Here are key CCL publications on leadership for an interdependent world including downloads in most cases.

Summary: Developing Leadership in an Interdependent World

Palus, C.J., McGuire, J.B., & Ernst, C. (2011). Developing interdependent leadership.  In S. Snook, N. Nohria, & R. Khurana (Eds.). The Handbook for Teaching Leadership. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications with the Harvard Business School.

McCauley, C.D., Palus, C.J., Drath W., Hughes, R.L., McGuire, J., O’Connor, P.M.G., & Van Velsor, E.  (2008).  Interdependent leadership in organizations: Evidence from six case studies. CCL Research Report no. 190. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Cullen, K. L., Palus, C. J. Chrobot-Mason, D. & Appaneal, C. (2012). Getting to “We”: Collective leadership development. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 5, 431-436.

McCauley, C.D. (2011). Making leadership happen: A whole system approach to leadership. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Drath W., Palus, C.J., . & McGuire, J.B. (2010).  Developing an interdependent leadership culture. In C. D. McCauley, E. Van Velsor & M.N. Ruderman (Eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development, 3^rd Ed. (pp. 405-428). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.(2010).

Petrie, Nick (2011). Future trends in leadership development. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Johansen, B., foreword by J. R. Ryan (2012). Leaders Make the Future: Ten New Leadership Skills for an Uncertain World (2nd Edition). Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Horth, D.M., & Buchner, D. (2009). Innovation leadership. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

McGuire, J.B., & Rhodes, G. (2009). Transforming your leadership culture. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Summary

Pasmore, W.A.& Lafferty, K. (2008). Developing a leadership strategy.  Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Transforming Your Organization: The KONE Story. CCL Webinars.

Pasmore, W.A., & Adkins, G. Leadership strategy and talent search. European CEO.

McGuire, J.B., Palus, C.J., Pasmore, W.A., & Rhodes, G.B. (2009). Transforming your organization. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Achieving interdependent leadership: Leveraging organizational network analysis and boundary spanning practices. Conference by Activate Networks and the Center for Creative Leadership. October 11-12, 2011, Greensboro.

Boundary Spanning Leadership

Ernst, C. and Chrobot-Mason, D. (2010). Boundary Spanning Leadership: Six Practices for Solving Problems, Driving Innovation, and Transforming Organizations . New York: McGraw-Hill. (Overview here). (About the Book.)

Lee., L; Horth, D.M.; & Ernst, C. (2012). Boundary Spanning in Action: Tactics for Transforming Today’s Borders into Tomorrow’s Frontiers.  Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Jeffrey Yip, Chris Ernst, and Michael Campbell (2011).  Boundary Spanning Leadership: Mission Critical Perspectives from the Executive Suite. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Chrobot-Mason, D., Ernst, C., & Ferguson, J. (2012). Boundary spanning as battle rhythm. Center for Creative Leadership White Paper Series.

Ernst, C. and Chrobot-Mason, D. (2011). Flat world, hard boundaries: How to lead across them. Sloan Management Review. Spring, 2011. Reprint 52306.

Cross, R., Pasmore, W.A., & Ernst, C. (2013 in press). A Bridge Too Far?: How Boundary Spanning Networks Drive Organizational Change and Effectiveness. Organizational Dynamics, 42(2).

Chrobot-Mason, D., Ruderman, M. R., Weber, T., & Ernst, C. (2009). The Challenge of Leading on Unstable Ground: Triggers That Activate Social Identity Faultlines. Human Relations, 62(11), 1763–1794.

Ernst, C., & Yip, J. (2009). Boundary Spanning Leadership: Tactics to Bridge Social Identity Groups in Organizations. In T. L. Pittinsky (Ed.), Crossing the Divide: Intergroup Leadership in a World of Difference. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

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Drath, W.H. (2001). The deep blue sea: Rethinking the source of leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Drath, W.H., McCauley, C.D., Palus, C.J., Van Velsor, E., O’Connor, P.M.G., McGuire, J. B. (2008). Direction, alignment, commitment: Toward a more integrative ontology of leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 19, 635-653.

Van Velsor, E., McCauley, C. D., & Ruderman, M.N. Our view of leadership development. In C. D. McCauley, & E. Van Velsor (Eds.), The Center for Creative Leadership Handbook of Leadership Development, 3^nd Ed. (pp. 1-22). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Marshall, E.M. (1995). Transforming the way we work. New York, NY: AMACOM.

