Peter Jeff, the author of LEADERSHIP MINTS and founder of this blog that spawned the book now available on Amazon.com, shares ideas on Sustaining a Culture of Leadership Development in the current issue of TRAINING MAGAZINE (May-June, 2014) dedicated to the top companies providing Leadership Development for leaders at all levels.

Here is the full-text of his Leadership How-To column in the largest magazine in the nation serving leadership development trainers and coaches. (Photos are used in this blog only).

Sustaining a Culture
of
Leadership Development

Tactics to help leaders habitually develop other leaders and more consistently
reinforce leadership principles in everyday activities.

BY PETER JEFF

Helping leaders develop other leaders is a mindset that may formally start in a leadership development program but it’s a process nurtured over time and nourished through an array of everyday behaviors.

Collectively these behaviors sustain a culture of leadership development that broadens the scope of leadership thinking beyond those who have been appointed and anointed. Such a culture of leadership development also engages and encourages followers to discover and deploy the leader in themselves.

Consider the following ideas—on meeting rituals, artifacts, symbolism and institutional memory- to propagate a robust leadership development culture rooted in mutual trust and share values that are understood, applied and acted upon.

MEETING RITUAL

Open staff meetings on a regular basis with this same question: “What are you reading these days for your own personal enjoyment?” Then close each meeting with a reference to something you are reading for your own personal enjoyment that provides your staff an insight into your values, concerns and interests.

Rotate Meeting Leaders among your staff. The designated Meeting Leader de jour sits in the “leader’s chair.” The titular incumbent leader participates as member of the team.

Prior to the meeting, the Meeting Leader de jour consults with the titular incumbent leader, develops the agenda, assigns any prep work and designs and promotes a meeting theme.

Then the Meeting Leader de jour conducts a Leadership Learning Minute, a 60-second concept, quote or book reference on leadership thinking specially selected to foment the meeting theme.

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