Maturity Models of Leadership — Enjoy with Caution
We currently see leadership models arising like Leadership Agility or the leadership levels of the Kanban Maturity Model. Both of these models have in common that personal development is the key to becoming a better leader. Because these models define levels of maturity, I have some mixed feelings.
It’s All About Maturity Levels
The models define certain levels you are passing through over time. They presume you develop yourself through intensive (self-)reflection and then stepping up the ladder. Both models see the highest level of maturity in becoming a contributor to society by fostering altruistic behavior.
This is in line with the Organizational Citizenship Behavior theory.[1] Scientific proof was found regarding this theory that a culture of altruistic behavior inside an organization also leverages the overall organizational performance. This concludes that it’s vital to invest in the maturity of an organization’s leaders.
Following David J. Anderson’s keynote of the LKCE18[2], the maturity levels of leadership of the Kanban Maturity Model are defined as follows:
- Level 1 Leader: selfish, often narcissistic, manipulative
- Level 2 Leader: tribal, promote relative assessment
Make others look bad so that we look better in comparison. - Level 3 Leader: driven by a sense of purpose
Short-sighted and focused on customer service, the expectation of martyrdom, self-sacrifice, the organization may be unsustainable. - Level 4 Leader: manage risks
Driven by purpose but not at all costs, seek balance across multiple stakeholders’ concerns, lead fit-for-purpose organizations. - Level 5 Leader: relentlessly pursue perfection
Desire to be the best, these leaders tend to lead the fittest for-purpose organizations. - Level 6 Leader: redefine the identity of organizations, reinvent organizations
Make enemies; actions are often only appreciated retrospectively, expect immense resilience, and have a deep well of energy to fuel them.
In addition, Anderson continues in his keynote that the maturity of its leaders always constrains an organization. That gives these levels of personal development some weight. However, let me explain why I still have a mixed gut feeling regarding levels of (leadership) maturity.
What I Like
I like levels of leadership maturity.
I, for myself, always try to bring everything I do, at least to what I call the managed mode. This follows the second maturity level of CMMI[3], where you clearly define your way of working to increase overall transparency and clarity. As in every maturity model, levels help us reflect on ourselves to become more aware of what we are doing. It is the first step towards improvement.
For leadership maturity, levels help us become more self-aware, which helps us develop ourselves. And that is precisely what Leadership Agility entails, what leadership maturity of the Kanban Maturity Model aims at, and what Christopher Avery brilliantly puts as follows:
Do you know what the number-one approach to formal leadership development is? Developing self-awareness is the top approach, and it has been for as long as there has been a leadership development industry. Why? Leadership is a relationship issue. If you lack awareness of self — of your preferences, biases, and how you are perceived — how can you expect others to believe in you, to trust you, and to invite you to lead them?
Christopher Avery, The Responsibility Process
Another thing I like about leadership maturity levels as defined by the Kanban Maturity Model or Leadership Agility is that I think both models are a great supplement to leadership theories like Intent-Based Leadership, Charismatic Leadership, Authentic Leadership, and especially Transformational Leadership.
By being a highly mature leader, the so-called four I’s of Transformational Leadership come true: you provide intellectual stimulation, spend individualized attention, give idealized influence, and foster inspirational motivation. You give clarity on what your goals are, and you probably are very charismatic. And yes, by doing so, you must be authentic. Being authentic is what the above quote is about: “how can you expect others to believe in you, trust you, and invite you to lead them” when you are not authentic?
Going back to the maturity levels, we have already seen that altruistic behavior is a characteristic of highly mature leaders. Also, altruism only works when you are authentic. People accept you as a role model if you mean what you say and believe in what you do. And only that enables you to foster the altruistic behavior of your employees.
In short: Leadership Agility and the leadership levels of the Kanban Maturity Model show us why organizations fail if they try to ‘implement’ a particular leadership style using 2-day seminars for each manager. Instead, the models show us that leadership is about long-term personal development. You may adapt all the (positive) attitudes other leadership theories have defined step by step — this takes time. Most of us will probably never reach a very high level.
However, maturity levels remind us that we have to work on ourselves constantly. I like that.
What I Don’t Like
I don’t like levels of leadership maturity.
Richard M. Ryan and Edward L. Deci described in their Self-Determination Theory that people who are motivated by extrinsic motivators start to focus on these extrinsic motivators rather than on what they’re doing.[4] Now think about achieving maturity levels as an extrinsic motivator. If a leader tries to reach a certain level of a maturity model just because of reaching that particular level, they cannot be authentic anymore. And also not altruistic, of course.
Oops…
Digging a little bit deeper, we may meet Steven Reiss. Steven Reiss is another motivational psychologist who criticized Ryan’s and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory. Reiss says that every behavior is motivated intrinsically based on the so-called 16 basic desires.
Using his Reiss Motivation Profile, he argues that each person has differently developed basic desires. Some are developed weak, and some are developed strong. Given how one’s basic desires are developed, they determine our character and, consequently, our behavior.
Considering maturity levels from the perspective of the Reiss Motivation Profile, we come to the point where we have to investigate at least the basic desire Status.
Status is the desire for social standing based on wealth, title, social class, or high birth. Satisfaction of this desire produces feelings of self-importance and superiority, whereas frustration produces feelings of insignificance or inferiority.
