Developing Wise Leaders

If you make a list of the most effective leaders you have experienced, chances are that after considering several specific skills, you will determine that the best leaders also are wise leaders.

But if wise leaders are great leaders, why don’t we spend time and invest in creating them? I wrote about that conundrum last week (read it here). But that article didn’t get to the important question of how do we develop more wise leaders?

In case you don’t go back to that article, here is how I define wisdom from a leadership perspective.

Wisdom is the mental flexibility to see things from a variety of perspectives, keeping the big picture and goals in mind before determining what actions to take, if any. It considers the situation and its implications in both the short, but more importantly long term.

Developing Wise Leaders

As a practical matter, there are at least five things you need to do if you want to put developing wise leaders on your organization’s radar, and then make it happen.

• Build your definition of leadership wisdom. Feel free to use or modify mine if you wish. But if you want to make wisdom an important attribute, people need to know what you mean.
• Create a clear ‘why’ for the value of wise leaders. While most would agree wisdom is a good trait for leaders, it isn’t what is often talked about. So if you want to build it, people need to know why it matters and how it will help them as leaders and the organization overall.
• Expect higher levels of wisdom. Once you have defined it, and exposed its value, you must explicitly state that the goal is for leaders to become wiser.
• Identify wise role models and examples of leadership wisdom. Who do people see as wise in your organization? And what are examples of wise leaders making wise decisions and taking wise actions? Since wisdom isn’t an immediately tangible idea, people need to see inspiring and reinforcing examples.
• Integrate leadership wisdom into development and coaching efforts. Look for ways to add discussions about leadership wisdom and how to build that skill in your training and development activities and encourage coaches to talk about wisdom too.

Note that the step you might have thought I would focus on here is the fifth and final piece of advice. Can we and should we incorporate wisdom into our leadership development efforts? I completely believe you should! But without the first three steps, the value of that last step will be muted. After all, if people don’t have a clear picture of, see the value of, or believe it is even possible to develop wisdom, skills won’t be acknowledged or developed.

I have written this advice from the organizational perspective – what organizations can do to develop wise leaders. But these same steps apply to us as individuals too. After all, if you desire greater leadership wisdom, it wouldn’t be very wise to wait for your organization to help you, would it? And at least as importantly, if you grew to be a wiser leader, wouldn’t you have greater impact wherever you chose to lead?

My upcoming book Flexible Leadership: Navigate Uncertainty and Lead with Confidence, points us towards leadership discernment and wisdom. It gives you a complete understanding of what it means to be a Flexible Leader and provides leaders with the mindset, skillset, and habitset tools to become more effective, flexible, and wise.

Pre-order your copy today.