Master Presentation Notes Cover -BT approved...© 2011 Integral Leadership Review and Integral Leadership in Action 2 • When we shift to the concept of a leader as a role we can

INTEGRAL LEADERSHIP COLLABORATIVE

What is Integral Leadership?Panel Discussion

© 2011 Integral Leadership Review and Integral Leadership in Action

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What is Integral Leadership? Panel – Michael McElhenie, Brett Thomas, Russ Volckmann and T Poling

What is integral leadership? Russ: Remember that in a sense by pairing the words integral and leadership, we’re wedding two different intellectual traditions. One is the integral tradition; the other is leadership – with a whole history, primarily as an academic tradition, developing others to be leaders. There tends to be a use of a set of words interchangeably - lead, leader, and leadership - in the past ten years • On this panel we have been asked to define leadership. John

Latone in his 1907 book: America as a World Power 1897-1907 said “someone has remarked that there is a latent tendency in the human mind to define a thing in order to avoid the necessity of understanding it.”

• How do we define Integral Leadership - what are the qualities

we associate with it? That is exactly what leadership theory has been trying to do for the last 60-70 years in trying to come up with frameworks and models and definitions. In the late 80s Warren Dennis found over 800 definitions of leadership. Another came along and did an analysis of those definitions and brought it down to one: “to get others to do what they wanted them to do.”

• We begin to pay attention to the language we use and how we

create meaning. I invite people to just notice how they are using those terms. That is what this panel is about, the creation of meaning.


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• When we shift to the concept of a leader as a role we can

define a set of expectations. Second person perspective - anyone that might step into that role is made up a set of expectations. We have behaviors and we have roles and a follower that might support them. Integral expands our view to the third person perspective and includes both. Not just being and doing, but looking at all of it in a cultural and systemic context.

• Leadership constitutes all of the quadrants. There is an

invitation to be clear about what we are talking about. So when we are talking about Integral Leadership we are talking about collective holons, agent holons and talking about collective constructs. How do we behave and how do we work with other people to develop their leading capability, and looking at whether they should step into a leader role. How do we work with cultures and system to create conditions for leader effectiveness?

• James O’Toole years ago in research wrote about critical

systems that support the effectiveness of an individual (the hero) - individual quadrant - how do we understand the hero through an AQAL lens?

• Michael: We need to be thoughtful and intentional. O’Toole said

we are walking very early on the sacred ground and creating the environment. We are called upon to step up to the responsibility, where Integral Leadership can really take hold in the community and in the world.

• Brett: I’m going to feel into this from an organic perspective.

Why does this matter? Russ provided a beautiful framework.


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What does it really mean to be a human being - what does his phenomenon of leadership mean? I have been curious about this from being a child and into college, and have been involved a great deal in leader roles.

• My teacher in human potential said the leader is the one that

takes responsibility - I want to make things better. I care about something. I care about it enough to take action, to take responsibility, to improve something, so a leader is one that takes initiative.

• One of my favorite physical activities and hobbies is rock

climbing. In rock climbing there are terms for the roles – the person who holds the rope, the belayer, the safety person. The sharp end of the rope is the leader and the one below the follower, but they fluidly change roles. The one at the sharp end of the rope is the one that begins.

• Work with business is where they want to get things done, not

applying an academic framework. A leader knows where she is going – pragmatics – to get something done. Getting to a destination, to go some place, creating the state of things, business, family, church. To go some place is to be a leader. The key between a leader, versus a type of manager or boss who controls the ability to fire or pay people is that leaders suggest going someplace that people are willing to follow.

• Then we get into integral theory. Leaders get people who are

willing, to follow with no coercion. This is essentially influencing and motivating others. Help another tap into their intrinsic motivation.


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• If you read all the leadership books, with the rare exception of the integral informed approach, you will find experts advocating these very narrow and specific approaches. Post-modern point of view, academia, liberal views - pluralist post-modern view- presence oriented, authenticity base, collaborative, and transformational leadership all come out of this way of thinking as if that is the way to lead.

• The problem with leadership theory, is that all of the these

approaches seem to work with some of the people some of the time and none of them work with all of the people the time. Most writers are subject to their own worldview, and they are apparently not aware that not everyone comes from their worldview, or that everyone won’t appreciate that style of leadership.

• The problem as it is conventionally taught in practice, is a one

size fits all, and as Abraham Maslow would say: if the only tool you have is a hammer you tend to see everything as a nail. We have the hammer approach, screw-driver approach the saw approach. The promise of Integral leadership – is that for the first time we have a relatively easy way to begin to see which approach to leadership will accomplish some form of significant forward movement, in our homes, churches, organizations, etc. This style of leadership works because this is what they care about, this is what motivates them, and this is what their concerns are. That is the promise of Integral Leadership, Leadership is fundamental. Most great things in the world are fundamental, humans coming together to do great things together, making the world a better place in some way. I hope we all take this into consideration.