Steven Reiss, The Normal Personality
When a person who is highly motivated by the basic desire Status is confronted with a maturity model, this person tends to grab at higher levels because of the status that comes with these higher levels. That person does not focus on being a good human or a good leader.
Remember that leaders who already have a high level do not ask, “what do I have to do to reach level 5 or keep level 4?”. They want to be better people. They have a vision: they want to make the world better. And exactly that is the key point here: if you want to move the ladder upwards, you must leave the maturity model behind by having your own true goal or vision.
Another interesting basic desire in this context is Vengeance. Reiss defines it as someone who is particularly concerned with comparing oneself with others. This also includes the themes of aggression and retaliation. So this basic desire is not about making the world better.
Therefore, trying to be a better leader by being motivated just to reach a new level of these models has nothing to do with great leadership! As discussed in my first article on leadership, Leadership: History Matters, we see the difference between Authentic Transformational Leadership and Pseudotransformational Leadership, as Bernard M. Bass put it.
Behavior, driven by the need for status or vengeance, goes clearly in the direction of Pseudotransformational Leadership. In short: the characteristic of maturity models addressing our need for e. g. status thwarts the goals of Leadership Agility and the leadership levels of the Kanban Maturity Model. I don’t like that.
All Of Us Are Different
When taking a further look at the Reiss Motivation Profile, one can see that we are not all the same. A question Steven Reiss has not (yet) investigated is if the vectors of one’s motivation profile change due to personal development training like meditation or other self-reflection techniques.
However, his studies indicate that people always fall back to what their basic desires are. Only the basic desire Romance changes over time. If that is ultimately true, developing ourselves in a specific direction has limits. For example, becoming a level 6 leader requires us to have a strong basic desire for Idealism.
People with a strong basic desire for idealism are impressed with humanitarianism and volunteerism. Social justice and fairness may be very important to them. They may care deeply about social causes such as world peace, uplifting the downtrodden, or world health. They may pay attention to current events.
Steven Reiss, The Normal Personality
When this basic desire is weak in us, we don’t care about all the stuff around us even if we try hard. How should somebody be authentically altruistic when they don’t care? There is another interesting basic desire when it comes to self-awareness. It is called Acceptance.
Acceptance is the desire to not be criticized and rejected. This desire motivates us to avoid situations where we might be criticized or rejected and to stay away from people who dislike us. Acceptance is the reason why we sometimes get nervous when we are evaluated, tested, or interviewed for a job.
Steven Reiss, The Normal Personality
People with a strong basic desire for acceptance don’t take feedback as a gift. A feedback situation is always harrowing for them. Because of this, these people tend to avoid and reject feedback, so it is more difficult for them to develop a high level of self-awareness. And even more, as defined as the 6th leadership level of the Kanban Maturity Model, these people do not want to make enemies.
So what does the research of Steven Reiss mean for such leadership maturity models? How can these models be applied to different personality types? The models don’t have an answer to this question yet. Does our personality change through self-development? Also, Steven Reiss doesn’t answer this question.
However, trying to become a better leader is always a good thing. Reflecting on oneself is always a good thing. We shouldn’t stick our heads in the sand until these questions are answered. Instead, we may take responsibility and reflect on ourselves, regardless of what our motivation profile looks like. And besides that, the Reiss Motivation Profile is also an excellent instrument for self-reflection because that is what it has been made for!
And now?
Maturity levels have their good and their bad sides. On the one hand, their levels allow us to reflect on ourselves easily. On the other hand, the effects of these levels can be addictive. Sometimes the focus moves from becoming a better leader towards moving to a higher level. This is why I think we should always be cautious when using maturity models — especially in the context of leadership.
Implementing maturity models triggered by management goals like ‘reach level 3 in four years’ will always lead to counterproductive results. In this case, the goal is to reach a certain level, and over time you will find out how to trick the system. It is what always happens when extrinsic goals are established. It’s about what I call The Human Factor described in my article Don’t Step into the Three Traps of The Newtonian Mindset.
Because of this and my perspective and experience, maturity models should be used from time to time to give us feedback about ourselves. This way, we can focus on the real goal: helping our organization and the society by moving toward citizenship behavior. They help us to reflect on ourselves to become a better leader. Then, climbing up leadership maturity levels must always be regarded as a nice side effect.
Footnotes
[1] Learn more about Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) at Wikipedia.
[2] David J. Anderson is the author of the 2010 book Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business and the main head behind Kanban and the Kanban Maturity Model. Watch his keynote at the Lean Kanban Central Europe Conference in 2018 (LKCE18) here.
[3] CMMI stands for Capability Maturity Model Integration. Read this Wikipedia article for more information.
[4] You may also know Daniel Pink, who picked up Ryan’s and Deci’s (and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s) ideas and made them more prominent with his book Drive.
Book recommendations
Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change
William B. Joiner, Stephen A. Josephs
Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation
Edward L. Deci
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Daniel H. Pink
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The Normal Personality: A New Way of Thinking about People
Steven Reiss
Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business
David J. Anderson, Donald G. Reinertsen
Kanban Maturity Model: Evolving Fit-For-Purpose Organizations
David J. Anderson, Teodora Bozheva
The Responsibility Process: Unlocking Your Natural Ability to Live and Lead with Power
Christopher Avery
Transformational Leadership
Bernard M. Bass (†), Ronald E. Riggio
Leadership: Theory and Practice
Peter G. Northouse
Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules
L. David Marquet