Marshall, E.M. (1999). Building trust at the speed of change. New York, NY: AMACOM.

Hannum, K.M., Martineau, J.W., & Reinelt, C. (eds.). (2007). The handbook of leadership development evaluation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

McGuire, J.B., Palus, C.J., & Torbert, W.R. (2007). Toward interdependent organizing and researching. In Shani, A.B Mohrman, S.A., Pasmore, W.A., Stymne, B., & Adler, N. (Eds.). Handbook of Collaborative Management Research. Sage Publications. 123-142.

McCauley, C.D., Drath, W.H., Palus, C.J., O’Connor, P.M.G., & Baker, B.A. (2006). The Use of Constructive-Developmental Theory to Advance the Understanding of Leadership. Leadership Quarterly. 17:634-653.

McGuire, J.B., Rhodes, G., & Palus, C.J. (2008). Inside out: Transforming your leadership culture. Leadership in Action, 27(6), 3-7.

Palus, C.J., McGuire, J.B.,  & Rhodes, G. (2010).  Evolving your leadership culture. In 2010 Pfeiffer Annual : Leadership Development, David L. Dotlich,  Peter C. Cairo, Stephen H. Rhinesmith (Eds.). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Palus, C.J., & Horth, D.M. (2007). Visual Explorer. In Holman, P., Devane, T., & Cady, S. (Eds.). The Change Handbook: The definitive resource on today’s best methods for engaging whole systems (2nd Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Palus, C.J., & Horth, D.M. (2004). Exploration for development. In McCauley, C.D., & Van Velsor, E. (Eds.).The CCL Handbook of Leadership Development (2nd Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 438-464.

Palus, C.J., & Horth, D.M. (2002). The leader’s edge: Six creative competencies for navigating complex challenges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Banff Centre Leadership Development Book Award 2003.)

Palus, C.J., & Horth, D.M. (2005). Leading creatively: The art of making sense. Ivey Business Journal. September / October. Reprint # 9B05TE05.

Palus, C.J., & Drath, W.H. (2001). Putting something in the middle: An approach to dialogue. Reflections. 3(2), 28-39.

Palus, C.J. & Drath, W.H. (1995). Evolving leaders: A model for promoting leadership development in programs. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

Drath, W.H. & Palus, C.J. (1994). Making common sense: Leadership as meaning-making in a community of practice. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

I want to share a white paper with you about four trends for the future of leadership development. Our colleague Nick Petrie did a terrific job researching this, interviewing professionals at diverse organizations including Harvard, GE, Forum, CCL, and Ketchum; the full article can be found here.

Trends toward vertical development and more collective forms of leadership are especially intriguing and inform CCL’s thinking about interdependent leadership. Let us know what you think in the comments section, and I’m sure we can get Nick to join in the discussion.

Four Trends:

1. More focus on vertical development
2. Transfer of greater developmental ownership to the indivdual
3. Greater focus on collective rather than individual leadership
4. Greater focus on innovation in leadership development methods

It seemed that the nature of the challenges that managers were facing were rapidly changing; however, the methods that we were using to develop them were staying the same. The incremental improvements that we were making in programs were what Chris Argyris would call “single loop” learning (adjustments to the existing techniques), rather than “double loop” learning (changes to the assumptions and thinking upon which the programs were built). These continual, nagging doubts led me to take a one-year sabbatical at Harvard University with the goal of answering one question – what will the future of leadership development look like? With the aim of getting as many different perspectives as possible, I studied across the schools of the university (Education, Business, Law, Government, Psychology) to learn their approaches to developing leaders and conducted a literature review of the field of leadership development. In addition, I interviewed 30 experts in the field to gather diverse perspectives and asked each of them the following questions:

• What are the current approaches being used that you think are the most effective?
• What do you think we should be doing more of in terms of developing leaders?
• What should we be doing less of/ stop doing/ or phase out?
• Where do you see the future of leadership development headed?

Download the white paper and continue reading …

Contact Nick Petrie

Nick Petrie is a Senior Faculty member with the Center for Creative Leadership’s Colorado Springs campus.

What new innovations lie at the intersection of organizational networks and boundary spanning? Sixty or so leading organizations and thinkers will gather at CCL in Greensboro, NC on Oct 11-12 for a deep-dive exploration of this question. Read more about the conference, Achieving Interdependent Leadership: Leveraging Organizational Network Analysis and Boundary Spanning Practices.

