A Universal Model of Leadership

Developing leaders for the complexity they face.

By Bob Anderson and Bill Adams
We must accelerate the pace at which we can develop leaders for the complex realities
of today’s business environment. The pace of development must at a minimum keep
pace with the rate of change and escalating complexity. This is the Leadership Agenda
facing most organizations. Current approaches to developing leaders are not up to this
challenge. The field of leadership development is a random collection for very good
theory and research, but is completely unintegrated. This leads to a piecemeal approach
that has a poor track record.
After 30 years of effort to integrate the fragmented field of leadership theory and
research, we have developed a Universal Model of Leadership. It is a model that is both
complex enough and elegant enough to take on the complex task of developing leaders
for the future.

We draw the Model in a circle (see

Figure 1). The circle has a vertical and horizontal axis dividing it into four quadrants.
The vertical axis represents the stage of a leader’s development —the level of maturity
of the leader’s inner game that mediates the effectiveness of outer-game of leadership.
The progressive Stages of Adult Development form the backbone of our Universal
Model. The horizontal axis is defined by Task and Relationship. Research shows that
most of a leader’s effectiveness can be explained by these two variables—how well they
manage tasks and how well they manage relationships. Leaders who effectively
accomplish tasks and establish great relationships are more effective. No other
combination of variables better accounts for a leader’s effectiveness.
This four-quadrant grid underlies the Universal Model of Leadership. A leader can
manage people Creatively in a way that engages, empowers, and brings out the best in
them. Or, that leader can engage people Reactively in a way that may be people oriented
and heart centered, but gives up too much power in service of being liked and accepted.
A leader can manage tasks Creatively by being purpose driven and vision focused to
achieve effective execution on results and systemic improvement. Or, a leader can
manage tasks Reactively by over-controlling and driving the organization and people
beyond sustainable limits.
From this core model, we have created the Leadership Circle Profile (LCP), a leadership
360 assessment designed to provide feedback to a leader on his/her effectiveness in
relation to the Universal Model (see Figure 2). In the outer circle of the top half of the
LCP is an array of 18 key Creative Leadership Competencies that are well research to

correlate strongly to leadership effectiveness (r = .93) and business performance (r =

.61). In the outer circle of the bottom half of the circle is an array of 11 Reactive
Leadership Styles that impede the Creative Competencies and, thus, are strongly inverse
to leadership effectiveness (r = -.68) and business performance (r = -.32).
The inner circle in the top half of the model groups the eighteen competencies into five
categories that encompass the best leadership theory and research to emerge over the
last century. These five categories are arranged along the Relationship-Task axis with
Relating and Self-Awareness on the left or Relationship side of the circle and Achieving
and Systems Awareness on the right or Task side. Authenticity is located in the center as
it is central to establishing individual and collective leadership effectiveness.
The bottom half of the circle mirrors this arrangement. Complying is reactively people
oriented and located on the lower-left below Relating. Controlling is on the lower-right
below Achieving because Controlling is reactively task driven. Protecting is in the
middle. This way of mapping the inner circle dimensions is the core of the model.
The Optimal Leadership Profile above was created by asking 50,000 managers
worldwide to describe the kind of leadership that, if it existed in their organization,
would allow the organization to thrive in its current marketplace and into the future.
The resulting Optimal Leadership Profile has strong scores in the top half and low
scores in the bottom half. The strength of a score in the LCP is displayed by its distance
from the center. Strong scores, calculated as a percentile compared to our worldwide
norm group, extend far out from center, while weak scores are closer to the center.
Optimal leadership is highly Creative (at the 90th percentile compared to our
worldwide norm base of how leaders are evaluated on the LCP) with low Reactive
scores (at about the 10th percentile). It also has strong and balanced Task-Relationship
capability. Different cultures describe a similar picture of optimal leadership.
Since effective leadership, individual and collective, contributes to business success,
why do so few organizations have leadership cultures that reflect what we know works?
Why do we not have better ways to measure and track the development of the
individual and collective effectiveness of leadership? Why is this Leadership Agenda not
a business imperative held by senior leaders as a strategic priority for creating
competitive advantage?
Our research provides solid evidence that leadership capability and effectiveness are
highly dependent upon the Stage of Development of the Leader, validating the primacy
of the inner game on leadership effectiveness. Extraordinary capability emerges as the
Creative Stage of Leadership matures.
Development is the dual helix combination of competency and consciousness, the inner
game and the outer game, mastery and maturity. The Universal Model of Leadership
integrates the best of theory and practice of developing leaders.
All of these findings suggest that the development of effective leadership, especially in
complex leadership roles, is a long-term project—it is life work. The process of
developing extraordinary leadership is the same process as becoming an extraordinary
person. If we are to fulfil on the Leadership Agenda facing us, we need to rethink how
we are developing leaders. Our efforts need to be long-term and systemic (not episodic
and piecemeal), individual and collective, and integrative of the inner and outer game of
leadership. Anything less is not likely to succeed.
The practice of developing extraordinary leaders, capable of elegantly and masterfully
leading in today’s complex global business environment, must place equal emphasis on
developing capability and consciousness. The inner game and the outer game must be
co-developed. This is a leadership imperative. It is the development agenda, individually
and collectively, for those in positions of leadership.

