The Top Fifteen Percent Leadership Program-Whitepaper

Rohan Dredge Renée Giarrusso

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read

and write, but those who cannot learn,

unlearn, and relearn.

ALVIN TOFFLER

Rohan has been working as a ‘people architect’ for over 15 years. Seeing people exceed potential & possibility and performance. Understanding and executing the key fundamentals in life in order to grow to your maximum potential and invest yourself in the life of others. That sums up Rohan. Rohan is able to engage and motivate audiences of all ages to take action for change. His wit, wisdom and insight keep audiences engaged and challenged to make the changes that attract significance, abundance and influence. Rohan is able to equip you to become the person who has the capacity to recognise and accept opportunity, to be more than you have and to begin to fulfill your purpose and destiny. Based on the values of human potential, worth, dignity, the power of a personal vision combined with the importance of personal growth Rohan skillfully, humorously and insightfully guides his audiences along a journey that increase the willingness to change and deposits the motivation and the skill to be able to make it last.

Everything continues at a state of rest unless acted on by an external force.

Rohan DredgeFrom a young age Renée has always been fascinated with people and human behaviour. She loves the diversity of people’s perspectives and insights and this led her to be on a continual learning journey, she has never stopped studying! Renée embarked on studying coaching, facilitation and NLP (Neuro Linguistic programming) whilst in a people management role and she found the learnings and results so astounding, she wanted to share them with everyone! The last 16 years has seen Renee developing and growing 100’s of individuals, teams and organisations to successfully increase leadership and communication agility and therefore performance and success in role.

Change can equate to growth, sometimes by pulling the blinkers off we can uncover solutions, ideas and new ways of thinking.

Renée Giarrusso

Next gen leaders must be able to proficiently move, change and evolve the organization. Agile leaders are creative thinkers with a deep sense of

purpose. They show a propensity and ability to move into action and make decisions, and their implementation often results in greater learning

BRIAN MCGOWAN

thetopfifteenpercentleader.com.au 4

If only Fifteen Percent of the workforce rises above the level of being an expert and achiever in their field, we need to ask two key questions.*

The Top Fifteen Percent Leader is the one who is able to identify specifically where they are at in their development stage and engages in skill and personal development experiences that help them move towards increasing levels of competence and influence. It’s like they have real-time radar in front of them, and in response to the blips on the screen they respond with a deep and intentional internal development.

What place and skill level are you in right now?

What development experience do you need to step to the next level?

Why become an agile leader

1

*HBR - The Seven Transformations of Leadership

The world of an agile leader looks like this:

Alchemist/Synergist Shape Future Pioneer

Strategist/Co-Creator Lead Industry Interdependant

Individualist/Catalyst Lead Leaders Cross Functional

Achiever Lead Teams Influential

Expert Manage Team Developmental

Diplomat Manage Self Responsible

Opportunist Do work Accomplished

HBR Role Behaviour Top 15% Skill

Top

Fifte

en P

erce

nt85

% o

f Wor

kfor

ce

Disrupter

Organisational Expertise

People Expertise

Strategic Expertise

Role Expertise


Leaders hold five main roles as they develop into an increasingly agile player in their space and place. The critical piece is knowing your starting point and being intentional about your next steps (see two questions on previous page)

Agile leaders know what they need to do to navigate towards increasingly higher levels of skill and influence as they move up the role levels. These roles are:

LEVEL ONE

Role Expertise | Lead Yourself

Most environments are dominated by people that are outstanding at their roles and get things done. Both of these traits are an essential foundation for the The Top Fifteen Percent Leader. In all the environments I am part of, I don’t know anyone who wants to be “just average” – people have drive, good ambition, energy and some smarts about how they can continue to do even better at the roles they have. These people lead themselves with responsibility, discipline, action and margin. These people know that their ability to contribute and add value comes from a place of self-leadership.

For The Top Fifteen Percent Leader expertise is a beginning not an end. They have an instinctive desire to move towards greater levels of competence and, as such, greater levels of influence.

LEVEL TWO

Strategic Expertise | Manage A Team

When you’re an expert you get things done. When you’re a strategic expert you help others get things done in the context of your mission and vision. It remains technical in flavour but more complex in experience. As a leader, your contribution becomes not just about what you do, but whom you connect to the wider game plan.

This role is a multiplier role. It’s the beginning point for working through people, but not just for an outcome, a number or a target. This is the environment where the ability to handle complexity, paradox and competing priorities emerges. It is a role that serves the bigger picture of the mission, not just the specific responsibility of the department. The agile leader develops the skills to navigate the daily pressures in the context of weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly objectives. They can move easily between detail and the big picture, and assign resources to ensure the best possible result for the organisation.


