The Leadership Challenge focuses on how to be a successful leader. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® present five practices that individuals can put into action to bring out the best in themselves and those they lead. Authors Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have also identified Ten Commitments of Leadership that correspond to The Five Practices. This book is important because it provides experiential learning activities that allow individuals to practice the skills related to The Five Practices and The Ten Commitments.
The book offers you a selection of 107 creative activities that address The Five Practices. The key purpose of this book is to provide trainers, consultants, facilitators, instructors, coaches, and others working with The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® a grand selection of activities that can be used with your clients, participants, and students. Although the activities have been primarily designed for training sessions, they can easily be adapted for one-on-one coaching situations or for educational classroom settings. You can draw on the expertise of our seasoned contributors to enhance your next training sessions.
The book includes ten chapters. The first chapter presents an overview of the elements of The Leadership Challenge, explains why this book is important, and reviews how to use the book and select activities. Chapter Two reminds the trainers of key aspects to ensure an excellent training. This chapter also provides tips for facilitating activities and ideas for forming small groups. The next five chapters present activities that address each of The Five Practices: Model the Way; Inspire a Shared Vision; Challenge the Process; Enable Others to Act; and Encourage the Heart. Some of the activities that were submitted addressed all of the practices, and you will find those overarching activities in Chapter Eight. Chapter Nine shares tools that are required of a leader, but are not a part of the Kouzes/Posner model. It also presents activities that can be used in scenarios other than a classroom or in unusual circumstances. Finally, Chapter Ten describes next steps for the reader and discusses other growth opportunities.
ELAINE BIECH
Copyright© 2010 by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. All Rights Reserved.
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The Leadership Challenge Activities Book
Copyright © 2010 by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. www.pfeiffer.com.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kouzes, James M.
The leadership challenge activities book / James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner with Elaine Biech.
p.cm.
ISBN 978-0-470-47713-7 (pbk.)
1. Leadership. I. Posner, Barry Z. II. Biech, Elaine. III. Title.
HD57.7. K6814 2010
658.4’092—dc22
2010005202
Acquiring Editor: Lisa Shannon/Marisa Kelley
Development Editor: Susan Rachmeler
Editor: Rebecca Taff
Design: Riezeboz Holzbaur Group
Director of Development: Kathleen Dolan Davies
Production Editor: Dawn Kilgore
Manufacturing Supervisor: Becky Morgan
James M. Kouzes is the co-author with Barry Posner of the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, with over 1.5 million copies sold. He’s also the Dean’s Executive Professor of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.
The fourth edition of The Leadership Challenge was released in August 2007 and is available in fifteen languages, including Chinese. The Leadership Challenge was number three on Amazon Editor’s Pick for the Best Business Books of 2007. It was also the winner of the 1995–1996 Critics’ Choice Award and the 1989 James A. Hamilton Hospital Administrators’ Book Award. Another recent book of theirs, A Leader’s Legacy (2006), was selected by Soundview Executive Book Summaries as one of the top thirty books of the year and by the Globe and Mail (Canada) as one of the top ten books of 2006. Jim and Barry have also co-authored over a dozen other books, including Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It—chosen by Industry Week as one of the ten best management books of 1993, Encouraging the Heart (1999, 2003), The Leadership Challenge Workbook (1999, 2003), and the Encouraging the Heart Workbook (2006). Based on solid research involving over seventy thousand surveys, one thousand written case studies, and one hundred in-depth interviews, their books describe the leadership practices that generate high performance in individuals and organizations.
Jim and Barry developed the widely used and highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree questionnaire assessing leadership behavior. The LPI has been administered to over 500,000 leaders, and over three million observers worldwide have provided feedback using the LPI. It is the top-selling off-the-shelf leadership assessment instrument in the world. Over 350 doctoral dissertations and academic research projects have been based on their work.
The International Management Council (IMC) honored Jim and Barry as the 2001 recipients of the prestigious Wilbur M. McFeely Award for their outstanding contributions to management and leadership education. Past McFeely Award recipients include Peter Drucker, Lee Iacocca, Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, Norman Vincent Peale, Francis Hesselbein, Stephen Covey, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter. In 2006 Jim was presented with the Golden Gavel, the highest honor awarded by Toastmasters International.
Jim is not only a highly regarded leadership scholar, but The Wall Street Journal has cited Jim as one of the twelve best executive educators in the United States. A popular speaker and seminar leader, Jim’s clients have included Accenture, Applied Materials, AT&T, Boeing, Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, Consumers Energy, Dell Computer, Deloitte Touche, Egon Zehnder International, Federal Express, Gap Inc., HSBC, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Levi Strauss & Co., 3M, Microsoft, Motorola, Roche Palo alto, Siemens, State of New York, Thomson Corporation, Toyota, and Wells Fargo.
