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An Invitation to the LPD Journey

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LeadershipQuick Quiz Question: You enter a meeting room and do a quick scan. Which seat belongs to the leader? You might answer with some indication of name, title, status or position around the table. However, if you’re in a BGI degree program or an alumnus of one, it’s likely your answer will be any seat! The idea that you can lead from any seat in the room by being present, listening deeply and being ready to contribute to a group when your moment arises is central to BGI culture and seeded from day one through a unique course in the MBA curriculum, Leadership and Personal Development, known by its acronym, LPD. LPD is a two year journey that occurs over six quarters in the MBA curriculum and provides an ongoing thread to connect and develop learners personally, professionally and as a learning community. Learning to lead from any seat in the room is a shift in mindset, a shift from a hierarchical view of leaders and followers to one in which every voice is valued and invited into the room. What’s required to lead this shift? Authenticity—aligning what you think, feel, say and do. Creating this coherence by discovering and owning our personal power and potential is what LPD is all about.

Quiz Question Two: What would you say are the three essential leadership competencies of the 21st century? I know that’s a tough one. Indeed, what makes it tough is that there really is no definitive answer, and there doesn’t need to be! We don’t always need to be in agreement or consensus or in debate to get there. We liberate a great deal of our power with one another when we see this clearly and can share our views as uniquely our own with respect and appreciation for the life experiences that generated them. In that context our task is not to convince others to accept our view as theirs or to judge theirs to potentially be our own. Our task is to provide a heartfelt narrative, based on our own experience, that validates our perspective as being authentically our own and to listen deeply for the same from others. This type of dialog is central to the LPD journey and grows the kind of trusted connection with one another that allows us to come to consensus when needed or follow authority when necessary. So, what are the three essential leadership competencies from my perspective? My career has spanned and spiraled through the fields of science, psychology and spirituality for 40 years. Each has contributed to my view in unique ways. As a result, I believe that we can all learn to lead more effectively in the 21st century if we increase our capacity to face complexity, embrace empathy and be open to mystery. The important issues are seldom black and white, we’re all generally doing the best we can and we’re connected to a world much bigger than ourselves.

Final Quiz Question: How will you lead from your seat in 2014? LPD is fundamentally an appreciative inquiry. So, I invite you to take a few moments and ask yourself how your power and potential can emerge and develop this year to contribute to the common good. I don’t know what your reply will be, but I do know that the way we see things is not the way they are. They’re simply the way we see them, through our own mental models and assumptions. When we’re willing to look again at everything we know, we can see things in new ways. If we only see them the way we have in the past, we can only go where we’ve already been, and we very much need to lead humanity in a new direction of positive change. So, look again, see your challenges in a new way and courageously bring your gifts to the next steps of our LPD journey together!

John Koriathabout the author

John Jay Koriath, Ph.D.

John is on the core faculty of Bainbridge Graduate Institute where he teaches Leadership and Personal Development and serves as Director, Digital Learning.


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