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• Michael: Tapping into leadership styles and to deeply attend to the work force, and the people following to fit their needs. This is situational leadership on steroids.

• Brett: Situational leadership is more focused on management,

again based on behavior versus being based on worldviews and people’s interiors. Situational leadership was an important step, however the need to get to a context like the integral lens. When we whip out our integral lens we are catching the nuances about what is motivating the person, their ability, the perspectives, the I, we, it; the behavioral, cultural, the mindset dimension, the capabilities dimension and the psychology dimension.

• It may seem overwhelming to understand Integral Leadership,

however just back up for a moment. To have the ability to size up a situation based upon the lens you have been developing, whether we are doing it consciously or subconsciously is important. We usually do it subconsciously. In order to assist a leader in deciding how to act in a situation we ask these three questions:

1. What is really happening here? Less developed leaders make a

snap judgment - assumptions without being aware of their own perspectives. As integral leaders we can go much deeper - all 4 quadrants, tetra rising.

2. What is important and needed? This unfolds out of the first step; your integral awareness allows you to see what is important and what is needed. Deeper details and nuances.

3. What is the most helpful action I can take? What is helpful here?


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• We can get lost in the AQAL model, but just back-up- and

trust your judgment. Teach our conscience as Steven Covey used to say. Through an Integral point of view, we can act as leaders and as consultants to leaders.

• Michael: An integral leader is easily able to pay attention to

multiple levels and systems simultaneously - at the individual level, the group level, the organizational level, the environmental level and the enterprise level. They are embedded in the entire planet and universe. What is needed now and what is needed developmentally to project out into the future?

• T: ‘What is integral leadership’ is a foundational question.

What does it mean to be an Integral Leader or demonstrate it? And for those of us that support leaders, what does it mean to develop integral leaders and leadership?

• We all recognize integral leaders and integral leadership is rare.

There are a number of individuals that are that are integrally inclined. The question is often wrestled with in my practice, what is the threshold that separates those who are moving in that direction or are finding their center of gravity in those higher altitudes from those who are not? The word is intentionality. They are intentional about several things. These are more experientially base not research bases:

o More concerned about being followers of their higher

self - getting beyond their own ego-self, to pursue purposes that exceed the ego.


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o Intentional about a number of things - cultivating multi-perspective worldviews - how can they expand and develop that capacity in the people around them

o Intentional 4 noble outcomes: Pursuit of Truth - intentional about wisdom,

expanding wisdom for themselves and the people around them, gaining genuine consciousness about themselves and those around them

Pursuit of Good - Integrity, the pursuit of congruence with the internal and external, pursuit of values that matter and transcend their own ego needs.

Pursuit of Beauty – Fulfillment, equating beauty with wholeness and completeness. Fulfillment for themselves beyond satisfaction and wealth. Finding it at a transpersonal level.

Pursuit of Effectiveness - the possible, the field of potential and out of that, manifesting that which is workable and sustainable for themselves, for others and the world at large.

• The threshold I look for are a set of intentions, pursing higher

self and pursuit of these higher outcomes.

• Michael: What a tall order. What a huge task I personally have - and also certainly the leaders I am helping - to support myself and for those I support in leadership.

• Russ: After listening to Brett it should be clear why working

on this book with him is an extraordinary opportunity. He has such a wonderful grasp of the phenomenon of leadership in


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organic process and has the uncanny capability of taking some of the ideas of practices and perspectives and translating them into terms that can be comprehended by formal leader roles. Brett has trained leaders to discover how they are tapping into the richness of the red, blue, orange, and green perspectives in their work.

• The phenomenon of influence - historically leadership theory

has been treated as a one way street as having power over other phenomena. Lets begin to think of if it as a two way street and as multiple lanes of interaction, as well as among stakeholders of the leader role. It is like seeing the leader role in a YouTube video and switching to a leader of a system in a full length movie. One last comment, I really appreciate what T said about the threshold and the rarity of these individuals. The intentionality piece is so important and I think it the notion of influence is a phenomena that is on a two way street and multi-lane highway.

• Michael: The idea of intentionality - beyond the ego-self – with

the true, good, beautiful and effectiveness brings a lot of clarity.

Zach (participant): I thought like many people, that it is the spiritual world that would create the new structures, that members of the spiritual world will re-infiltrate the first tier world. Where will we see the dam breaking across the global landscape? • Michael: I have done a great deal of bringing together leaders of

multiple sectors of society. The most serious issues in the world are addressed when we are able to bring people together,


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embedded in different parts of the system. And at the same time helping them access higher meaning and higher purpose to a larger mission for their collective action. That is when we get people to do two things. They do it voluntarily and with a great deal of energy.