Jim is also an experienced executive. He served as president, then CEO and chairman of the Tom Peters Company from 1988 until 2000. Prior to his tenure at TPC, he directed the Executive Development Center at Santa Clara University from 1981 through 1987. He also founded the Joint Center for Human Services Development at San Jose State University, which he directed from 1972 until 1980. Jim’s commitment to service was nurtured during his years growing up in the Washington, D.C., area. His lifelong career in education began in 1967–1969 when he served for two years in the Peace Corps. Jim believes it was on January 20, 1961, when he was first inspired to dedicate himself to leadership. That was the day he was one of only a dozen Eagle Scouts who served in John F. Kennedy’s Honor Guard at the Presidential Inauguration. Jim can be reached at jim@kouzes.com, or on the Web at www.leadershipchallenge.com.
Barry Z. Posner is Professor of Leadership at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University (located in the heart of Silicon Valley), where he served for twelve years as dean of the school. Barry, along with his co-author Jim Kouzes, received the American Society for Training and Development’s highest award for their Distinguished Contribution to Workplace Learning and Performance. The International Management Council named them as the nation’s top management and leadership educators, and Barry was recently recognized as one of the Top 50 Leadership Coaches in America.
He is the co-author of the award-winning and best-selling leadership book, The Leadership Challenge. Described as a groundbreaking research study, this book combines keen insights with practical applications and captures both why and how leadership is everyone’s business. With over 1.8 million copies in print, this book has been named one of The Top 100 Business Books of All Time, book-of-the-year by the American Council of Health Care Executives, received the Critic’s Choice Award from book review editors, and translated into over twenty languages.
The Leadership Practices Inventory has been called “the most reliable, up-to-date leadership instrument available today,” and the online version has been completed by over 1.1 million people around the globe. Barry has also co-authored several other award-winning, inspiring, and practical books on leadership: Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It; Encouraging the Heart: A Leaders Guide to Recognizing and Rewarding Others; The Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership; and A Leader’s Legacy.
Barry is an internationally renowned scholar who has published more than eighty-five research and practitioner-oriented articles, in such journals as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Relations, Personnel Psychology, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the like. He is currently on the editorial review boards of the International Journal of Servant-Leadership, Leadership and Organizational Development, and Leadership Review. Barry serves on the board of directors for the San Jose Repertory Theatre and EMQ Family First.
Barry received an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, a master’s degree from the Ohio State University in public administration, and his Ph.D. in organizational behavior and administrative theory from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At Santa Clara he has received the President’s Distinguished Faculty Award, the school’s Extraordinary Faculty Award, and several other outstanding teaching and leadership honors. Described as a warm, engaging, and pragmatic conference speaker and dynamic workshop facilitator, Barry has worked with such organizations as Alcoa, Applied Materials, Australian Institute of Management, Charles Schwab, Conference Board of Canada, Hewlett-Packard, Kaiser Permanente Health Care, L.L. Bean, Levi Strauss, Merck, Motorola, NetApp, Trader Joe’ s, and the U.S. Postal Service, among others, and been involved with leadership development efforts at more than thirty-five college campuses. He has made presentations and conducted workshops across the United States, and around the globe, from Canada, Mexico, and Europe to the Far East, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Elaine Biech is president and managing principal of ebb associates inc, an organization development firm that helps organizations work through large-scale change. She has been in the training and consulting field for thirty years and works with business, government, and non-profit organizations.
Elaine specializes in helping people work as teams to maximize their effectiveness. Customizing all of her work for individual clients, she conducts strategic planning sessions and implements corporate-wide systems such as quality improvement, reengineering of business processes, and mentoring programs. She facilitates topics such as coaching today’s employees, fostering creativity, customer service, time management, stress management, speaking skills, training competence, conducting productive meetings, managing change, handling difficult employees, organizational communication, conflict resolution, and effective listening.
She has developed media presentations and training materials and has presented at dozens of national and international conferences. American Society of Training and Development has referred to Elaine as the “trainer’s trainer.” She custom designs training programs for managers, leaders, trainers, and consultants. To date, Elaine has designed, developed and piloted five certificate programs for ASTD. She has been featured in dozens of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Management Update, The Washington Post, and Fortune magazine.
