A3 LEADERSHIP - The Story
In search of a framework that works....
Once there was a frustrated leadership training consultant named David. Many clients, friends, and many "airplane seat companions" would consistently ask him a vexing question: "Tell me, what is the right leadership approach for my situation?" David had lots of tools but no real answer.
So, David packed up his family, quit his consulting partnership, and headed off for a PhD in Organizational Behavior. He found passion and success for rigorous research - especially how leaders build personalized and productive relationships with others at work and beyond (see Google Scholar profile). Yet, he still sought the answer to that elusive question:
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What is the right leadership approach for my situation?
Over the past 20 years, he has learned that the "answers" actually lie within the question. Leaders need to ask the right questions forged with "best in class" frameworks to give them "best in situation" answers (see David's article in Talent Quarterly). A3 Leadership was born - an agile, adaptive, and analytical leadership framework. David took multiple "best in class" frameworks and curated them into a unique leadership process. No matter what leadership situation you face: A stakeholder who doesn't respond to your influence. A peer who just won't collaborate. A top manager who needs to hear bad news. A direct report who needs advice to successfully complete a challenging project. If you have the right frameworks, you are on your way to having the "best in situation" answers!
The "best in situation" answers are found among six effective "leadership roles" ranging from fully relationship-based to fully task-based approaches. David has curated and validated a 360-degree A3 Leadership Role assessment. He provides coaching and educational solutions to build on your strengths (as well as pointing out any "derailer" leadership micro-roles).
All six A3 Leadership Roles are effective when leaders enact them in the right "place," with the right "person," and at the right "time." A3 Leadership framework guides the leader to know when and how to enact each leadership role:
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Right place: What leadership role fits the organization's prototype?
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Right person: What leadership role fits with the follower's motivational preference?
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Right time: What leadership role fits with the follower's performance situation?
David has developed, taught, and refined the A3 Leadership Framework for more than a decade with more than two thousand MBA, Executive MBA, and Executive Education participants at the University of South Carolina, WU-Executive Academy (in Vienna Austria and Bucharest, Romania), and Georgia Institute of Technology. He teaches the A3 Leadership Framework (in some form or another) to high potential executives globally. They consistently find that the framework smoothly crosses national culture, industry, and/or occupational boundaries.