• Creating solutions that really are an integration of their multiple

perspectives. They work hard at letting go of the narrowness, and instead to enter into the blue ocean of uncharted territory of the collective. They let go of their individual agendas and enter into a higher purpose and work. I see integral leadership emerging in that context. Another example is Don Beck’s work.

• An opportunity to re-engage and recreate our democracy, so it

can be collectively run with collective input, not as in socialism but what democracy’s true intention was: that everyone in democracy has different perspectives. And to build this field where integral leadership can arise.

• T: There is an institution aspect to your question. We can look

back over history and see that the center of power and influence was with church. The churches represented the center of a town. Then we had governments as the center of impact. Today now business represents the power with the skyscrapers.

• Are we going to see integral leadership emerge here or is there a

new institution waiting to emerge here and is there one that can be designed? I think it is going to be through the melding of some of these boundaries we have known in the past. I think it


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is a both/and question. I think integral leaders will help drive the formation of this, and the conditions of these new institutions will help give rise to, and accelerate the rise of integral leaders

Community: Do you need to be developed to an integral stage of development to be an integral leader? • Brett: I have a point of view on this and care about this

question a lot. As an integral community, when we use the phrase ‘integral leader’ or ‘integral leadership’, it is crucial that we are very aware about what assumptions are we making about that term integral.

• You might be assuming the word refers to quadrants, level,

lines, types, states, shadows, stages, development. Let’s take one of them. Many people love to think of that term and they love lines. Stages of development are kind of like inches, they are not real, they are man-made. Some people talk about an overall stage, as if a person can be ‘at’ an altitude. If that is what you mean by integral, if you mean the latest stages of development then that is a narrow way to use that term.

• I know more effective leaders that are amber, orange and green.

Most integral leaders that I know of are at orange and green - they are achievers and individualists. And the reason is that any complex skill is its own developmental line and leadership is certainly a complex skill. I strongly believe that you can have a leader, and if they haven’t spent years and years gaining experience and feedback, then they may be teal or turquoise in their


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spiritual or cognitive line but leaderships is usually between amber and green.

• We need to be very careful when we use the term integral

leader. When I use the term integral leader, I never mean teal or turquoise leadership. I have only met a half a dozen of them and they are all speaking at this conference, so if you meet any more I would love to meet them!

• To be integral, means to integrate the perspectives of your

current meaning making. If you are orange, maybe you integrated red and amber, or your masculine and feminine It’s about balance, versatility, being well adjusted, and having healthy version of the worldviews. I do not think you have to teal at all.

• My partner Rand Stagen and I work with those at Amber and

Orange - Diplomats, Experts and Achievers. These are impressive integral leaders. We have a handful of teal folks. We go where the power and influence is in the world. The power is amber and orange. Let’s strongly separate being an integral leader and being at integral stages. That is whole another conversation.

• Michael: Suggest to me a number of leadership practices. It’s

a different flavor when we talk about them as integral.

1. Leaders can communicate about where they are leading others. 2. Leaders can direct collective energy towards action. 3. Leaders can involve others, and empower others - a collective aspect. 4. Leaders can create learning and growing space to sustain the enterprise.


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• You can think of those as four different styles, but they are

not, they are simply practices a leader would engage. None of those things are ever a one size fits all. Thinking about Laura Roberts’ ability to modify her style and language to connect with different folks.

Linda (participant): Effective leaders know themselves well - their strengths and weakness. • Michael: I agree 100% a lot of my early career has been spent

around emotional intelligence. I am a huge advocate for the power of self-awareness to drive the intentionality that T was speaking about. There was a wonderful book was written which helps leaders move out of first tier drama to empowerment - from the drama triangle to the empowerment triangle, to be aware of yourself.

• Michael: Can we plant integral leaders in positions of power? • T: It has been addressed in other talks earlier in the week. It is

utopian in our mind to place them in the position of power. The people in power are not inclined to give up their power. The power base is very strong orange with a strong base of blue. They are not going to give up those positions very readily. It is difficult at best.

• Brett: I think there is an opportunity. Don Beck has a right idea

here- I had an insight recently. Think of the leaders we elect in our country. Do we need to say more? The question I had, is it that people can consistently and predictably, chose to follow


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leaders by electing them, by following them, and by supporting them. This is all around the world and all colors. I was really reflecting on it I was puzzled by it but the most simple answered emerged. People follow leaders. People trust leaders that they believe share their values. Don has been saying this for years. People trust leaders that they perceive share their values, this is what makes integral leadership so powerful.