LEVEL THREE

People Expertise | Lead Teams

People expertise is the price of entry for The Top Fifteen Percent Leader. You are an expert at what you do. You get things done effectively and efficiently and you help the overall strategy of the organisation move ahead – and all that comes crashing down unless the agile leader develops advanced and nuanced people skills. Packard’s Law is all about the priority of developing people who can carry the mission forward. You can’t grow bigger until you grow broader.

The agile leader makes what appears to be a subtle shift at this point. It isn’t, but it appears so. They shift from technical expertise to people expertise. They shift from resource deployment to people development. They shift from being an expert in their role to becoming an expert at getting people to do their roles.

The Top Fifteen Percent Leader makes this area of development a priority at all times. It’s critical. Changing the leadership world as we know it involves internalising the skills, sensitivity and execution of influential, powerful yet subtle people skills!

LEVEL FOUR

Organisational Expertise | Lead Leaders

At this stage, the agile leader begins to experience convergence. As the developmental pathway unfolds and you leverage the learnings around expertise, strategy and people, you naturally navigate towards greater levels of scope, complexity and payoff. The Top Fifteen Percent Leader understands how to integrate a variety of skills, often competing against each other, and navigate teams to a place of energetic and aligned commitment to the future.

The Top Fifteen Percent Leader is able to focus on the steps toward mission achievement, as well as exercising flexibility and agility as to how that is accomplished. This is about allowing the movable parts to move and holding fast on the critical and essential parts of the playbook. There is less certainty at this point, yet a greater need for clarity and confidence that the overall next steps are the right ones to make together.


LEVEL FIVE

Disrupter | Shape Future

This is the level of leadership we dream about. This level offers such game-changing value to the world that there is a fundamental shift in the playing field because we were there. Wow!

In his short post, Dr Scott Yorkovich lists five principles that define the disruptive leader. These resonate with The Top Fifteen Percent Leader journey. They are:

• Look at your problems in new ways;• Look for the problems others have labelled unsolvable;• Focus on direct and simple solutions;• Accept failure in the beginning; and• Be patient for long-term change and impatient for meaningful impact.

The disrupter looks at the circumstances with a reality distortion tool and possesses the ability to assemble a team of misfits committed to doing what has never been done. The Top Fifteen Percent Leader has the ability to respond to the wind, manage the tide and consider the unchartered ocean ahead. And more often than not, disruptive and positive innovation results.

The agile leader knows their current role, is aware of their next developmental step and has the drive and focus to get there. That’s what makes The Top Fifteen Percent Leader different from the 85% that share the same levels of capability, but are missing that special and significant something that is the difference that makes the difference.

QUESTION

Can you place yourself on the scale in terms of your leadership expertise?


Agility is the new leadership black. Leadership today requires you to be wide, deep, and wide again. It requires you to have a clear picture of the future and to be highly responsive to the climate and culture you are in right now. Leadership needs to be adaptive and resistant so you make measurable progress towards the shared dream. Leadership agility is the ability to apply many and varied leadership styles to fast paced, ever changing environments. It’s the ability to read a room, shift a team, understand a person and make meaningful connections that move the mission forward.

Agile leadership is the ability to manage people and structures, relationships and reporting, policy and technology. It’s the ability to see the difference between the two. On the Forbes Blog, Karl Moore quotes Brian McGowan saying this about the agile leader:

Leading as The Top Fifteen Percent

2Agility is THE new leadership core competency.

Click to tweet

Agile is the new 15% (See HBR Article). Most leaders lead toward functional expertise, focusing on being good at delivering on a few narrow responsibilities. The agile leader is better and broader than that. In the HBR article Seven Transformations of Leadership, they list seven traits of leaders:

7. Alchemist

6. Strategist

5. Individualist

15% of workforce is above this line

85% of workforce is below this line

4. Achiever

3. Expert

2. Diplomat

1. Opportunist

“What does leadership agility look like? Next Gen leaders must be able to proficiently move, change and evolve the organisation. Agile leaders are creative thinkers with a deep sense of purpose. They show a propensity and ability to move into action and make decisions, and their implementation often results in greater learning. Agile leaders actively engage diverse stakeholders, influencing and studying them simultaneously. This individual is not an average employee; they “seek pain to learn.” Agile individuals are motivated by expanding their knowledge, questioning the status quo, and actively migrate towards challenges. They thrive off of solving the difficult problems within the organisation, as they believe it mutually benefits themselves and the company. They enjoy getting through in the deep end of the worst problems.”

