Since Phil Hodgson and Executive Development Group partner Randy White published Relax, It’s Only Uncertainty in 2001, we have seen not only validation among the executives we work with, but also greater interest in the challenges of ambiguity in business.

At this week’s SIOP Annual Conference in Atlanta, Sandy Shullman and Randy were encouraged and delighted by the collaborative responses to the two half-day presentations. There appear to be some emerging perspectives on the subject as it relates to the practical applications of learning professionals. People in the field see a need to measure tolerance for ambiguity and the uncertainty that it brings in their quests for  potential leaders in their organizations.

It became apparent to us that this “aptitude for ambiguity” is indeed a trait sought by learning organizations like yours and a trait that can be developed.

As with most of our work, our study of ambiguity is a process that is informed and advanced by the questions learning executives bring. Presently, we are further developing our 360 assessment Ambiguity Architect®, so these kinds of mini-focus groups are invaluable. If your firm is interested in learning more about our work on ambiguity, please contact us via e-mail.

Drs. Randall P White and Sandra L Shullman are featured authors in the April issue of CLO Magazine. Writing on Ambiguity Leadership, Randy and Sandy advance the idea that an aptitude for ambiguity and the ability to be comfortable amidst uncertainty are traits that can be measured and developed. Also, they assert that research suggests that they are traits of high-performers. From the article:

Research done by the Executive Development Group suggests that the ability to positively manage uncertainty may be an essential trait of effective leaders, often found in those considered high potentials. Evidence shows it can be measured and learned.

Based on interviews with numerous C-level executives around the world, Elizabeth Mellon, executive director of Duke Corporate Education, said mindset — more than personality and behavior — forms an observable pattern among some of the most successful leaders and that a fearless approach to uncertainty is required.

“C-suite executives reveal a high degree of being comfortable with discomfort,” Mellon said. “They accommodate ambiguity and the uncertainty it brings. They are confident in making decisions that move their organizations into uncharted territory because they know this ensures long-term prosperity. They have ‘solid cores’ that allow them to navigate the unknown and accept not knowing everything. And they tend to have a longer view because they see time as a continuum in which uncertainty will come and go as they progress. Being uncertain doesn’t stifle them.”

Read the whole article here.

Dr. Sandra L. Shullman, Executive Development Group partner, writes this month in Talent Management magazine on the subject of personality profiles.

Sandy’s article offers an objective review of the fortes and foibles of personality assessment instruments and includes insights from two Executive Development Group clients, Jeff Holst and Gregory Pennington, Ph.D. Jeff is a 35-year corporate HR veteran with Coopers Lybrand, Bayer US, Kennametal and now a talent management consultant specializing in executive feedback and coaching. Greg is vice president and global senior leader of development and planning at Johnson Controls.

From the article:

Personality assessments take a beating from skeptics and supporters. The detractors make a case for fallacies and dangers. Notably, Annie Murphy Paul’s 2004 book, Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves, challenged their prevailing use: “They cannot specify how we will act in particular roles or situations. They cannot predict how we will change over time.”

This is partially true. In many cases, personality inventories are presumed to predict comprehensive performance when they can’t.

The other beating comes from the most devout acolytes of personality assessments: the talent managers who misuse the tools. As management demands faster results, HR often is seduced by marketing promises and distributor claims. Myriad management consultant Web sites tout amazing solutions and advertisements for instruments such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Hogan HPI or FIRO-B and DiSC.

Personality instruments are good at predicting two main categories behaviorally related to work: getting along with people and the motivational aspects of getting ahead. READ MORE HERE.

Randy White offers this audio clip on the drawbacks of strengths-based leadership in this podcast session for Training Magazine.

Training Magazine Network provides a lively social networking environment for learning executives. You may need to log in to hear the podcast.

Dr. Randall P. White: "It's a good time to be an 'ambiguity leader.'"

We’re crossing the globe—in the last 30 days, India, England, South Africa, France…Upstate New York, Ohio and Texas—and can attest, there is a world-wide glut of talent.

One client tells us there has never had so much good talent to recruit from. The short list of candidates for top management positions looks like a C-level all-star team. Clients who have been searching for months for high level specialists are suddenly discovering ideal candidates eager to move almost anywhere.