For the past year, my CCL colleagues and I have partnered with Rob Cross, Associate Professor at the University of Virginia and the leading organizational network expert, around several successful client engagements. Now we are excited to explore the possibility for even greater impact by more deeply integrating network and boundary spanning perspectives. As we look around – both locally and globally – the time for new innovations for fostering large scale collaboration has never been greater.

The complex challenges we face in business and society cannot be addressed by organizations working alone. To fulfill an organizational mission, whether it be to win competitive battles in the global marketplace or feed the hungry in Africa, require creating empowered networks that sprawl across traditional organizational boundaries.

Coming into the conference event, these are some of the questions – organized by the levels of individual, group, organization, and society – that capture our imagination.

Individual: What are the network practices and values of effective leaders resulting in personal effectiveness, well-being and engagement? What are the links between personal effectiveness  and strategic change?

Group: How are direction, alignment, and commitment across group boundaries created as a result of more effective network and boundary practices? How is cross-boundary direction, alignment, and commitment related to strategic change?

Organization: Can we build more interdependent leadership cultures by developing more effective network and boundary spanning beliefs and practices?

Society: What role do networks and boundary spanning initiatives play beyond the single organization in supporting positive, large-scale societal change?

What are your leading edge questions? Share your thoughts to this blog or you can engage with the conference attendees on Twitter@CCLdotorg. Use the hashtag: #AIL2011 in your Tweets.

A recent IBM study of more than 700 global chief human resource officers speaks to the urgent need for more boundary spanning leaders. In the paper Working Beyond Borders, IBM reports that driving corporate growth and innovation in the future means “engaging much more seamlessly across a wide range of geographic, functional and generational boundaries and borders.”

Unfortunately, the boundary spanning aspirations in most organizations are not living up to reality. Our research at CCL shows that 86 percent of senior leaders say that working across boundaries inside and outside their companies is extremely important. Just 7 percent, however, believe they are very effective at it.

That’s a huge gap – but the story doesn’t end there.

CCL research also suggests that the pressure to span boundaries may be greatest on middle managers shifting to senior-level jobs.

Boundary spanning is important for middle managers, according to 91 percent of senior executives surveyed. But only 19 percent of middle managers were seen as effective in working across boundaries — a gap of 72 percent between perceived importance and effectiveness of boundary spanning capability.

The ability to shift from a bounded, within-group mindset to one that skillfully bridges vertical, horizontal, stakeholder, demographic and geographic boundaries is a key challenge for leaders and organizations as a whole. Leaders recognize that innovation, by its very nature, requires intense and sustained collaboration across wide-ranging boundaries.

The IBM report suggests that organizations need to work beyond borders requires organizations to do three things:

Cultivate creative leaders. The IBM study says leaders need to develop “a flair for thinking about opportunities and challenges in completely different ways. These leaders must be able to provide direction to, as well as to motivate, reward and drive results from an increasingly dispersed and diverse employee base.” It’s the intersection where boundaries collide, intersect, and link that the source of new ideas and creative solutions emerge.

Mobilize for greater speed and flexibility.  “Companies must be willing to simplify processes and provide fast, adaptive workforce solutions to meet the requirements of a quickly changing marketplace. A responsive human capital supply chain and the ability to fluidly allocate resources are essential for competitive differentiation in today’s tumultuous environment.” The leadership advantage increasingly goes to organizations that can quickly integrate far-flung people and resources to capture emerging opportunities.

Capitalize on collective intelligence. “Tapping into a broad base of institutional knowledge is critical to developing and maintaining an innovative culture. Enterprises must adapt innovations, apply them across their organization and find new ways to connect people to each other and to information, both internally and externally.”

The old challenge for leaders involved how to operate effectively within the boxes and lines of traditional organizational charts. The new challenge is how to think and act beyond yesterday’s boundaries to discover innovative new frontiers.

Following up on my post of May 3rd, I interviewed a second faculty member known for his ability to lead across boundaries.

At East Carolina University, the Brody School of Medicine and the College of Nursing are separate units within the Division of Health Sciences. Several years ago Dr. David Taylor, Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, was challenged by the Division’s senior administration to consider having his department teach that subject for Nursing. He agreed, and decided to teach the course himself.

Some of the Nursing faculty were openly pleased with the idea, while others evidenced unspoken concerns about an interloper doing an end run around the normal curriculum process; in one instance he was asked pointedly and behind the scenes to adopt classroom management practices typical to the College of Nursing. Many doubted that he could communicate with Nursing students, a concern that Dr. Taylor initially shared.

