Today’s, and especially tomorrow’s, leaders must be flexible, collaborative, able to leverage key knowledge and skills appropriately, and also willing to continue their learning. They must be able to handle chaos, act in ambiguity and navigate turbulence in a way that brings competitive advantage in the marketplace. They need to know what is important, do the right thing every time, and believe and think in a way that increases their odds of success. And of course, our organizations must be able to support these leaders in developing these abilities.
One of the central questions in this pursuit is how to move developing leaders from “here” to “there” in terms of their mindset, skills and knowledge, and behavior. This question is at the heart of leadership development and is one that every company should consider carefully as it builds its future and seeks the leadership outcomes that are required in the marketplace.
The connection between thought and behavior is critical. Though it seems logical that behavior follows thought, the direction of this connection often works in the other direction. In fact, I believe that leaders often must change their behavior first in order to later change their thinking. In other words, we can’t ask leaders to think their way to acting differently – we have to ask them to act first and then they will start thinking differently. In this way, leadership development is more about helping a leader see herself acting differently so that a change in her beliefs will follow.
The Know, Do, Believe model focuses on the connection between a leader’s knowledge and skills, their behavior, and the mindsets they employ to shape and make sense of the world.
Via Chris Chan