On the other side of the desk, organizations are struggling to retain their top talent through bonuses and incentives.

Dr. Sandra L. Shullman: "It's a good time to be a recruiter."

And it’s one of those ambiguity leadership moments…no one has ever been in this position before, so the entire script of talent development is being written right now.

Training-wise, open enrollment executive education is moribund. And it may never return. At least, not as we knew it. Remember, if we can be without you for a week, we can be without you!

Research shows that women have a natural knack for leading through uncertainty, said Dr. Sandra L. Shullman, Executive Development Coach.

Read the full story in this month’s Monitor Psychology

Wanted: Leaders equipped for today’s trials
To become an effective leader in today’s volatile job market, tap your strengths—and learn some new ones.

By Tori DeAngelis

With today’s rapid globalization, changing technology and the turbulent economy, leaders must excel at dealing with change and ambiguity, said veteran leadership trainer Sandra Shullman, PhD, at the Aug. 12 APA Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology.

“The rate and pace of change is extraordinarily high,” said Shullman. “It’s why so many leaders both in business and academia are staying up late at night, because it’s often unclear exactly which direction things are going.”

Fortunately for women, the leadership styles in vogue are ones that research shows women both prefer and are more effective for them, noted Shullman, a managing partner with the Columbus, Ohio, office of the Executive Development Group, an international leadership development and consulting firm.

Shullman advised the women to:

• Take a democratic rather than autocratic approach. Sometimes called a “transformational” leadership style, through this approach, leaders delegate some power and autonomy to employees and encourage their independence and creativity.

• Foster active, ongoing learning for both employees and leaders. Such learning is critical in getting up to speed with today’s global markets or with technology, she said.

• Learn through experience. Research shows that great leaders learn 70 percent of their leadership skills on the job, 20 percent from mentors and role models and 10 percent from coursework. That may be a hard concept for people in academia to accept, Shullman added, but they need to overcome the tendency to overthink, so they can act.

• Exploit your personal style. Good interpersonal skills are a mark of effective leaders. In particular, good leaders can read and respond to the emotional needs of a situation, she noted. “When 99 percent of the people in a group you’re leading are angry and you reflect that anger, you’re perceived as an effective leader,” she said. “If 99 percent of the group aren’t angry and you’re reflecting anger, you may be seen as out of touch with your group.”

• Be a “good enough” leader. Research shows that if leaders have 10 major leadership areas they need to attend to, great leaders do two or three of them extraordinarily well and seven or eight “well enough,” said Shullman. If you’re a whiz in your field and a clear, courageous decision-maker, for example, you don’t also have to be a top-notch organizer or an ace strategist.

Being less than 100 percent perfect “is a hard concept, especially for women,” said Shullman. “We tend to use our best area as the standard for all other things, so sometimes we don’t try new things.”

• Embrace challenge. How much you learn is directly related to the size of the challenges you face. Good leaders admit their mistakes and learn from them, she said. “Many of us keep our memories of failure like they should be preserved in a museum somewhere,” she said. Instead, solve the problem first and figure out what may have caused it later.

• Work on your behavior. Good tools are available to help you learn and work with your leadership style, including an inventory called the FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-B), which participants took before arriving at the institute. The scale taps leaders’ expressed and desired needs for affection, control and inclusion and how those play out in leadership behavior preferences.

“Ultimately, people respond to how you act,” Shullman said, “and you can learn to work with your behavior.”

• Take time to learn. “You can’t teach people to be wonderful leaders in eight sessions,” said Shullman. Research also shows it’s better to focus on one or two things you can really sink your teeth into.

• Know your strengths and weaknesses. Work on your weaknesses to get them off of people’s radar. Work on your strengths “because that is what you could be known for,” Shullman said.

• No woman is an island. Research shows that people who share goals with valued colleagues are more likely to achieve them than those who don’t.

“Whether you go to a leadership training institute for one week, six weeks or six months,” Shullman said, “sharing your goal with significant colleagues at work is what seems to matter in terms of whether you do anything with what you’ve learned.”