As you can see, the bottom four are the opportunist, diplomat, expert and achiever. These types comprise 85% of people in the workforce and get things done with technical excellence. They are outstanding people, excellent at their work. The top three make up 15% of the workforce, while the alchemist is only 1% of the workforce. These are people who have developed key skills around adaptability, agility and personal and corporate reinvention.


So, why does this matter? For three reasons:

ONE

You can identify your current level of leadership.

When you know where you are at right now, you can map out a preferred future. When you can identify what level of leadership you have, you can determine where that needs to move. By leveraging off the Agility model you can take the first step towards growth and reinvention. Leaders who grow lead people who grow, and lead organisations that grow.

TWO

You have somewhere to go (unless you are an alchemist already).

For the 99% left, the Agility Master Model and the HBR insights give us some clear next steps. By designing an environment that helps you create what you need to work towards (think HBR) and how you can get there (think Agility Model), you are able to be specific, measurable and time bound in the way you develop new insights and skills.

THREE

You can help others develop to new levels of leadership.

The 15% of leaders that exhibit these traits are able to undergo personal and corporate reinvention. They can lead in amongst paradox and in the midst of tensions between their own value system and the environment they find themselves in. Leading in the grey and responding to environments is an essential leadership skill. It is one that can be learnt and taught.

Leadership development is intentional, personal and sacrificial. When you want to be part of the 15%, you find a clear pathway that moves you deliberately towards the exciting future you can see for yourself and those around you.

QUESTION

How are you developing your agility as a leader?


The most agile leader determines the future. The greater the ability of the leader to focus on the outcomes and foster creativity in the process, the greater the levels of trust, momentum and effectiveness that will be built in a team. This will also encourage creativity and deepen the layers of leadership in your tribe.

There are a number of things that leadership agility is not:

• Agilityisnotjustbeing“flexible”aboutresults;

• Agility is not overlooking critical components of skill, culture or behaviour;

• Agilityisnotletting“anythinggo”inateamenvironment,and

• Agility is not managing so much that it begins to feel like too much.

Agility is the ability to use the right tool to solve a clear problem at the right time in the fastest way. It is being able to confidently handle the “I don’t know” scenario that so frequently visits teams in a fast paced, continually changing environment. The military phrase that was coined for this is VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. This way of thinking was originally applied to war but has rapidly shaped and infiltrated the world we live in beyond military applications. Leading in this environment is the new normal.

Agility is a combination of the following key commitments:

• Responsibility

• Focus

• Perspective

• Mindset

Agility requires the deep internalisation of these four foundational skills. They are held together by the focus and the emphasis of the leader, as you can see from the model over the page.

3What leadership agility looks like Agility is the ability

to use the right tool to solve a clear problem at the right time in the…

Click to tweet


PERSPECTIVE“Consider new horizons”

RESPONSIBILITY“Accountable for outcomes”

FOCUS“What you look for”

MINDSET“Upgraded Thinking”

Application

Choice

LeadershipAgility

Attention In

Attention Out

The leadership agility master model


Direction of Attention In & Out

As a leader, being clear on where you are putting your attention is critical. I first learnt this from a colleague and mentor Matt Church while he equipped keynote speakers. Knowing you are “Attention IN” (focused on what is happening, in you, at that moment) is a key starting point for developing agility. Becoming aware of your physiology, your thoughts, and what emotions and beliefs are driving you at this point is critical to mastering self-leadership and, ultimately, the leadership of others.

In addition, there are times when you are “Attention OUT”. Your focus is on what is happening to others. You are attuned and attentive to the words, emotions and responses of the people in your team. Being able to move between your internal world and your external world is a key starting point for the agile leader.

Being & Doing The Locus of Development

Life is a series of choices that you make. Irrespective of the experiences you have, you always have a choice. Always. Leadership agility is served by increasing the ability to make the wisest choice at the best time. In developmental terms this can be framed as your “being”, as in who you are. Your being is the internal, most real self that actually exists. When you make progress on the “being”, almost everything else falls into line behind it. Agile leaders know they have a choice and expend energy on making the most resourceful choices they can.

These choices are then followed almost immediately by swift application and execution. Agile leaders live by failing fast, experimenting widely, focusing quickly and executing immediately.

How to become an agile leader

In summary, the agile leader is:

• Responsible;

• Focused;

• Has Perspective, and

• Transforms Mindsets.

How do you develop leadership agility? If these are the markers along the way, what are the steps that move you in this direction as a leader?


BasedontheAgilityMasterModeltherearefivestepsthatbuildleadershipagility.Theyare:

ONE

Responsibility – To be fully responsible and accountable for outcomes.

