High performing leadership
Leadership is accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in conditions of uncertainty.” (Marshall Ganz)
What is high performing leadership?
High performing leadership is one of the most critical differences between individuals, teams, organisations and systems that struggle and those that thrive. But what characterises this kind of leadership and how can we develop more of it?
In our deep experience, genuinely high-performing leadership rarely happens by accident: leaders are not born, they are developed.
Drawing on many years’ experience supporting leaders across complex public systems, and academic research, we’ve built a framework that captures the five key conditions every leader needs to enable others to thrive in achieving their shared purpose.
TRACE leadership model
Our evidence-based TRACE leadership model expands the idea of leadership beyond traditional and unhelpful ideas of the single ‘heroic’ leader, and passive leader-follower relationships.
The model provides an approach for developing high performing individual leaders, teams, organisations and systems. It can be used as both a guide and a diagnostic for high-performing leadership.
So, if you or your people are stepping into new leadership roles, your organisation is facing significant uncertainty, or it simply doesn’t feel like your leadership is achieving the impact you know is possible, this framework can help you develop the capabilities needed to thrive.
Download The TRACE model for developing high performing leadership
How does high performing leadership show itself?
For us, high performing leadership is not just about effective individual leaders, but rather a collective, social process that emerges through the relationships and interactions among people within a group – including the ‘leader’.
We know high performing leadership is present when the leader and group are working together in ways that result in:
- a clear Task
- a Route to success
- Alignment of people and resources
- the Capabilities to succeed
- the Energy needed to sustain effort.
Co-creating and maintaining these is the primary purpose of high performing leaders.
High performing leadership in four spaces
High performing leaders not only know which of the five leadership tasks they are working on, but also which one of four spaces they are leading in.
These spaces are: self, team, organisation, system.
While all four spaces are interconnected and dependent on one another, pinpointing the primary space their current leadership task serves helps clarify and focus your efforts.
Contact us
If you would like to speak to us about how the TRACE leadership model can help you in your leadership work, contact us hello@kscopehealth.org.uk