• I agree with T - if we want to create change we need to find

the healthy leader that is emerging from one level to the next. Do we teach them to be turquoise? No, we go to them and say what do you want, what do you care about, what are your problems, how can we get more successful at what you want? Then integral leadership becomes the Trojan horse… they get what they want immediately, they are more effective at what they want to do. Then they keep practicing these perspectives and end up internalizing them. Our training involves a psychoactive component, subjective and objective. We know how to drop into different countries and work with all the different situations. We find the leader is already planted and we work with them as consultants. We can influence. If AQAL integral theory is a technology, I would propose to our listeners that Integral Leadership could be our Killer App.

• T: I so appreciate what you are saying. It brings me back to

the point that the good, the true and beautiful exist at all stages

• Brett: If we are not working at the stage of leadership where the problem exists, then we aren’t doing integral work. Don Beck had it right twenty years ago calling us spiral wizards - we are called to go down the spiral and to plug the leaks in the spiral


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itself. Integral isn’t about being integral and being second tier. It means you can work with the other colors. To be integral is to work with all these other systems

• Russ: I could not agree more. We have a panel talking about

Integral Leadership in the Nigeria Delta and another panel about leveraging money to support the development of integral business. There are lots of different nuances and what is exciting is the number of them that are represented in this conference.

• Michael: I really like the term Integrally Inclined and Integrally

informed. We extend from that an integral direction. Pointing the way. We talk about the integral movement, but is integral leadership new or has it been around longer than we think?

• Brett: I think first to reflect on the definition of the term of

Integral as being associated with the stages and lines. Break the bad habit. I love the integral movement. But when I used the term integral in business and when dealing with main stream folk, we are going straight to the dictionary and the definition is: possessing everything essential, significant, complete, and whole.

• That is exactly what I mean by essential leadership. The young

man in Africa, the courage the heart and the love in a red space where they are essentially meeting people where they are - influencing them accordingly in the context.

• We are integral to our context - we are moved and want to see

someone else be better and we can provide the essential leadership in the moment. The Buddha came up with that - skillful means. Buddha taught over 2000 years ago that to


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teach the Dharma the way to happiness, is to make lives better. All students have different capacities. Our raw cognitive capacity probably transcends Buddha, though maybe not spiritual. We can hold multiple perspectives. The Socratic school taught dialectical communication - a way that in understanding the other person, perspectives have a better objective truth by looking at it through the other person eyes.

• Michael: From the Christian tradition we have the story of

Jesus with the Samaritan of the women at the well, looking into her eyes and into her soul, even though they were from different backgrounds.


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Michael McElhenie Michael McElhenie, Ph.D., has led major humanitarian projects, many for the United Nations, in regions around the globe: Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caribbean. Michael’s key area of expertise is helping executives assess the organization’s culture, discover optimal mission-alignment and bridge the gap through intentional, integral leadership. He has designed and implemented major leadership, executive coaching, change and learning projects for global and national clients, including American Airlines, Anadarko Petroleum, Berlex Pharmaceuticals, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Exelon Energy, H&R Block, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Motorola, Nortel Networks, Progressive Insurance, Sabre, Texas Children’s Hospital, Texas Instruments, Unicredito Banca, Unilever, United Nations, Victoria Order of Nurses (Canada), Wal-Mart, World Bank and YMCA. Michael has over twenty years of leadership and consulting experience, and he currently runs Metatropia Institute, a leader development and change management firm out of Dallas, Texas. He is a faculty member for Duke Corporate Education’s Global Learning Resource Network, a faculty coach for Southern Methodist University’s Advanced Leadership Program and a member of the Business & Leadership Center for Integral Institute. He is also a Senior Associate for Teleos Leadership Institute and has worked with Teleos since its founding in 2002.


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Brett Thomas Brett is the co-founder of Stagen, a Texas-based organizational consulting firm that specializes in Integral Leadership. He is the author and architect of the Stagen Leadership Academy’s 52-week intensive Integral Leadership Program (now in its 10th year). Brett is a 20-year veteran in the field of human performance and organizational development having designed and facilitated hundreds of workshops and corporate training programs. Brett has logged over 10,000 hours coaching CEOs. He has published hundreds of pages of applied integral theory and has co-designed and co-delivered numerous international conferences and seminars on applied integral theory. Brett served many years as the Managing Director of the Integral Institute Business and Leadership Center and on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. Brett currently serves on the boards of both Integral Leadership Review and Integral Publishers. He is writing a book with Russ Volckmann on the subject of Integral Leadership.

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Master Presentation Notes Cover -BT approved...© 2011 Integral Leadership Review and Integral Leadership in Action 2 • When we shift to the concept of a leader as a role we can