Summary Of Seven Transformation Of Leadership

In the article, “Seven Transformations of Leadership”, the researchers, D. Rooke and W. R. Torbert, point out that leaders are differentiated by their ‘action logic’ – the way they ‘interpret the surroundings and reacts when his or her power or safety is challenged’. Most psychologists agree that the action logic differentiates leaders more than their personality or philosophy of leadership. According to Rooke & Torbert, there are seven stages of transformation that leaders undergo: Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, and Alchemist. The levels of personal and organizational performance depend on action logic. For instance, Opportunists, Diplomats and Experts are associated with below-average performance, while

I could visualize my own development from Expert to Achiever. As an illustration, in my previous role as a clinician, I was working from an Expert action logic. I was constantly perfecting my skills, being a good individual contributor to our team. I had high standards for my work and high expectations of people I supervised. Although I appreciated collaboration, it was hard to listen to people less knowledgeable. When the program manager resigned suddenly, I became the interim manager. Trying to juggle managerial duties and deal with a huge lack of resources, there wasn’t too much place for emotions. Despite my background in psychology and psychotherapy, I was seeking rational efficiency; staff feelings were ignored. It took some time to define myself in a supervisory role.The Expert action-logic has changed gradually over the last two years. The advantage of perfecting my skills was that I participated in management and leadership training (how to design effective programs, new skills for new supervisor, conflict resolution at work). This allowed me to move from the expert type to the achiever. There is more balance between pushing the team to achieve goals while nurturing and guiding them, sustaining their morale, helping them grow and develop. I also learned to be more patient with conflict resolution and see it as part of our daily

I could picture myself as an Achiever, but the GLP assessment indicated predominant characteristics of Redefining and Alchemical profile. This discrepancy made me try another exercise suggested in the GLP assessment and asked three of my colleagues to estimate my center-of –gravity. Their answers revealed that there was an equal number of characteristics of Redefining and Transforming and a couple of Alchemical. During our discussion, some characteristics were highlighted and contextualized. I learnt that the way they perceive my leadership was different from mine and I could recognize myself in the different examples given by my colleagues. Some of the diplomat characteristics (such as ‘observe rules’ , ‘loyalty to group ‘ ), expert (‘perfectionist ‘, ‘critical of others and self’ ) , achiever (‘future inspire , long term goals, results oriented’) , alchemical ( ‘embrace common humanity’ , ‘sees light and dark’) were highlighted too. Reflecting on the results of this exercise, one meaning may be that ‘Perceptions are important for defining your own degree of self-esteem as you grow in your leadership role ’( Journal of Leadership Education, Volume 10, Issue 1 – Winter 2011 ) . After all, a closer look at my level of self –esteem would lead to a new perspective. The other meaning is that the Achiever could be my comfort zone of action. Assuming a Redefining or Transforming