Process
Developing Leadership The Refinery Way
So with all our experience and research and carefully crafted models behind us, how do we develop leadership? The starting place is to give individuals the knowledge and skills required to lead. But, like we said, this is only the start. Knowledge and skills alone will produce educated individuals but not necessarily great leaders.
Why? Generally, we all acquire new knowledge and skills within our own pre-existing meaning-making framework. To develop leaders, we must help individuals shift their meaning-making frameworks to let in new ways of seeing the world and their place in it. From this state of awareness comes clarity, and with clarity emerges true leadership of intuition, passion and courage. Now doesn't that sounds like a good place to end up?
Getting to this good place usually goes something like this:
Step 1:
Acquire new leadership knowledge and skills.
Step 2:
Increase awareness of self, team, organization, community and the environment in which all operate.
Step 3:
Create an intentional process by which individuals question reality and make new meaning for themselves.
Step 4:
Create a collective environment in which individuals can enact leadership.
And a bunch of other smaller steps in between. Don't worry—we'll walk you through it.