Developing the 'eye' of leadership

"The 'eye' of leadership" is actually the title of a book by Nigel Nicholson (Professor at the London Business School) - though he writes it as "The 'I' of leadership". Nigel is someone I'm lucky enough to have worked with quite a bit and what I really like about his book (and his whole approach) is that he doesn't say leadership is this or is that, but rather that leadership is a ongoing dynamic process of paying attention - in his model to "Seeing", "Being" and "Doing". This fits with my personal experience of the reality of leadership, and it also fits the way I work as a coach to leaders, or in designing leadership development programmes.

The model I use, for what I call "learning by experience", has the same 6 pathways, but a slightly different construct, involving "Seeing", "Feeling" and "Thinking" as the loops between "Knowing" and "Doing". (NB You can click on the picture to enlarge it)


The message in both our models - supported by neuroscience as much as personal observation and theorising - is that you need to focus on "Seeing" (ie "Perception") as the key to success.