Once the class began, his humor and upbeat style quickly engaged the students. His own concerns about being able to make the transition eased when he realized that it was much easier to observe mental light bulbs coming on in these students than among the tough crowds typical to Medicine classes.

Once the evaluations of instruction were turned in, it was found that the students were motivated and thriving under Dr. Taylor’s instruction. When the Nursing faculty saw this, their attitudes softened significantly and connection was possible. Success for those whom all valued became a true bridge.

Reflecting on the experience, Dr. Taylor said that one key was his willingness to work in Nursing’s territory as opposed to having students come to the School of Medicine, and this meant he had to jump into an unfamiliar environment as well as unfamiliar material and a different social structure. He found that you have to prove yourself; it’s essential to have the respect of any tribe you want to work with. With positive connections now made, Dr. Taylor’s department is now working with the College of Nursing on new programs and “discovering new frontiers.”

I have often wondered if the Six Boundary Spanning Practices should be sequential, from Buffering to Transforming. This example suggests that such a lock-step sequence might be impossible where multi-dimensional boundaries are involved. For example, there were Vertical boundaries between the faculty, the chairs and the Vice-Chancellor, and the permeability of each was different. There was an obvious Horizontal boundary between the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing, but in the end it was the Stakeholder boundary around the students that made the most far-reaching difference when spanned.

With such complexity, the sequence of the Practices became more emergent than predetermined. Dr. Taylor Connected initially with the division administration as well as with the leadership in the School of Nursing. As he and the students began to visibly Mobilize, Buffering and Reflecting could succeed between him and the Nursing faculty members (something that did not turn out well earlier), enabling additional rounds of Connecting and Mobilizing that led to the Weaving of new collaborations and offerings.

In an earlier post I described I described four “tribes” in our Brody School of Medicine, each of which carefully maintains its boundaries: the Basic Scientists, the Clinical Scientists, the Educators and the Administrators. For more information, refer to that post by clicking here. Recently I interviewed a faculty member well-regarded for his ability to span those boundaries.

Dr. David Collier is a general pediatrician who spends 75% of his time working with programs in childhood obesity, arguably the most costly medical problem in Eastern North Carolina. Obesity can be described as the perfect medical problem. Only 1/100 to 1/1000 of the onsets are medical, and the rest are behavioral; however, obesity caused by behavior begins to create other medical problems that in turn affect behavior, and the vicious cycle begins to spin out of control. Currently, 30% of the children in Eastern North Carolina are obese in contrast to the 15% average nationwide.

This combination of behavioral and medical problems can only be treated with the combination of medical and social approaches, and this demands that he find collaborators with skills he does not have. For instance, in behavior management it is useful to work with psychologists as well as business people who understand how we all make purchasing decisions. Collaborations of this nature require a willingness to think beyond one’s usual discipline.

As an example, Dr. Collier is working on an obesity program with 4-H, commenting “They know kids!” In another case is working with the university’s Department of Physical Therapy to understand lower extremity problems; there is no value in changing someone’s behavior with an exercise program that blows out their knees.

Collaborations of this sort can be difficult in Medicine. Basic science students and medical students matriculate under completely different circumstances, and it affects their views of each other for years afterward. Whereas medical students take on a tremendous amount of work through a rigorous schedule and highly structured clinical settings, basic scientists have to create their own rigor and structure in the course of their learning and research.

Each has to make a choice about the scope of their impact on the world. A practicing physician can achieve clear outcomes, but one patient at a time. A research scientist on the other hand can impact millions but acknowledges that the odds of achieving the clear outcome can be long. To some extent each can feel envious of the other and it can contribute to dysfunctional relationships. Add this dynamic to the overall competition for rewards and resources in a medical school, and collaboration becomes a high art.

Accordingly, it can be easier to create such partnerships outside of one’s own institution than within it. Trust is essential, but Dr. Collier believes that success in complex collaborations is most likely where the people involved have skills that are complementary, with little redundancy. For example, when doctors collaborate with 4-H, there is low redundancy of capabilities but high shared interest. The next key is a willingness to relinquish control in the interest of creating an equal partnership. When the basic and clinical tribes do come together, there is a sweet spot with a high payoff that rewards the commitment to span boundaries.

Next week, I’ll share the insights of a faculty member who spanned boundaries to create new horizons with an academic unit outside of the Brody School of Medicine.