In the executive coaching world this is called being “at cause”, meaning each person decides that, whatever the circumstances, they will remain responsible and accountable for the results they produce. I hold to the belief that this is the primary starting point for all and any life change. Period. The agile leader decides to be judged by what they produce, and by starting at that place they allow themselves the greatest possible scope for growth and development.

Choose to lead based on level of personal responsibility.

All agile leadership begins with a choice to self-lead with a high sense of responsibility.

This alone is a game changer for the agile leader. Choosing to evaluate the results you are creating through the lens of personal responsibility or being “at cause” is foundational to making any lasting transformation.

TWO

Focus – What you choose to focus on, you find.

The most common illustration related to this concept is when you’re considering the purchase of a new car. The car you are considering suddenly appears everywhere – even in the correct colour. Why? Because you have set your focus on this object, and there it is. Stretch this example as an agile leader. What are you looking for from your team and for your team? Really? What do you expect to find? If you look for competence you’ll find them. If you look for gaps you’ll find it. If you look for challenges you’ll see them. If you focus on progress you can point it out and celebrate it.

The agile leader possesses the self-discipline to choose what they focus on and choose what they dial up and dial down. Just like selecting the frequency on a radio, the agile leader allows certain noise and switches other noise off.

The agile leader looks for possibility, potential, options, growth, and new pathways. The agile leader develops a sense of appropriate risk, healthy conflict and rigorous commitment to culture and execution. They look for the specific things that will create the most momentum and impact for the mission of the team. They look for progress, milestones, celebrations and stories that capture the hearts and minds of the organisation.

Evaluate where you are choosing to place your focus and attention.

You see what you are attentive to and what you are attentive to you see.

Click to tweet


THREE

Perspective – Look at people and problems and consider new horizons.

This is the skill to learn when you were faced with limited options moving forward. To be able to get to the edge of your map and know there is new, uncharted territory ahead of you is incredibly exciting for the agile leader. To deep dive into the perspectives people hold to, and suspend a conclusion long enough to lean in to the way others see the world, becomes an important part of how agility works. Typically we tend towards certainty and hold to that. The agile leader prefers clarity over certainty, and having a clear sense of what is next in the context of the overall mission. The agile leader is less committed to the tool that is used and more committed to the art being created. Agility is the ability to hear and blend perspectives so an even greater outcome is achieved.

Consider new ways of seeing and doing.

The agile leader knows when it comes to perspective that two options are never enough. They always push for the third option. The third option moves you past binary thinking and binary decision-making. It moves you into multiple pathways, multiple options. Lou Reed got it right when he said, “One chord is fine, two chords are pushing it, three chords and you’re into jazz.’” The agile leader is consistently looking to introduce the third chord, the third option, the multiplier.

When you have the third chord you have the opportunity to make every idea better. Every option adds value and every consideration moves you forward. With only two options you have a “good or bad, right or wrong, black or white” scenario, and one can unhelpfully play off against the other. Look for the third chord that helps you shift the perspective, beliefs and options of the team you are part of and the mission you are pursuing.

FOUR

Mindsets – Adapt and upgrade to agile thinking.

When you get to “I don’t know” you are perfectly placed to install an upgraded operating system in your mindset. “I don’t know” becomes a beginning not an end. It becomes a place of heightened curiosity. When you get to an “I don’t know”, the agile leader stops and asks themselves, “What if I did know?” That simple reframe opens up a world of possibility in your thinking and that opens up a world of possibility in your being, which then opens up a world of possibility in your doing. Upgrading your thinking is a critical final component to the agile leaders.

Agility can be learnt and developed. It needs to be encouraged and nurtured. It follows a developmental pattern that can be internalised and sped up over time.


FIVE

Accountability - Be in an environment that sharpens and inspires your development.

The agile leader places themselves fairly and squarely in environments that inspire them to stretch and reach for full capacity and full potential. Agile leaders place themselves in teams and tackle challenges where they are forced to learn new skills, do new things, and develop new leadership rhythms. Agile leaders place themselves in environments that have the same level of encouragement as they do accountability. Agile leaders do not let themselves or others off! Agile leaders look forward to the future they are creating and savour the opportunity to “become more” in the process.

Jim Rohn said, “In order to have more, become more.” Becoming an agile leader is the next step to adding more value to the environment you are in. What is your next step as an agile leader? What must you do to take it right now?

QUESTION

In what specific ways can you apply this Agility Model to your leadership context?


In an increasingly complex and fast-paced leadership world, what does the agile leader obsess about?

4Convergence.