As a management and executive consultant, trainer, and designer, she has provided services to OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC, FAA, Land O’ Lakes, McDonald’s, Lands’ End, General Casualty Insurance, Chrysler, Johnson Wax, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Family Insurance, Marathon Oil, Hershey Chocolate, Federal Reserve Bank, the U.S. Navy, NASA, Newport News Shipbuilding, Kohler Company, ASTD, American Red Cross, Association of Independent Certified Public Accountants, the University of Wisconsin, The College of William and Mary, ODU, and hundreds of other public and private sector organizations to prepare them for the challenges of the new millennium.
She is the author and editor of over four dozen books and articles, including ASTD’s Ultimate Train the Trainer (2009); 10 Steps to Successful Training (ASTD, 2009); The Consultant’s Quick Start Guide (2nd ed.) (2009); ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals (2008); Trainer’s Warehouse Book of Games (2008); The Business of Consulting (2nd ed.) (2007); Thriving Through Change: A Leader’s Practical Guide to Change Mastery (2007); Successful Team-Building Tools(2nd ed.) (2007); 90 World-Class Activities by 90 World-Class Trainers (2007) (named a Training Review Best Training Product of 2007); a nine-volume set of ASTD’s Certification Study Guides (2006); 12 Habits of Successful Trainers (ASTD Info-line, 2005); The ASTD Info-line Dictionary of Basic Trainer Terms (2005); Training for Dummies (2005); Marketing Your Consulting Services (2003); The Consultant’s Legal Guide (2000); Interpersonal Skills: Understanding Your Impact on Others (1996); Building High Performance (1998); and The Pfeiffer Annual: Consulting and The Pfeiffer Annual: Training (1998–2010). Her books have been translated into Chinese, German, and Dutch.
Elaine has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Superior in business and education consulting and a master’s degree in human resource development. She is active at the national level of ASTD, is a life-time member, served on the 1990 National Conference Design Committee, was a member of the national ASTD Board of Directors and was the society’s secretary from 1991 to 1994, initiated and chaired Consultant’s Day for seven years, and was the international conference design chair in 2000. In addition to her work with ASTD, she has served on the Independent Consultants Association’s (ICA) Advisory Committee and on the Instructional Systems Association (ISA) board of directors.
Elaine is the recipient of the 1992 National ASTD Torch Award, the 2004 ASTD Volunteer-Staff Partnership Award, and the 2006 ASTD Gordon M. Bliss Memorial Award. She was selected for the 1995 Wisconsin Women Entrepreneur’s Mentor Award. In 2001 she received ISA’s highest award, The ISA Spirit Award. She has been the consulting editor for the prestigious Training and Consulting Annuals published by Pfeiffer for the past twelve years. Visit her website at www.ebbweb.com or contact her at ebbiech@aol.com.
Model the Way
Inspire a Shared Vision
Challenge the Process
Enable Others to Act
Encourage the Heart
NOTES
Reproducible materials from this book are available for free online.
URL: www.leadershipchallenge.com/go/tlcactivitybook
Username: tlcactivity
Password: leadership
The following activities and their handout materials can be found on the website:
Chapter Three: Model the Way
Chapter Four: Inspire a Shared Vision
Chapter Five: Challenge the Process
Chapter Six: Enable Others to Act
Chapter Seven: Encourage the Heart
Chapter Eight: Overarching Activities
Chapter Nine: Leadership Tools and Other Times and Other Places
In This Chapter
The Leadership Challenge focuses on how leaders struggle to get things done in organizations. It presents five practices that ordinary people can put into action to bring þzout the best in themselves and those that they lead. The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® include:
What does each of these mean?
The authors of The Leadership Challenge, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, have also identified Ten Commitments of Leadership that correspond to The Five Practices. The commitments, or behaviors, give a deeper understanding to The Five Practices. They specify what a leader does to demonstrate each of The Five Practices.
The Leadership Challenge and its related materials have been around for more than twenty-five years. During that time, hundreds of trainers, facilitators, and consultants have adapted the materials to their own use. This also includes The Leadership Challenge Certified Masters, whose work you will find in this book.
This book compiles many of the good ideas that have been created over the years and begins to catalog them in one handy place for all of you who use the Kouzes/Posner concepts and materials.
This book is chock full of 106 leadership activities.
The chapter you are currently reading, Chapter One, provides you with an overview of the entire book.
Chapter Two presents you with tools, tips, and techniques to deliver a professional training session. It discusses the characteristics that make a good trainer and reviews adult learning principles—something all trainers should be reminded of regularly. It provides practical suggestions to make your job as a trainer successful, including ways to prepare, ideas for how to create a supportive environment, and practical ways for how to increase participation. Suggestions for facilitating activities, ideas for forming small groups, and practical tips for managing your time in a training session will increase your efficiency and effectiveness in your learning setting.
