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TALKING ABOUT LEADERSHIP: An Interview with Larry Stout on the Ideal Leadership Model [Part 2]

Larry, explain again in nice simple terms what you mean by your Ideal Leadership Model. 

Let’s try an analogy.  Imagine that I am the world’s greatest football player (I know this requires great imagination, but humor me.)   My skills and abilities could be considered my player’s capital.  This is similar to what is termed leadership capital in the Ideal Leadership Model.  Leadership capital is the characteristics and talent that enables an individual to effectively lead others. It is the raw elements, the innate talents and abilities that are available to the individual.  But, going back to the football analogy, unless I have a team to play with, an opponent, a playing field and officials – my abilities could never be demonstrated.  These are similar to leadership conditions, which are the circumstances that permit an individual to lead others.  The Ideal Leadership Model describes the interaction between leadership capital and leadership conditions.

This makes sense.  Why has no one else ever talked about this before? 

I guess it is because I found myself in a rather unique situation.  Virtually all the writings on leadership come from Western societies and directed at those who are in authority or aspire to be.  But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was an immediate dearth in leadership because there were no role models.  Every domain of society; education, politics, law, business, even religion, were desperate for those who could point the way forward.  We were forced to examine leadership from the very basics because we were literally starting from ground zero. 

But you end up describing leaders as those with courage and vision and such, just like everyone else. 

We do more than simply list attributes.  Everyone has tried to do that (even Napoleon came up with a list of 115 key traits of a military leader).  What we have done is reduced them down to their essence – which we term the leadership capital elements. We have identified six key element areas that fall into three categories; philosophical, personal, and interpersonal.  The philosophical elements are vision and values.  Vision is the direction the leader wants to take an organization, and values is the road they use to get there.  Personal elements are wisdom and courage; the resources used to solve problems, make decisions, implement strategy, etc.  Interpersonal characteristics are trust and voice, which describe how a leader interacts with people. 

You mentioned before that you are able to measure this leadership capital.  How is that possible?

For the past five years, we have been developing a rather extensive research instrument called the Leadership Capital Assessment (LCA).  It is a self-assessment consisting of 75 bi-polar questions (meaning the individual must choose between two extremes).  We have conducted nearly four hundred LCAs, and only in a handful of cases have individuals felt that the results were not reflective of their capacities. 

Can you give an example of one of the questions on the LCA?

Actually, I would rather not, but let me give you a general idea of how it works.  Take the area of leadership competency of wisdom, for example.  The researcher Robert Clinton noted that leaders were life-long learners.  So, one of the questions we ask is how much a person keeps up on their professional reading.  A leader recognizes that they need to continually upgrade their wisdom, therefore, they would always be hungering to learn more.  A person who does not keep himself or herself abreast of new professional knowledge would rate lower on the wisdom competency scale than one who does. 

I get the idea.  So you are saying that on the basis of asking 75 questions like this, you know what kind of a leader the person is?

No psychological test is perfect, including mine.  At best, it gives a general idea of where a person stands, and how they can improve.  We have found that when we conduct this assessment at the beginning of a coaching session and again at the end, we can ascertain exactly how an individual has developed.

Last time you said you can predict leaders.  How does the LCA do that?

Well, again, let’s use the example above.  If you find a young person who has a high capacity for self-development, there is a much greater chance that they will become wiser in future years than one who does not have this drive.

Okay, I’ll give you that.  But wisdom is easy – how about courage or vision?  How can you tell someone has courage or vision before they need it?

Let’s look at those one at a time.  Study the biographies of leaders through the centuries and you will find that they all were ‘dreamers’ in one sense.  Their vision was birthed out of those dreams.  When I ask a young person about their dreams, I either see their eyes light up (which mean they have the seeds of vision within them), or they have no clue what I am talking about (hence, not likely a visionary leader). 

And courage?  How do you tell if they are courageous before they rush into the burning building to save a baby?

Courage is related to risk.  We examine a person’s ability to take risks in simple problem solving as an indication of leadership courage.  This is no guarantee; of course, that they would be willing to rush into the burning building, but a person who has a higher propensity for risk is more likely to do so than one who does not. 

It all seems to make sense, but one thing is still not clear.  Why is the Ideal Leadership Model so important to you?  

Quite frankly, I believe it can change the world.  If the Ideal Leadership Model would become accepted as the standard, there would no longer be a pragmatic or post-modern view toward leaders.  Leaders, by definition, would have to have strong values that would move their organizations forward in a positive direction.  No one would speak of Hitler and Stalin as leaders, but as anti-leaders; the contrary to good leadership capital.  Ultimately, anyone aspiring to become an Ideal Leader will find himself or herself closer to Jesus, because he truly is the Ideal Leader.