Unveiling the Real Needs of Leaders: Moving Beyond Zombie Leadership Training

---

Leader development strategies in organizations that are products of the same zombie ideas carrying high expectations coupled with the pressure to sort out everyday problems may provide no constructive avenue for leader development either.

TATIANA BACHKIROVA & PETER JACKSON
Oxford Brookes Business School

---

Understanding 'Zombie Leadership'
In a recent groundbreaking paper titled, Zombie leadership: Dead ideas that still walk among us, researchers from Australia, Sweden, and the UK shed light on a concept that's quietly infiltrated many organizations:  Zombie leadership.

Drawing on a similar concept from economics research, these are leadership concepts upheld not by evidence or critical analysis, but by groups pushing their own agendas.  As the authors aptly put it, controlling the narrative of leadership means controlling power dynamics within organizations and society.

Some of these zombie leadership ideas include:

• Leadership solely revolves around individual leaders, ignoring the collaborative process it truly is.
• Leadership is an innate skill possessed only by a select few, perpetuating an unhealthy hierarchy.
• Leadership is always beneficial, despite instances where it can foster inequality and toxicity.
• Groups cannot function without a leader, disregarding situations where leadership may hinder effectiveness.

These misconceptions often seep into leadership training programs, hindering genuine development and perpetuating unrealistic standards.  And a great deal of dominant leadership theories that are relied upon for training are about heroic leaders and relatively passive masses—definitely a zombie idea. 

In addition, these theories are abstract and difficult to put into practice.  They also set up an ideal standard so high, that it challenges actual leaders to strive for that ideal image and performance that can cause one to lose confidence and feel frustrated and secretly defeated.

The researchers go into depth exploring the eight "axioms" of zombie leadership that they identify and the threats they each pose.  They said, "The threat posed by zombie leadership is manifold and it contributes to the creation of a deeply unequal world... "

---

What do leaders really want and need?
Recognizing the shortcomings of zombie leadership, researchers at Oxford Brookes Business School delved into what leaders genuinely require to tackle challenges and grow.  Their study, What do leaders really want to learn in a workplace? A study of the shifting agendas of leadership coaching, dissected the interplay between external and internal factors shaping leaders' learning needs.

They recognized that "Leader development strategies in organizations that are products of the same zombie ideas carrying high expectations coupled with the pressure to sort out everyday problems may provide no constructive avenue for leader development either." 

By analyzing coaching sessions over time, the researchers identified a spectrum of topics reflecting leaders' evolving needs.  They examined how both outside factors (leaders' environments) and personal (or internal motivations and mechanisms) come together to impact leaders' experience and learning needs at work. 

They asked coaches in long-term coaching relationships with leaders ( six months to one year) to document coaching themes and time-tagged them at three points in the coaching relationship:  Beginning, middle, and end. 

This allowed them to create a taxonomy of coaching topics that represented the intersection between the clients' external and internal demands that create their experiences.  Coaching topics are what the client brings to the coaching session to focus on in order to grow, develop, and strategize action plans with the purpose of achieving goals and meeting developmental needs. 

This strategy allowed them to not only identify what leaders wanted to learn but also when these topics typically came up for leaders throughout the coaching relationship.

What leaders really want
Forty topics emerged that were grouped into eight categories.

Leadership Capabilities
Being more strategic
Change management
Understanding the big picture
Managing people
Developing others and teams
Developing presence and impact
Delegating

Career & Transitions
Career planning
Preparing for promotions
Dealing with new job role demands

Personal & Professional Development
Developing skills & behaviors
Personal development planning
Processing feedback & psychometrics
Identifying strengths & resources
Celebrating success

Networks & Communication
Effectiveness of communication
Managing stakeholders
Relationship challenges
Networking
Personal branding

Personal & Emotional Challenges
Dealing with emotions
Issues of confidence
Personal wellbeing
Exploring personal history, psychology, & triggers
Self-care & burnout
Building resilience

Dealing with Specific Situational Challenges
Specific decision-making
Processing difficult situations
Preparing for specific events

Adapting to Organizational Dynamics
Understanding context & situation
Dealing with uncertainty & change
Fitting into organization culture & expectations
Fit between role & self
Work-life balance
Time management & prioritization

Working with the Self
Understanding the self & identity
Sense of wider purpose
Values & integrity
Personal growth
Motivation & drives

---

Key take-aways

• Leaders' needs transcend traditional and zombie competencies, delving into personal growth and emotional resilience.
  The topics demonstrate that leaders' needs shift beyond classical leadership competencies offered in most organizations towards the person behind the competencies and performance. 
  
  They are richer, more nuanced, more varied, and more granular in response to their changing situations and organizations.  They are more aligned with their individual characteristics and experiences.  Leaders need developmental opportunities that balance the external environment, challenges, and organizational needs with deep, intrapersonal work. 
  
  
• Recognizing leaders as human, not as heroic figures, is essential for meaningful development.
  We need to move past seeing leaders as heroic, special figureheads, and instead see them as the everyday human beings that they are, trying to do the best they can under challenging and difficult circumstances that stretch them to their limits.
  
  
• Learning approaches must move beyond conventional methods to foster genuine self-inquiry and reflection.
  Leaders' learning needs are more personal and emotive.  That points us towards modalities that go beyond LMS-based trainings, the classroom, and workshops to those "which require a meaningful inquiry about 'living through' their various experiences, rather than the organizational rhetoric about leadership skills."  In other words, experiential learning must be part of the mix.
  
  
• Confidence issues often lurk beneath the surface and require being addressed before tackling other developmental areas.
  The authors put a magnifying glass on issues of confidence and working with the self that emerged. 
  
  Issues of confidence may go unnoticed and remain hidden since a lack of confidence "goes against the image of the leader in popular discourses."  The authors point out that the leaders were not suffering from imposter syndrome. 
  
  When a leader compares themselves to the 'ideal leadership' often held up, of course doubts arise about their ability to rise to that level.  This makes working with leader confidence a precursor to other tactical topics and deeper identity work, such as personal meaning, values and integrity, leadership presence, strategic work, and communication.
  
  
• For a deeper understanding, refer to the study for nuanced insights into the timing and frequency of coaching topics across the relationship.
  Finally, I refer you to the actual study for the frequencies and timings of these topics in coaching.  The researchers present an elegant chart to display the frequencies and some rich explanations of why certain topics tended to be at the beginning, middle, or towards the end of the coaching relationship.
  

Conclusion
In a landscape littered with zombie leadership ideas, it's imperative to shift focus towards authentic leader development.  By acknowledging leaders' multifaceted needs and providing tailored support, organizations can foster environments where leaders thrive and grow, transcending the limitations of outdated paradigms.

---

Have an amazing journey today!

---

Alan Mikolaj is a seasoned coach and leadership development consultant with nearly 20 years of experience.  He is passionate about helping leaders transform their leadership, their teams, and their organizations.  He has an impactful, professional approach driven by a passion for meaning and purpose, a growth mindset, and a commitment to excellence and service in order to drive change and results.

Alan holds his Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology and Associate Certified Coach credential with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) and maintains their ethics and standards of behavior, including the standards regarding confidentiality.  You can learn more about them on the ICF website.

Transformational change starts with a conversation!
Alan is on a mission to partner with like-minded leaders who want to make a positive difference in the world.  Schedule your free, one-hour session by clicking here: Discovery Conversation with Alan
Or call or email: Contact Page

---