Module 6

Leadership Development
Becoming an effective leader does not just happen; leaders need to develop leadership skills. This module
explores leadership development. It outlines how you can do this—and the role that leveraging existing
strengths plays in building leadership skills.

Learning Objectives
• Identify key leadership skills and abilities.
• Assess one’s own strengths and developmental opportunities.
• Apply the concepts of self-leadership and lifelong learning.
• Analyze some of the reasons for leadership failure and evaluate the opportunities failure can present.

Required Readings
• Peter G. Northouse, Introduction to Leadership, chapters 5 (pp. 99–111) and 6 (pp. 125–143).
• Lilly Lin, David Rublin, Cem Turan, and Limore Zilberman, “Attracting and Cultivating the Next
Generation of Insurance Leaders,” Russell Reynolds, May 17, 2023,
https://www.russellreynolds.com/en/insights/reports-surveys/attracting-and-cultivating-the-next-
generation-of-insurance-leaders.
• John Maxwell, “The 5 Levels of Leadership,” John C. Maxwell, August 30, 2016,
https://www.johnmaxwell.com/blog/the-5-levels-of-leadership1/.
• Maike Neuhaus, “What Is Self-Leadership? Models, Theory and Examples,” Positive Psychology, March
18, 2024, https://positivepsychology.com/self-leadership/.

Optional Video
• John Maxwell, “John Maxwell: 5 Levels of Leadership,” YouTube, posted August 1, 2016,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA8sowCZ0bI.

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Self-Development
Northouse describes the various skills that a leader requires, and we have seen more in the module on traits
and styles to understand what may be missing or in need of continuous improvement in ourselves. But where
and how do those skills get developed? Once you have identified what you may be missing, and your timeline
for resolving those issues, here are some practical examples of steps you could undertake:

• Enrolling in a mentorship program

• Enrolling in professional development courses or performing research
• Soliciting information from your work team, peers, and mentors
• Role playing or simulations
• Monitoring your soft skills and personal well-being:
o Keep your stress to a minimum by using such tools as physical exercise, good eating, taking breaks, and
meditation
o Check that you’re treating others fairly
o Assess your decision-making processes and consider other people’s point of view.
o Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals for communication,
problem solving, and conflict resolution
o Reward yourself for your progress
• Monitoring your progress and keeping a reflection journal

Research by Gallup says that you should play to your strengths and discover your way of leading others. Leaders
who know the four domains of CliftonStrengths described in the exhibit below allegedly improve their decision
making, boost engagement, and increase their productivity: 1

Exhibit
Four Domains of CliftonStrengths

Relationship Strategic
Executing Influencing
Building Thinking

How do you
How do you build absorb, think
How do you make How do you and nurture about, and
things happen? influence others? strong analyze
relationships? information and
situations?

Development of Others
Maxwell’s 5 levels are a great example of the steps that you need to undertake to develop people around you
into strategic leaders. See the optional video; it is well worth viewing. Maxwell also has other videos on
YouTube that you may find helpful.

Self-leadership is the need to become more conscious and learn to manage our habits to become a better
leader―this concept has become increasingly important for everyone to understand and take part in given the

1Gallup has a video, several articles, and a self-assessment of your CliftonStrengths on its website:
https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/356072/how-to-be-better-leader.aspx#ite-612287.

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increasing role of engagement and the trend to instill decision making and accountability in organizations.
Self-leadership is important to develop in ourselves and in others.

The concept of self-leadership, which first emerged in the mid-1980s, has its roots in two areas of psychology.
The first, social cognitive theory, suggests that people influence and are influenced by the world, and that
humans have a capacity to manage or control themselves. The second, intrinsic motivation theory, postulates
that humans are naturally motivated by the rewards of doing something they like. Self-leadership is related to
self-regulation, self-direction, self-control, self-awareness, and self-development.

Stander and Zyl, in their book on leadership development, introduced a framework to understand what
capabilities are needed for self-leadership (see exhibit below). As you can see from the diagram, internal
capabilities for self-leadership draw on the strength of the individual’s organizational and personal
environment.