# # #

Excerpted from Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough

Performance and Extraordinary Business Results, by Robert J. Anderson and William A.
Adams (Wiley, 2015)

Bob Anderson is Chairman and Chief Development Officer and Bill Adams is CEO of The
Leadership Circle and the Full Circle Group. They are coauthors of Mastering
Leadership (Wiley). Visit www.fcg-global.com or http://www.leadershipcircle.com.

Presentation on theme: "Universal Leadership Model"—

Presentation transcript:

1 Universal Leadership Model

2 Objectives
By the end of the presentation, the following topics and concepts should have been
sufficiently covered. An overview of both universal model of leadership and the
contingency model of leadership. A comparison between the two models of leadership,
that is, their similarities and differences. A list the limitations of each model.
Development of valid conclusions on the business application of both models.

3 Universal Leadership Model Overview

Previously, the theories applied in leadership development have been largely
randomized and unintegrated therefore achieving poor results (Anderson & Adams,
2015). The universal model was thus developed to solve the extant complex
leadership development needs. Anderson and Adams presents the model in a circle
with two axes, vertical and horizontal. The vertical axis represents the development
of the leaders’ inner game from reactive to creative, as a mirror of adult development
framework, while the horizontal axis is defined by relationships and tasks. The
interaction of these axes produces four quadrants that are the core of Universal
leadership model. Therefore, from the four quadrants, a leader can manage people
creatively or reactively, or manage tasks creatively or reactively.

4 Inner and Outer Game Management Process

Competency and Research Outer game

Character Self-consciousness Inner game

Mastering leadership goes beyond physical skills such knowledge and experience, as
well as our technical, managerial, and leadership competence that are essential to
accomplish results.

5 The Leadership Circle Profile

From the core model, a Leadership Circle profile (LCP) is created. The LCP is the tool
used to measure the effectiveness of a leader under the Universal leadership model.
In the outer circle of the top half of the Leadership Circle Profile (as presented in the
previous slide), 18 competencies that epitomize effective leadership and business
performance are selected while 11 other competencies that are inverse to leadership
effectiveness and business performance are chosen to represent the bottom half. The
18 upper competencies are grouped into five concepts that stand for the best
leadership practices and theories. These are: relating and self-awareness to represent
the people-creative quadrant, achieving and system awareness to represent the tasks
creative quadrant, and Authenticity at the middle since it is essential for both
individual and collective effective leadership (Anderson & Adams, 2015).

On the other hand, the 11 bottom follow a similar pattern, that complying represent
the people-reactive quadrant, while controlling occupies the task-reactive one with
protecting at the middle. Scores of these competencies are used to determine optimal
leadership profile. High optimal leadership profile has low reactive scores but high
creative and balanced task-relational scores.

