According to Fayed R in his AGSL Working Paper, Design your Personalised Contingent Leadership Approach1, leadership can be conceptualised as a system with a personal mental model at the centre informed by inputs, outcomes and feedback loops.
The leadership processes at the core of a personal mental model are values, beliefs and shared purpose, guided by prevailing behavioural norms and organisational culture along with stakeholder and commercial guidance.
The input elements of the system come from what a leader needs to know to be able to act. For example, a leader needs to understand the political, economic, social, technological and environment context to understand the threats and opportunities they need to act upon. Inputs can also be very personal and comprise the leader’s current level of leadership and business acumen along with the current intended purpose. Other inputs might be stakeholder expectations, such as those of a board or the community along with the commercial or organisational consequences of same.
Feedback and feedforward loops perform the role of aligning a leader’s intended behaviour with an evolving context. One of the most important loops is critical reflection this helps a leader to modify core values, beliefs and behavioural norms to evolve their personal mental model. Another important loop is the process loop that looks at the consequences of a position adopted by a leader. For example, a position of charging higher prices than competitors will likely decrease sales assuming no other value is provided to the customer. Process loops help upgrade leadership and business acumen to hone inputs and associated appreciation of what needs to be acted upon and why.
Our personal mental model is shaped by life experiences and learnings to evolve and become uniquely aware of self and context. This interplay between self and context also speaks to the fluidity of our personal mental model.
With leadership being so fundamental to individual and organisational success, it is important that leaders understand the systemic nature of leadership and be supported to evolve and hone their own personal leadership system and personal mental model.
1 Fayed R., Design your Personalised Contingent Leadership Approach, AGSL Working paper 6, (2017)