Exhibit
The Positive Self-Leadership Capability Model 2

Character
Strengths

• Strength-based decision
making
• Strength-based recovery

Interests and Abilities and

Aspirations Talents

• Purposeful vision • Psychological capital

• Authentic • Mindfulness
engagement • Job crafting

Environmental
Strengths

• High-quality connections

For each piece of the exhibit, strategies can be undertaken to strengthen an individual’s capabilities. As an
example, providing high-quality connections can be achieved through networking, mentorship, and belonging
to teams on projects that would build environmental strengths and contribute to enhancing competency 6 on
the list of required competencies below: harnessing the ecosystem.

Eight core competencies and skills have been identified for effective self-leadership, 3 and each leader can ask
themselves how they support their own development and that of others in recognition of the following:

2 Marieta Du Plessis, “Positive Self-leadership: A Framework for Professional Leadership Development,” in in

Llewellyn Ellardus Van Zyl and Sebastiaan Rothman, Sr. (eds.), Positive Psychological Intervention Design and
Protocols for Multi-cultural Contexts, pp. 33–56 (New York: Springer International, 2019).
3 Neuhaus, “What Is Self-Leadership?”

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1. Self-awareness and self-knowledge: having introspection and basic self-knowledge

2. Identifying desired experiences: living one’s values and understanding what makes us happy
3. Constructive thought and decision making: working with a sound rational mind and developing a growth
mindset. 4
4. Planning and goal setting: setting SMART goals, contingencies, accountability, and rewards
5. Optimizing motivation: taking small steps and identifying intrinsic motivational factors
6. Harnessing the ecosystem: seeking support for our behaviour and skill enhancement
7. Amplifying performance: identifying performance inhibitors, self-coaching, and visualization
8. Embracing failure and cultivating grit: adjusting expectations, practicing self-compassion, and
cultivating grit by developing your talent

Failure
Failures, both large and small, occur on individual and organizational levels. As failures are addressed,
however, they may potentially become learning opportunities.

At the individual level, leaders fail for many reasons. Some may blame it on external forces, such as the
economic climate or bad luck. Blaming, though, may be missing the point. In examining the reasons for
leadership failure, it is important that the leader take responsibility; otherwise, it will likely be more difficult to
learn from the experience.

We can also look at how a leader deals with the failures of others. Peters and Waterman argue that tolerance
for failure is an important part of company culture. If a company seeks to be innovative, then failures are a
necessary part of learning. They write that mistakes need to be addressed early and communication lines must
be kept open: “The big failures, the ones that really leave scars, are usually the ones in which a project was
allowed to go on for years without serious guidance.” 5

How does an organization learn from failure? What role do leaders have to enable to ensure that learning
happens? How does learning from failure help an organization adapt? A study examined these questions
through a survey of 121 organizations operating in a range of industries. The study considered “learning
leadership”: specific behaviours of the top management team that enabled and facilitated organizational
learning from failures. The study found that that when learning leadership is modeled by leaders, the
organization is more able to learn from failure. In turn, the organization is more able to adapt to environmental
turbulence. 6

In the study, organizational learning is defined as “the extent to which managers and organization members
alike employ insights, information, or cues gleaned from previous experience or external sources to steer
current behaviour.” Organizational learning from failures is more than learning from previous positive and
negative experiences. It is about the ongoing practice of managers learning, and also systematically reviewing
and renewing the ways they learn and change. 7

4 Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success does a great job explaining what a growth mindset is.
5 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence (New York: Collins Business Essentials, 2006), p. 224.
6 Abraham Carmeli and Zachary Sheaffer, “How Learning Leadership and Organizational Learning from Failures

Enhance Perceived Organizational Capacity to Adapt to the Task Environment,” Journal of Behavioral Science 44
(2008): 470.
7 Carmeli and Sheaffer, pp. 471–472.

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In the study, the set of behaviours related to learning leadership included “modeling of high-quality
information and solution exchange, inculcation of trust, communicating commitment to credibility and
transparency concerning delicate organizational issues and attention to details.” 8

Leaders must learn from their failures so as not to repeat them. One strategy for doing so is to reflect on their
experience.

Self-Assessment
• Application 5.3: Leadership Skills Questionnaire on pp. 118–120 of Northouse
• Application 6.3: Leadership Strengths Questionnaire on pp. 150–153 of Northouse

8 Carmeli and Sheaffer, p. 472.

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