6 Contingency Leadership Model Overview

Leadership styles Situation (Contingency)Leadership Mode, the Fiedler’s Contingency
Model of leadership was introduced in the 1960s. The main precept of the model is
there is no best style of leadership, but several depending on the interaction between
leadership styles and situational factors (contingencies). However, Fiedler assumed
that every person has a fixed leadership style which can be easily found using the
Least-Preferred Co-worker (LPC) scale. The LPC scale involves asking the leader
several questions about their least favourite work or business colleague; that is, what
they feel about them on a scale of say 1 to 8. The sum of the scores from each factor is
used to determine the leadership style. High scores illustrate a relationship-oriented
leader (people oriented leaders generally view their LPC positively) while a low score
shows a task-oriented leader (task oriented leaders tend to view their LPC
negatively).

7 Contingency Model Cont.

The favourableness of a situation is based on three factors: -Leader-member relation-
this depends of the trust and confidence people have in the leader. A trusted leader
experiences a favourable situation. -Task structure- Clear and structured tasks are
favourable while unclear, unstructured tasks are unfavourable. -Leader’s position
power- the power to reward or punish the group. More power means more favorable
situation (Ellyson et al., 2012). The interactions of these factors determine the favored
style of leadership. For example, poor (low) leader-member relation combined with a
clearly structured (high) task and then high position power favors relational
leadership. On the other hand, low leader-member relation combined with low task
structure and low position power favours task-oriented leadership.

8 Limitations

The main limitation of the Contingency Model is highly inflexible. For leaders who fall
in the middle range of the Least-Preferred Co- worker (LPC) scale, their leadership style
under this model becomes unclear. For cases where there is genuine reason to dislike
a colleague, such as extreme laziness, the leader may be classified as task-oriented
when in reality they are relationship-oriented. The inflexibility of the model stems from
Fiedler’s assumption that people’s leadership styles are natural and thus cannot be
changed. Therefore, the only way to adjust to changing situational favourableness is to
change the leader. For example, if a relational leader is in charge of a group with high
leader-member relation, highly structured tasks, and high-power position, the leader
has to be replaced with a task-oriented one.

9 Similarities

Both theories focus on tasks or relationship inclination of the leaders to define their
leadership style. Both models recognize the importance of effective leadership in
insuring the success of a group.

10 Differences

While the Universal model figures in the inner game of the leader, that is, the level of
maturity, on top of their external relations; the contingency theory only focusses on
the external tendencies of the leader. The contingency theory assumes that leadership
styles are inborn and therefore cannot be changed, while the Universal Model
stipulates that a leadership style can be developed simply by building on the core
competencies (Anderson & Adams, 2015). While the Contingency Model considers the
environment in which leadership is practiced (Ellyson et al., 2012), the Universal Model
does not.

11 Significance of the Model in business

The universal model offers the opportunity to increase the pace at which new leaders
are trained to meet the complex and ever-changing business world (Anderson &
Adams, 2015). The universal model increases the potential of existing leaders, and
business, by going beyond skills and technical knowhow to character growth. Fiedler’s
Contingency model implies that its essential to match leadership with the job
situation in order to increase the business productiveness and efficiency. The
universal model, unlike most models before it, integrates the best leadership theories
to produce a wholesome package that can be used to effectively train and mentor the
new breed on leaders in a short time (Anderson & Adams, 2015).According to
Anderson and Adams, great leadership is connected to the deepest parts of its bearer.
That is, people who are well grounded at an emotional and spiritual level become
better leaders who ably deal with the complex business world

13 References

Anderson, R. J., Adams, B., & Adams, W. A. (2015). Mastering leadership: An integrated
framework for breakthrough performance and extraordinary business results. John
Wiley & Sons.

Ellyson, L. M., Gibson, J. H., Nichols, M., & Doerr, A. (2012). A study of Fiedler's
contingency theory among military leaders. In Allied Academies International
Conference. Academy of Strategic Management. Proceedings (Vol. 11, No. 1, p. 7).
Jordan Whitney Enterprises, Inc.