Integral Leaders: Ordinary or Extraordinary?

By Dr Ron Cacioppe


Over 3,000 managers from the Australian and international public and private sectors (including police, health services, community services, religious organisations, Indigenous affairs, public utilities and mining, engineering and construction companies) have received feedback on Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profiles. Integral Development is currently processing profiles for all state public service managers through a contract with the Government of Western Australia’s Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

By looking beyond the benefit to their organisation, Integral leader/managers are able to integrate organisational benefit with the development of people, visions, goals and tasks, in harmony with the wider community and with the natural environment. Integral leader/managers recognise that while sufficient profit and resources are necessary, alone they are not enough to achieve sustainability in the modern world.

The Integral Model of Leadership & Management
Integral Theory integrates a number of theoretical perspectives and is referred to as the ‘All Quadrants, All Levels’ theory. Integral Development’s 360° Leadership & Management Profile was developed to measure the competencies and attributes of effective leadership and provide a more comprehensive and innovative Integral perspective than existing leadership theories. While Integral Theory was used as the central organising framework for the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile, additional dimensions were incorporated from research on effective leadership traits, situational skills, contingency styles and transformational leadership attributes.

The graphic below presents the four quadrants of the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile and the major functions of Integral leadership and management:

In recognising that leader/managers often over-emphasise one quadrant (for example, HEAD quadrant profit and revenue goals) to the detriment of others, the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile provides a practical model to broaden the individual’s perspective of leadership competencies and serves to challenge entrenched managerial style.

The Extraordinary in the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile
While 360° feedback has become popular in recent years, many HR professionals and managers do not examine in depth the available 360° instruments and risk settling on leadership models based on superseded wisdom. To deal with rapidly emerging new issues, organisations need a comprehensive, modern view of leadership that is not only 360°, but also three-dimensional.

Superficially the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile may look like many of the currently available commercial instruments that present various combinations of some of the ‘ordinary’ features that are comprehensively included in the Integral instrument. What makes the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile different is that it features many distinct and extraordinary features that are unique to the Integral perspective – for example, the Integral framework, the emphasis on authentic self and the emphasis on individual, team and organisational development. Further, to complement the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile, Integral Development has created other instruments for measuring the key activities and levels of development in individuals, teams and organisations, with attention to operating in harmony with the natural environment and a vision of the role of leadership, organisation and human development that goes well beyond many current leadership theories.

The Integral 360° Summary Feedback
Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile summary feedback is an analysis and assessment of the primary feedback collected, usually through an online questionnaire, from managers, subordinates and peers who operate around, below and above the individual leader/manager profilee. Describing the extent to which the profilee has key leadership and management skills, Integral 360° summary feedback enables comparison of the profilee’s own perceptions of their leadership skills with those of their colleagues – an important tool in developing leadership skills.

While the Integral 360° summary feedback can be used for training needs analysis, succession planning and performance appraisal, its primary purpose is to identify individual development needs because, while it highlights and affirms strengths, it also highlights leadership blind spots in habit/behaviour/style, that may adversely impact performance. Thus, it facilitates the establishment of an individual personal development action plan.

Throughout this process, an Integral coach provides individual support, with follow-up coaching available to assist individual progress through the action plan and to deal with any ongoing management issues.

The Integral Coaches
Integral Development places a great deal of emphasis on recruiting coaches who not only have excellent interpersonal skills and experience in coaching but also know and live the Integral approach, thereby developing their own leadership competencies and a deeper and more complete experience of self. Integral Theory describes the authentic self as the ground of all being, the essence of everything. The understanding and development of self is key to the Integral coaching process.

“It has been an affirming and rewarding experience to undertake the Integral leadership profile assessment” and “I have found the coaching to be of tremendous benefit in addressing work and personal issues. It has turned my life around” are typical comments from profilee evaluations of the Integral profiling and coaching process.

The Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile is an important contributor to bringing a truly Integral vision to organisations. Ken Wilber, the originator of Integral Theory states “…In today's world, nobody can afford to be less than integral, because the guaranteed costs are otherwise much too high”.

Integral Development’s Dr Ron Cacioppe is happy to visit and consult, free of charge, with your CEO and/or senior management group, to discuss tailoring the Integral 360° Leadership & Management Profile to meet the specific needs of your organisation.

To view the Integral LDP 360° video please click here.

Dr Ron Cacioppe
Managing Director
ron@integral.org.au

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