Category: Group

Preventing dys-functional leadership via trust & openness

In his bookThe Five Dysfunctions of a Team:A Leadership Fable (pub. Jossey-Bass) Patrick Lencioni presents a model of what he sees as the influences that dis-empower a team, and make more or less dysfunctional.

His five factors are;

  • The first dysfunction is absence of trust amongst team members. If team members are not genuinely open with each other about their mistakes and weaknesses, it is impossible to build a foundation of trust.
  • Absence of trust creates the circumstance for the second dysfunction, fear of conflict. Teams that lack trust are incapable of fully and honestly debating issues as they resort to veiled discussions and guarded comments.
  • The inability to openly discuss issues leads to a lack of commitment. If team members are unable to fully air their views, it is unlikely that they will be fully committed to the decisions of the group.
  • If team members are not fully bought into the decisions of the group, they will inevitably avoid accountability. How can they stand up and be counted on issues if they were not completely committed to them in the first place?
  • Failure to hold one another accountable creates an environment where the fifth dysfunction can thrive. Inattention to results occurs when team members put their individual needs (such as ego, career, recognition or reward) or even their division above the collective needs of the team.

Clearly trust is seen as the cornerstone of all teams. This might seem self-evident but I wonder how many organizations have systems that recognize and reward trust, openness and co-operation?

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All postings to this site relate to the central model in the

PhD. Summaries are HERE

SEE also Learning Motivation for Success

Wisdom for all children?

An appeal for education that nurtures wisdom – at least for gifted students – comes from a surprising source – Charles Murray in the Wall Street Journal.

He says; The encouragement of wisdom requires a special kind of education. It requires first of all recognition of one’s own intellectual limits and fallibilities–in a word, humility. This is perhaps the most conspicuously missing part of today’s education of the gifted. Many high-IQ students, especially those who avoid serious science and math, go from kindergarten through an advanced degree without ever having a teacher who is dissatisfied with their best work and without ever taking a course that forces them to say to themselves, “I can’t do this.” Humility requires that the gifted learn what it feels like to hit an intellectual wall, just as all of their less talented peers do, and that can come only from a curriculum and pedagogy designed especially for them. That level of demand cannot fairly be imposed on a classroom that includes children who do not have the ability to respond. The gifted need to have some classes with each other not to be coddled, but because that is the only setting in which their feet can be held to the fire.

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But are only the academically gifted capable of wisdom? Is intellectual ‘walling’ the same as humiliation – and is this a good way to cultivate wisdom? My experience is that classes and most individual children possess wisdom. The first step in its cultivation is stopping the system causing the wisdom to atrophy.

Of course using the SunWALK model, including PFC (Prof Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children Programme), the cultivation of wisdom is built in for all students from Year 1 onwards!

The full Murray article can be read in full at HERE. Thanks to Gordon Kerr for  pointing out this article.

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All postings to this site relate to the central SunWALKmodel in the PhD.

Summaries are HERE