Agile Leadership = Personal Growth + Problem Solving + People Development

Three things. Just three. They are:

• Personal Growth

• People Development

• Problem Solving

The agile leader focuses on these things and the benefits of them follow. Typically, we are tempted to focus on the benefits and become frustrated when they don’t actualize the way we had hoped. The agile leader focuses on the inputs, the development spaces, the steps forward and the most “value added” behaviours for their team and their mission.

The agile leader focuses on these three elements shaped by the following questions.

ONE

How do I become more?

Jim Rohn would say, “If you want to have more then you need to become more.” Jim would also suggest that people should make becoming a millionaire a goal – not so much because of what they got through that goal, but because of what they became as a result of aiming high.

Becoming more comes from a place of stewardship and gratitude. Becoming more means you make good use of the talents and capabilities you have for the benefit of most people. Becoming more is based on the conviction that an increase in capacity can benefit more people more of the time. Becoming more means creating the ability to reach your potential quickly, and to more effectively contribute to others.


TWO

What will bridge the gap between expertise and agile leadership?

The HBR Article Seven Transformations of Leadership indicates that leadership can be developed and cultivated. Being an expert in your field is never a bad thing. In fact, it’s to be encouraged. However, there are levels above expertise that can begin to harness the expertise of groups, even movements. There are skills that gather thinkers and doers together and imagine what a radically transformed future could look like.

Agile leaders look beyond expertise. In fact, being really, really good at what you do is not an end but a beginning for the agile leader. Agile leadership focuses on learning to harness the power of gathered expertise to create a preferred future!

THREE

How does problem-solving and people development become second nature?

We work in a number of leadership development spaces, both in the for-profit and not for profit sectors. On all levels, the questions are consistently being asked, “How can we solve bigger problems at a faster rate with better outcomes?” We, in fact, hold to a mantra that says, We make the problems that won’t go away, go away! Life and leadership aren’t about looking for problems, but agile leadership sure is about solving them.

In teams we lead, we have a saying that helps make sense of any challenges that come our way. We simply say, “we can make sense of or solve most problems in 24 hours”. Einstein said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” Our strategy gives us perspective, energy and a game plan to tackle even what we considered to be the most insurmountable problems. On most occasions, it works too!


FOUR

How do I help others maximise their potential?

What you have is not for you. Truly. You, of course, benefit from your skills and abilities but over time keeping the benefit of them to yourself is just plain selfish. This is a paradox of leadership and more often said than done. The agile leader invests significant time and resources into ensuring the people around them enjoy profound levels of development, recognition and productivity.

As I increasingly lean into this area I find the disciplines around focusing on and developing people need to become a priority over most other activities, except the things that only I can do. Most functional areas of leadership can be delegated; people can be hired, trained and equipped. Those few areas of unique contribution that you have, and the responsibility of increasing the quality and quantity of leaders in your organisation, falls to you and you alone.

FIVE

How can I prepare and position myself for more responsibility?

Agile leaders are always asking themselves three crucially important developmental questions. The first is, “Where next?” This deals with direction. What is the new horizon to steer the ship towards? The second is, “What’s next?” This focuses on activity. The third, and perhaps most important question is, “Who’s next?” Knowing who is advancing and showing increasing capacity for leadership is a key to organisational health and growth.

In addition, agile leaders are positioning themselves for new opportunities and growth. The privilege of helping someone get ready for a future opportunity is a key characteristic of The Top Fifteen Percent Leader.

Grow as a leader, develop people and solve problems. This is what an agile leader does.

QUESTION

What questions do you reflect on in the development of leadership agility?

The Top Fifteen Percent Leadership Development Program

This program provided a really good balance of theory and practical examples. You come away with the understanding of what the skill was and a clear demonstration of how to apply it!

Zoe Senior Business Manager

A very interactive program, applies to real world situations. I would recommend this program to anyone wanting to improve regardless of whether they have had prior leadership training. Dynamic, fun and applicable in real time back on the job.

Ben National Field Manager

THE PROBLEMS THE PROGRAM SOLVES: 1 2 3

Develops leaders who are agile problem solvers.

Prepares leaders for a future that does not exist.

Equips leaders to be able to navigate the subjective challenges of leadership.

The program runs over 11 months

Monthly 3 hr sessions

Sessions will take place in an open highly facilitated forum

Program can also run in-house

How does the program run?

Rohan Dredge +61 405 107 532 [email protected]

Renée Giarrusso +61 408 381 641 [email protected]

Apply Nowthetopfifteenpercentleader.com.au

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The Top Fifteen Percent Leadership Program-Whitepaper