Crucibles of Leadership

Leaders of all these organizations have found that the ability to learn from experience distinguishes great leaders from average ones. Moreover, the ability to learn from experience is critical to building a pipeline of capable leaders. The most fertile of these experiences are crucibles—times of trial and failure as often as success. Crucibles are transformative experiences that force aspiring leaders to examine who they are, what matters to them and what they can learn from success and failure. They teach lessons about leading and about learning.

Importantly, crucibles can be found more often in personal experience—in family life, wartime trauma, athletic competition or personal loss—than they can on the job. Even the best leadership workshop or seminar pales in comparison to the impact of experience as a teacher. More important, crucibles can be mined for insight to make leaders more effective and improve the performance of the organizations they lead—if leaders are equipped to learn from experience.

That is the essence of a new book by Robert J. Thomas, executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business. Called Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader, was published in March 2008 by the Harvard Business School Press. It showcases an original approach to leader development that leverages crucible experiences. It also establishes an important new role for senior management in creating a depth of leadership talent—an essential characteristic of high-performance organizations, according to Accenture’s High Performance Business research.

There’s not a leader alive who doesn’t want to be more effective. Nor is there a CEO who doesn’t worry about growing more leaders. Thus, Crucibles of Leadership is an excellent tool for building relationships with the C-suite. Its vivid stories from leaders in global corporations—as well as stories about the Hells Angels motorcycle run and the Mormon missionary experience—can form the basis for revealing personal conversations with C-suite executives.

Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader is divided into three parts, encompassing nine chapters. The preface is by Warren Bennis, widely regarded as a pioneer in leadership studies.

Part I: Experience Matters—But Then What?

Chapter 1: Experience Matters
Experience matters, but what’s more important is what leaders make of their experiences.

Download a complimentary chapter.

Chapter 2: Extracting Insight from Experience
Crucibles teach two lessons: one about leading and the other about learning. Lessons about learning are the more powerful of the two.

Chapter 3: Inside the Crucible
Resilience is what enables leaders to find calm in the face of chaos. Resilience can be learned.

Chapter 4: Leaders as Expert Performers
Practice can trump talent. Outstanding leaders practice while they perform.

Part II: Crafting a Personal Learning Strategy

Chapter 5: The Core of a Personal Learning Strategy: Recognizing and Transforming Crucible Experiences
The difference between novices and experts—in leadership as well as in the performing arts—is a Personal Learning Strategy, an approach to learning that integrates personal aspirations, motivations and learning style.

Chapter 6: Exploring Your Capabilities
The starting point for crafting a Personal Learning Strategy is a candid self-assessment—for example, answering the question, “Why lead?”

Chapter 7: Creating Your Own Personal Learning Strategy
A step-by-step approach, with exercises and examples.

Part III: The Big Picture

Chapter 8: Experienced-based Leader Development: The Organizational Dimension
Comparison of experience-based approaches in industry (Toyota, Boeing, Accenture, Ford), in not-for-profits (MIT, Young Presidents Organization) and non-obvious examples (Mormon Church, Hells Angels).

Chapter 9: Invigorating the Practice of Leadership
The Personal Learning Strategy is a point of alignment between individuals and organizations—an original approach to leader development.

Organizations provide opportunities to learn technical skills and get real-time practice from teachers who provide feedback. In so doing, organizations equip aspiring leaders to mine their experiences, continuously and intensively, for insight into what it takes to lead, to grow as a leader and to cultivate leadership in others—peers and superiors, as well as subordinates. Organizations commit themselves to providing robust resources and durable processes in three facets of learning from experience: prepare, deploy and renew.

Prepare
Preparing leaders involves two key activities: helping people be clear about what lenses they use as observers, and helping them understand their own best learning style so that they can accelerate their learning as leaders.

Deploy
Effective deployment of experience can lead to more effective leader development. It also allows leaders to hone their sense-making skills—their ability to quickly and accurately read situations and people to ensure that they make the most of their experiences and to increase their ability to communicate what they’ve learned to others and to make practical use of their insights.

Renew
Renewing leadership means having a teachable point of view—a perspective on leadership, about how one leads and why—that is grounded in personal experience. However, it must be open to adaptation and amendment as newer and different experiences and challenges emerge—both from the individual leader's life and from the lessons shared among a community of leaders.

At its core, the book’s research points to six conclusions:

1. Experience is the best teacher, but work is not the only experience that matters.
   
   
2. Crucible experiences are frequent and free, but you have to prepare for them.
   
   
3. Resilience—the ability to find calm in the midst of chaos—can be learned through practice.
   
   
4. Leadership is a performing art, but it takes deliberate practice and a Personal Learning Strategy to progress from novice to expert.
   
   
5. Practice can trump talent.
   
   
6. Organizations can leverage crucible experiences and stimulate Personal Learning Strategies to grow more leaders faster.

