determined. Organizations need to bring to bear on circle members what we call deliberately developmental processes (DDP), whose nature we spell out in the chapter, and which lead to deliberately developmental organizations (DDO). The two case studies presented illustrate different levels of “frame of reference” as determining how work is internally constructed by individuals and how it is delivered in real time.