Warren Buffett's and Your Own Seven Transformations of Leadership
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GLOBAL LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES PRESS Warren Buffett’s and Your Own Seven Transformations of Leadership William R. Torbert Leadership Professor Emeritus, Boston College Founding board member, Global Leadership Associates and Amara Collaboration* The 2020 Update on the 2005 Harvard Business Review Article “Seven Transformations of Leadership” GLOBAL The 2020 Update on the 2005 Harvard Business Review Article LEADERSHIP “Seven Transformations of Leadership” ASSOCIATES PRESS Warren Buffett’s and Your Own Seven Transformations of Leadership William R. Torbert Leadership Professor Emeritus, Boston College Founding board member, Global Leadership Associates and Amara Collaboration* “Seven Transformations of Leadership” became one of the most-read articles on leadership in HBR’s history and continues to receive hundreds of reads each week, according to Research Gate. In 2006, the article won the Annual Award from the international Association of Executive Search Consultants for Best Published Research on Leadership and Corporate Governance. In 2012, HBR reprinted the article as one of the top ten ‘must read’ leadership articles in the journal’s history. “Our souls are The 2005 Harvard Business Review article latest action-logics, where the capacity to riven. Covid 19 and “Seven Transformations of Leadership” lead the transformation of self, teams, and “I can’t breathe” describes seven different, successive organizations emerges, as the following table expose differences in leadership ‘action-logics’ that result in shows. markedly different organizational processes leadership capacities and outcomes. Leaders are found at all seven Opportunist wins for self 5% as never before. action-logics, but in general become more Diplomat wants to belong & fit in 12% Only the Redefining, effective — over longer periods, in more Transforming, and complex environments, and in conditions Expert focuses on logic & 38% Alchemical action- requiring organizational transformation — at expertise logics reliably support the rarer, later action-logics. (In this article, Achiever driven by personal & team 30% the action inquiry we are going to assume readers are already achievement of collaborative somewhat familiar with the action-logics, but, Redefining uniquely reframes 10% transformation if not, the first table provides the action-logic complex dilemmas names and one-phrase snippets to initially within families, Transforming generates personal & 4% characterize each.) neighborhoods, orgnztl transfrmtn companies, and The 2005 article was itself backed by decades Alchemical integrates material & 1% countries.” of field research, theory development, and spiritual transfrmtn organizational interventions, anchored The 2005 HBR article shared our empirical in a psychometric measure of leaders’ research, showing, among other findings: developmental action-logics now named the Global Leadership Profile (GLP) (e.g. Torbert, 1. that interest in offering and receiving 1976, 1987, 1991, 2004). Three thousand performance feedback increased in perfect plus leaders had taken this measure. Our correlation with each later action-logic; subjects largely represented highly educated 2. that among managers at the four earlier samples from various layers of management, (and most prevalent) action-logics, only from first-line supervisors through nurses, those at the Achiever action-logic were professionals, and junior managers, to William R. Torbert reliably regarded by subordinates as senior managers and entrepreneurs. We effective; recognized that a truly random sample of the global population over the age of 21 3. that each higher managerial rank showed a would show much higher percentages in the later average action-logic score; and earliest action-logics. Nevertheless, the most 4. that only the rare chief executives who striking feature about our highly educated measured at the Transforming action- and professional samples was that fully 17% logic reliably succeeded in supporting Elaine Herdman-Barker remained at the two earliest action-logics, organizational transformation. while only 15% had evolved to the three 2 GLOBAL in each case. To accomplish this, two different New Research and Implications scorers now score each GLP, providing a LEADERSHIP for Practice After 2005 reliability test on each of the 30 items of each ASSOCIATES profile. The scorers have attained 94% perfect PRESS Given such findings, one can easily understand agreement between their item scores and they why all social sectors would be interested in talk through a consensual agreement on the 6% identifying leaders and prospective leaders at where they initially disagreed. Warren Buffett’s the later developmental action-logics, as well as and Your Own Seven Our greater degree of interaction with GLP- in identifying job and organizational structures Transformations takers has also given us important feedback that promote development among employees. of Leadership about our own choices of action-logic names. We And indeed, after 2005, my co-creator of the GLP have learned that the names we had previously and President of GLA, Elaine Herdman-Barker given to the Redefining and Transforming and I have found an increasing demand for use action-logics seemed somewhat misleading and of the GLP by corporate managers who started unattractive to our clients (the previous names their own consulting and coaching practices, in were Individualist and Strategist). In addition, we talent management and leadership development realized that, while nouns were appropriate to programs, and in senior team consulting characterize the four early action-logics, all of projects, especially in global companies requiring which privilege stability over change, dynamic cross-cultural management capacities. This parts of speech were more appropriate for shift toward increasingly voluntary and growth- characterizing the inherently creative later motivated participation affected our research action-logics. and our interventions in a number of ways. Later action-logic participants experiment more To begin with, it showed up in an increasing with, and seek more feedback on, their own proportion of late action-logic participants, practices than earlier action-logic leaders. They particularly at the action-logic, as Redefining do first- and second-person research on their shown here (n=3,642 GLPs, gathered between own development and that of their teams and 2012-2020): organizations — historically, in the present, and prospectively. In this article, we will focus Pre- 2012- primarily on ways to support our readers’ first- 2005 2020 person research into your own development, Opportunist wins for self 5% 0% and we will focus in particular on the two Diplomat wants to belong 12% 0.1% leadership action-logics that seem to be growing & fit in most rapidly — Redefining and Transforming. Expert focuses on logic & 38% 4.3% We begin by offering a close description of the expertise actual practice of leaders, including German Achiever driven by 30% 33.7% chancellor Angela Merkel, who operate at personal & team Redefining, the fastest growing developmental achievement action-logic. Merkel is often described as the Redefining uniquely reframes 10% 52.1% most powerful woman in the world. complex dilemmas Transforming generates 4% 9.6% Next, we offer a developmental portrait personal & orgnztl of ‘richest man in the world, emeritus’ — transfrmtn Warren Buffett, moving fromOpportunist Alchemical integrates material 1% 0.2% to Alchemical, with special attention to his & spiritual Transforming actions. Kelly (2011) focused transfrmtn his PhD dissertation on creating a new, four- variable, quantitative measure that can be used It seems highly likely that a significant proportion to rate the developmental action-logic of detailed of the shift toward later action-logic scores from biographical episodes of someone’s life. He used 2005 to 2020 was due to the changing character this new methodology to examine Warren Buffett of our sample. We found, for example, that the (based on Schroeder’s 2008 seminal biography). coaches and consultants (who interacted with He found remarkable consistency between the many executives and organizations) made up theoretical sequencing of the action-logics and most of the increase among those measured their empirical sequencing in Buffett’s life. Also at the Transforming action-logic, whereas based on the Kelly study, we examine some of corporate executives were now more often the catalytic factors in Buffett’s transformation found at the Redefining action-logic. At the same from one action-logic to another. time, however, a significant cultural shift has been occurring at the outset of the 21st century We also offer a striking example in Buffett’s life toward a post-modern recognition of multiple of what has recently been named “fallback” in (national, class, racial, gendered) perspectives, a developmental theory (McCallum, 2008; Livesay, cultural condition that encourages development 2013). This will lead us into a discussion of to a Redefining action-logic. research on fallback that readers can compare to For more information on your own experiences. this article or the author, As our coaches and consultants are now offering please visit the We next encounter a more general exposition of Global Leadership GLP-participants feedback via a 35-page report Associates website and coaching debriefs, it has become important the different types of power and inquiry available www.gla.global that our scoring be reliable, not just in