Can people think their way into excellent leadership? Can you develop your communication skills by being more self-aware? And can each of us rise to our next level of growth by becoming more introspective? While these approaches hold value, the answer from an increasing number of sources is no.

In many of my classes and workshops, I tell participants that the most fundamental shift I have made in my teaching over the years involves making sure that everyone will almost always experience what we’ll be focusing on first and then reflecting on it later.

Case in point: asking participants to have paired conversations where the last word the other person says must be the first word in their response, and so on. This fun little exercise forces people to listen deeply to the other person. Having first experienced what it was like to orient themselves in this way to someone else provides the grounds for shifting one’s thoughts about good listening.

In a world where lectures, PowerPoint overload, and canards like “tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and tell ‘em what you told ‘em (can you imagine the beginning of a movie telling you everything that will happen at the start before getting into all?) are still deeply embedded as the only way to learn, acting first and reflecting later can be disorienting. Yet reams of social science research conclude that rather than thoughts leading to behaviors, more often than not our behaviors justify or lead to new thoughts.

Photo by Ganesh Adyapady from Pexels, via Canva

Performing Leadership

Such is the subject of Hermania Ibarra’s stellar book, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader. In this post, I want to some significant points about leadership development from this work.

At heart of the book is Ibarra’s concept of “outsight,” where doing the practices of leadership lead to shifts in thinking (or insights), rather than vice versa. Ibarra argues that seeking to self-reflect one’s way into better leadership tends to anchor one in the past and amplifies biases within “the comfort and urgency of daily routine” (14).

Instead, she urges us to engage in expansive new activities that move beyond stylistic comfort zones, engage with different people beyond one’s usual networks, break beyond functional silos, or practice other boundary spanning, new and unfamiliar actions for getting work done. In other words, “The outsight you gain from trying to be someone you’re not (yet) helps you more than any introspection about the leader you might become” (19). By acting, new thinking is possible.

How to Engage in “Outsight”

There’s at least two ways to start engaging in “outsight” now:

First, by rating and expanding one’s personal, operational, and strategic networks (see image below). Following more reams of social science research, we all tend to seek others who are similar to ourselves on any number of selective criteria. It takes action to move beyond these tribal instincts and practice leadership that “tap[s] new ideas, connect[s] to people in different worlds, and access[es] radically different perspectives” (77). More support for this here. Another challenge to tackle? Most people don’t develop their strategic networks enough.    

Source: Hermania Ibarra, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader, 85

Second, by breaking beyond notions of “authenticity” that bind people to the past, in favor of new behaviors that grow one’s skills. This one is deserving of an entire next post in and of itself, so I’m going to hold off from engaging with this fully. But Ibarra sums this up with the following advice: “The trick is to work toward a future version of your authentic self by doing just the opposite: stretching way outside the boundaries of who you are today” (118). Quite simply, leadership requires moving beyond identity comfort zones by performing one’s way into broader, growth-focused behaviors. One can play multiple roles or wear multiple hats, while still being the same person. But the more actions and tools available that break beyond static notions of a true self, the better.

In all of this, I resonated with Ibarra’s implication that this process for growth and development will be messy and non-linear. It’ll be marked by peaks and valleys, forwards and reverses. But it’s a much more accurate and do-able path to leadership and communication development than simply thinking one’s way upward. As Ibarra puts it, “Insight is an outcome, not an input. . . . You must reverse the conventional ‘thinking before doing’ logic to successfully step up” (185-186).