Ten marks of leadership - more from Prodigal Kiwis

I have lots and lots I want to actually write and blog about - hypermobilitiy, the improbability of the good Christmas sermon, the role of design in building up community and relationships, lots of books and more thoughts about Venice - but for the moment I'm just using my blog as a way to keep track of some of the things I've been reading on leadership. Below is yet more from Paul Fromont at Prodigal Kiwis on the book pictured here. I find it partiuclarly interesting that much of the thinking around leadership in the churches is coming from those thinking about mission.
Developing Change Leaders: The principles and practices of change leadership development ~ Paul Aitken (Author), Malcolm Higgs

Here's what Paul Fromont wrote:

Mike Crowl, writing from “the mainland”, recently pointed me to what sounds like a fascinating "leadership" read – Developing Change Leaders (US: Nov. 2009 / 318 pages / pb.) written by Paul Aitken and Malcolm Higgs.

Mike writes:

“...In the latest NZ Institute of Management newsletter there's a short piece on some master classes held by visiting speaker, Paul Aitken (the author of Developing Change Leaders). Aitken calls the following ten points the 'dynamic capabilities' needed by change leaders.

1. Dealing with ambivalence – having the capacities to “wait and see”, keep an open mind and be comfortable with contradiction;
   
2. Accessing the diverse range of capabilities across the leadership team;
   
3. Creating a learning environment;
   
4. Future sense-making combined with strategic thinking which requires a strong external focus;
   
5. “Total” or authentic leadership – i.e., an ability to continually walk the talk;
   
6. Trans-cultural competence – an awareness that one size doesn’t fit all;
   
7. Relational skills – the ability to coach;
   
8. Dialogue skills – or process consulting;
   
9. Emotional intelligence;
   
10. The ability to manage the high quality performance challenge, culture and dialogue.

Aitken says, “If people can’t relate well or have quality conversations with people, then they’re not going to be leading anyone.” Church leaders, take note!”

Thanks Mike; that was a useful distillation of some key themes in relation to leadership at this point of time and on into the future.

You can find a 15 minute radio interview (can be listened to online or downloaded as an Mp3) here. Gill South offered a few thoughts on Aitken’s understanding of leadership here in a NZ Herald story (14/12/09).