the magical key card
Most of you are probably too young to remember a janitor who walked the halls of a school, church, or place of employment with a huge ring of keys that jangled as they walked. It was quite helpful in that era to know when this person of authority would round the corner. We could hear them coming a full hallway earlier, and this enabled us to hide whatever nefarious activity we were up to.
If there was a master key in those days this guy didn’t have it. What he did have was a ring that held dozens of keys on a long retractable chain. This key ring should have been registered as a deadly weapon. “These were the keys to his kingdom,” and there were many.
Eventually, someone came up with a master key, then a key card, and for years now the cool kids have some sort of embedded card somewhere on that nerd lanyard or pocket protector. This will automatically unlock any door that they have access to as they walk towards it. No more huge key rings are needed.
It strikes me that in the leadership development world what we are all in pursuit of is THE thing. The master key. The magic step. The silver bullet. We exclaim often “That’s THE SECRET to developing future leaders!” Eventually, we learn that there’s no such thing. Just like there wasn’t an ID with an NFC chip in the 1900s.
This is more than just language and nuance, what we could be saying is “That’s [one of the big] keys to developing leaders.”
There are no magic keycards in leadership development. Your intern, rookie, or resident might have a lanyard with an ID and an NFC that emits radio waves that unlock only certain doors and hallways. The HR or security/ops department can keep them out of certain areas, but you’ll never develop another leader through just one action or one thought. There are many things, that will need to be spoken by you, potentially over and over.
Throughout the last decade or so we’ve landed on seven ingredients. The balance of getting all 7 of these as correct as possible is more art than it is science. Community and Mission are infused in each but the seven ingredients take practice. They are present all the time, and somehow a wiser leader has to be listening, evaluating, and eventually giving feedback on what is needed in this moment, on this day, for this current challenge.
There is not just ONE ingredient or key. Which of these are we reaching for, and how will we deliver our best today?