Appendix 3

More Tools and Techniques for Enhancing Personal Leadership Capability

The tools and techniques used by the array of leaders in this book provide ideas for “getting better at getting better.” Start by looking at and assessing the hand you were dealt. Understand how you show up to others. Be clear on your personal best leadership experiences and leverage them to build further capabilities. Know your point of view on leadership and model it in your daily work and life. Intentionally seek feedback, take time for personal reflection, use a coach, and be a coach. Journal to capture ideas and turn the lessons learned into stories, blogs, and podcasts for others. Leverage your network, be curious, and ask questions. And then really stretch yourself to be “the little engine that could” and write a chapter for a book.

This leadership journey activity is a great way to get you started. It’s adapted from Noel Tichy’s workshops and his book, The Leadership Engine (1997), and also incorporates ideas from Learning Leadership by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (2016).

Leadership Journey: A Timeline Continuum and Personal Best Leadership Log

Context

Understanding the principles behind leadership and being a leader in action are two very different things. Unfortunately, some get them confused and think that knowing and doing are the same. Leadership opportunities happen daily in our homes, schools, offices, places of worship, and communities. Some are formal and some are informal. Some are planned and some are impromptu. Thinking about and documenting experiences where you have actually demonstrated leadership behaviors can inform you not only of your leadership skills and behaviors, but also on the impact of your leadership actions on other people; the project, task, or activity; and, ultimately, the organization.

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to document and diagram key leadership activities in your life in two ways. The first is a continuum over time from an important starting point. While the time may be from your earliest experience to today, it may be just the last 10 or 15 years. Whenever the timeline starts, indicate the year(s) such as teen years, 20s, 50s, 1990–1995, or 1995–2000 and so on. The second way this organizer documents key leadership experiences is from impact, such as high to low, or personal experience, such as positive to negative.

Process

1. Using the Leadership Journey Timeline Continuum Template and starting at an appropriate time in your life, fill in the years in the first row of each column, dividing them between the year you chose and today. Write the leadership activity in the second row of each column; intentionally place the activity somewhere between the top and bottom of the row, depending on whether it was a positive (high impact) or negative (low impact) experience. The words should tell what you did and the results. For example, someone starting at age 13 might list “Eagle Scout” as a high impact experience. There is also a row for notes and references to trigger memories or to make other relevant comments.

2. After documenting the leadership activities in each column, write a summary takeaway statement about your leadership in the last row. (This is something you learned from the process of outlining your experiences.)

3. Review your Leadership Journey Continuum Timeline. Select one experience that can be labeled your “personal best” and use it to document the Personal Best Leadership Log.

4. The Personal Best Leadership Log provides an opportunity to unpack a leadership experience with the goal of delving deeper into how and why it worked, as well as any lessons learned that can be repeated in the future. Respond to the questions in the Personal Best Leadership Log using the left-hand column only. When you go back and review the log later, respond in the right-hand column.

Leadership Journey Timeline Continuum Template

Personal Best Leadership Log