Chapters Three through Seven present each of The Five Practices, an overview, and the related activities. You should feel empowered to select any of The Five Practices in any order, since the framework is not a step-by-step process that proceeds from one practice to another. The same is true for the selection of activities. Select the one(s) that are most appropriate for your leader(s).
Chapter Eight and Nine continue to offer activities. Chapter Eight assembles fifteen overarching activities that incorporate all of The Five Practices. They can be used as introductory or review activities—or to meet other needs. Chapter Nine brings together eleven activities that relate to specific leadership skills, but that do not fit neatly into The Five Practices--networking or running a virtual meeting, for example. This chapter is also the vessel for four activities we call Other Times and Other Places because they do not fit into the typical training mold.
Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner have a huge following. The Leadership Challenge has sold almost 1.5 million copies and has been translated into over a dozen languages. Over one million people have taken the highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and more than four hundred doctoral dissertations and academic research projects have been based on The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership Model.
It is no wonder then that when a call for submissions was placed for this book, many of the Kouzes/Posner “fan club” members were the first to respond. Several of these contributors are leaders in their own right. They include:
Several contributors are Certified Masters of The Leadership Challenge. This label indicates the highest level of expertise in all applications of The Leadership Challenge® Model and is evidenced through the designee’s high-level delivery and facilitation of workshops, LPI coaching competence, a wide range of organization development experiences, established client credibility, a global mindset, publishing, and a collaborative, curious spirit that leads to ongoing, innovative product development. This group includes:
Lily Cheng
Steve Houchin
Peter Cheng
Sharon Landes
Kim Chesky
L. J. Rose
Beth High
Valarie Willis
Several contributors are also designated as Certified Facilitators of The Leadership Challenge. The certified label indicates a level of understanding of the model that enables the participant to deliver workshops and services in a manner consistent with the level of excellence and integrity associated with the brand. This group includes:
Daren Blonski
Jean Lee
Angie Chaplin
John Lybarger
Ricky Foo
Each of these contributors is an exemplary leader in the profession. Their activities can be found within the activity pages under each of The Five Practices. We thank them profusely for taking time from their busy schedules to share their expertise with all of us.
There are several ways to get the most out of this book. We suggest that you turn to Chapter Two to brush up on your training delivery skills.
Decide which of The Five Practices you require ideas or activities for and turn to that chapter to be inspired. Peruse the activities based on the number of people you will have in your session or the amount of time you have. Read the objectives; they will help you to define exactly what you need.
Remember, as we said earlier, The Five Practices may be taught in any order. If you are focusing on one of The Five Practices, you may select two or more activities that have a different focus. Or you might wish to select activities from more than one of the practices.
If you are looking for inspiration for yourself, check out the last chapter. It will help you think about how to continue to learn and grow yourself.
Each of the chapters contains from twelve to eighteen activities.
You should find enough information on the first page of each activity to know whether it will work in your situation. You will find the title of the activity, the objectives, anything special about the audience (such as whether it needs to be an intact team), amount of time it will take, the materials and equipment the activity requires, and the room setup.
If you read the first page of the activity and all your criteria are met, turn the page and begin to read the step-by-step process. We tried to keep the directions for conducting the activity as concise as possible without eliminating any important steps.
Before you conduct an activity, be sure to allow enough time. If your group is at the high end of the number of participants, plan on the maximum amount of time. To be on the safe side, add an additional 10 percent the first time you conduct any activity. Manage your time during the activity by not letting time get away from you during group discussion or small group breakout activities.
Bring a group of colleagues together to practice a new activity before you debut in front of the group. This is a great way for you to gain experience with the activity and an even better way for you to get feedback.
Follow the guidelines for introducing, conducting, and processing an activity in Chapter Two to ensure that the activity produces all the learning that you want it to.
Although the activities have been written for a training room scenario, most of the activities could be adapted for a number of other situations:
Many of these activities can be used with individuals who have completed The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). You will most likely adjust the process to accommodate just one person. For example, if discussion with others in a classroom setting enriches the activity, you might have the individual identify a colleague with whom to discuss the activity.
Use the activities in Chapters Three through Seven to supplement other LPI material you might be using. Mix things up—insert new activities into the context of The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, Leadership Is Everyone’s Business Workshop, or the new The Challenge Continues Workshop. This newest workshop is designed specifically to follow up and reinforce understanding of the model. What better way to do this than with experiential learning activities?
That’s enough for this chapter. It is time for you to dig in to experience some of the fun we’ve had as we’ve edited the 106 activities in this book.