Robert J. Thomas is executive director of the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business. Specializing in leadership and organizational strategy, he has published several books in this field. He is the John R. Galvin Visiting Professor of Leadership at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and has served as senior lecturer in the MIT School of Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Dr. Thomas has written numerous books and articles on leadership, technology and organizational change. His book, Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2002. The book was the Business Week best-selling business book of 2003. Geeks and Geezers has been translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, Russian and Korean. He has published articles on related topics in the Harvard Business Review, Harvard Management Update, the Sloan Management Review and FORTUNE magazine. He is the recipient of the 1999 Breaking the Frame Award from the Journal of Management Inquiry and the 1995 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

“As someone who has participated in the journey of a company that has grown from $4 million to $40 billion, I found the core premise of this book really rings true. The learnings derived from the challenges faced in the book can be powerful tools in growing one’s business.”
–Brad Anderson, CEO, Best Buy Co., Inc.

“Bob displays exceptional understanding of the complex forces at work over any leader’s career. He employs this understanding here, providing a crisp roadmap to leading more effectively.”
–Jeff Wilke, COO, Amazon.com

“Thomas has written the organizational playbook for commuting metal into gold, for transforming management into leadership.”
–Michael Useem, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

“Robert Thomas takes readers in a new direction: toward understanding the burning challenges and even failures that turn ordinary people into great leaders. This practical book can help men and women from all walks of life rise to their full potential.”
–Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School

“Perhaps the most valuable quality of Bob’s book is its wise pragmatism. We need wisdom we can act on, and this book is filled with actionable insights.”
–Warren Bennis, scholar, organizational consultant and best-selling author

“Crucibles has unlocked the code on learning how to learn and in the bargain has enabled each of us to see with greater acuity that which multiplies our leadership effectiveness—what a gift—thank you!”
–Fred Harburg, former CLO, Motorola and former SVP of Leadership and Learning, Fidelity Investments

• Human Resources: Forging the art of leadership from the crucible of leadership [JPG, 576KB]
  In an interview with Management@Work, Robert Thomas and Stephanie Gault talk about why experience matters in leadership development and why Tom Sawyer is a great kind of leader.
  
  
• WilfredWong.com: Crucibles of Leadership: Great Leaders Are Made of This
  Crucibles of Leadership is certainly a book for those who appreciate a structured and disciplined approach to learn from experience. WilfredWong.com reviews Robert J. Thomas' book, The Crucibles of Leadership
  
  
• Strategy & Leadership: In the crucible: Robert J. Thomas explains how leaders learn
  Findings by leadership researcher Robert J. Thomas suggest that organizations reconsider what they know about how successful leaders actually learn. In an interview Thomas aims to explain what he means by crucible experiences and how leaders learn from them.
  
  
• BusinessWeek Video: Personal Learning Strategies
  Creating a plan to learn while you lead
  Great leaders don't just learn from their successes and failures - they constantly adapt and improve the way they learn. Accenture's Robert Thomas explains the personal learning strategy.
  
  
• BusinessWeek Video: Knowing Your Personal Lens
  How values temper your managing style
  Just as astronomers adjust for the distortions of their telescope lens, managers should account for their own biases. Accenture's Robert J. Thomas offers simple self-assessments to help.
  
  
• Kansas City Star: Another one bites the dust
  Elected leaders, chief executives, ministers … one after another, leaders are crashing from their sometimes self-constructed pedestals. And in their tumbles, we lose another reason to believe. Is there any wonder why there’s a loss of corporate and party loyalty, a distrust of anyone in charge?
  
  
• The Wharton Leadership Digest
  Crucibles of Leadership: When Experience Isn't Enough
  Robert J. Thomas has spent a lifetime exploring what makes leaders great. In his new book, Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader, he examines how challenging experiences, both on and off the job, are the raw material of leadership.

Dr. Robert J. Thomas has written numerous books and articles on leadership, technology and organizational change. His articles have been published in the Harvard Business Review, Harvard Management Update, MIT Sloan Management Review and FORTUNE magazine.

Learn more about the books and articles written by Dr. Thomas:

• Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders
  Published by Harvard Business School Press in 2002 and awarded Business Week’s best-selling business book of 2003, Geeks and Geezers focuses on the motivations and aspirations of leaders in their 20s, 30s, 70s and 80s.
  Order Geeks & Geezers at Amazon.com
  
  
• Leading for a Lifetime
  In Leading for a Lifetime, learn how era and values shape those who lead. Leaders aren’t just born—they develop by building on the lessons of their times. Everyone who can “learn to learn” can grow to become a leader.
  Order Leading for a Lifetime at Amazon.com
  
  
• The Talent Powered Organization: Strategies for Globalization, Talent Management and High Performance
  The Talent Powered Organization presents a strategic and holistic view of talent. The book illustrates why talent management requires a strategic and integrated approach across the wide range of possible interventions and investments.
  Order The Talent Powered Organization at Amazon.com
  
  

• Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader  Workplace Today [PDF, 184KB]
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• What Rock Stars Can Teach Leaders Business Week
  
  
• Turning Experience into Leadership Outlook Journal, Jan. 2008
  
  
• Talent: Leveraging Your Most Important Competitive Asset Outlook Journal, Sept. 2007
  
  
• Leadership and High Performance: Experience is the Best Teacher Research Note, April 2005
  
  
• Achieving High Performance through Leadership Simulation Research Note, April 2004

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