Abstract
In this chapter, we introduce the idea of exploring driversandblockers—both conscious and unconscious—in leadership development as a prerequisite and contribution to enhanced and profound self-awareness. This chapter provides an overview of the chapters to come, as well the interconnections between these. In the process, it discusses potential reservoirs or sources of drivers and blockers in people, including the conscious and the unconscious, emotions, personality and values. We also introduce the “Drivers and Blockers Exploration Tool” which is an effective intervention contribution for leaders to incorporate within an integrated leadership development process to assist with achieving their desired change objectives. This chapter concludes by briefly discussing the contributions and implications for leadership development research and practice of our work on drivers and blockers, as well as providing an example from our field work to bring the drivers and blockers concept into focus at the outset.
Keywords
- Leadership development
- Self-awareness
- Conscious and unconscious
- Drivers
- Blockers
- Drivers and blockers
- Immunity to change
- Insightfully aware leadership
- Leadership transformation
- Individual change
- Leadership development objectives
- Coaching approaches and tools
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Carl Gustav Jung
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Notes
- 1.
Change here refers to any change which is “adaptive” (Heifetz et al., 2009) and involves “the challenge of developing the whole person” (Boyatzis et al., 2002, p. 151) at an intrapersonal level. We note that there is also an extensive literature on organizational change and resistance that is neither the focus of our research studies nor the findings presented in this book.
- 2.
For further information on the construct of “insightfully aware leaders” and “insightful awareness”, readers can access some online content from Professor Ian C. Woodward at:
- 3.
Between 2013 and 2018, as part of our field research, we included aspects of exploring drivers, blockers or both, in different leadership development programs and coaching or training activities covering more than 2000 executive and senior executive level leaders. All the examples used in this book are drawn from this field research. To maintain confidentiality, the real names of the participants have not been used—and other information has been highly anonymized and disguised. All of our driver and blocker examples are listed in a cross-referenced summary table in Sect. 10.1.
- 4.
An example from our research (see Sect. 10.1, Example 42).
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Woodward, I.C., Shaffakat, S., Dominé, V.H. (2019). Introduction. In: Exploring Leadership Drivers and Blockers. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6276-7_1
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