Learning to Learn to Lead: L2L2L

What is different about L2L2L?

Our research based approach to leadership is based on three principles which break the traditional mould of leadership thinking.

• There is no "best" version of leadership. The challenge is to help each individual succeed in their unique way in their unique context.
• The leader is not just the person at the top. Indeed, occasionally the person at the top is failing to lead. But we find many people leading effectively at all levels of the organisation.
• Leadership is not about characteristics such as "charisma" or "inspiration". You can not learn charisma. Leadership is about a set of skills that anyone can develop and apply in their own way.

These principles should seem reasonable to any practicing leader. But there are some fundamental implications about how you then develop leaders. For many people leadership is a random walk to success: get the right organisation, boss and experiences and people learn the right skills. Get the wrong ones and the potential leader picks up the wrong habits.

In our research we found no leader who identified any courses as being helpful to their success as a leader. This is a damning indictment of the leadership guru industry which L2L2L seeks to redress. It is a more practical, experience based way of helping individuals and organisations develop their leadership potential.

Where does L2L2L come from?

L2L2L comes from a leadership programme and research originally developed for Teach First (www.teachfirst.org.uk) a not for profit where Jo Owen is a board member and co-founder. It is one of the top 20 UK graduate recruiters, and the only one with a leadership focus. The research has encompassed over 1000 individuals at all levels of many organisations.

The essence of the research and its conclusions is contained in the highly acclaimed book by Jo Owen: How To Lead, published by Pearson in March 2005. To read the first chapter online and get more information go to www.leadershippartnership.com, which works closely with the MAC Partnership.

What is L2L2L?

L2L2L is an innovative approach to leadership development. It is based on creating journeys of structured observation, learning and application. The three main strands of the programme are:

• Pedagogy: giving individuals the basic tools and frameworks with which they can observe and discover how to build their own leadership capability.
• Peer group learning: structured learning based on the unique context of each organisation. Peer to peer learning has more relevance, application and credibility than external theory.
• Structured journeys of discovery. The journey to leadership is often a twenty year journey, not a two day offsite event. We work with each organisation to structure in-work experiences and feedback through coaches and mentors to help build the leadership potential of both individuals and organisations.

In addition to single company programmes, L2L2L has a research based consortium which keeps members at the leading edge of management thinking and practice. It also provides an ideal network within which to help individuals find coaches, mentors and different leadership perspectives.

Who should sponsor L2L2L?

L2L2L is designed for any organisation which is serious about developing its own leaders of the future. If your organisation is committed mainly to one and two day offsite training events, or sees leadership development as a short term fix for a few people you are probably not right for this programme. If you are serious about developing leaders over the long term, this is a programme and a consortium which will probably complement all your other courses well: we align each programme with existing initiatives rather than replacing or recreating your existing efforts. The consortium is particularly valuable for organisations which want to learn about current and next practice leadership alternatives from other types of organisation.