I recently had the opportunity to spend a morning with the members of the 2018 RBC Summer Founders Program. We had some great conversations about leadership and how leadership styles can impact business. The Leadership Wheel, developed by Clint Sidle, (http://www.clintsidle.org/) provided insights into the five intelligences of leadership outlined below:
EAST: Intellectual intelligence—knowing the world. Seeking to acquire and hold knowledge.
SOUTH: Emotional intelligence—awakening the heart. Forging strong and supportive relationships.
WEST: Intuitive intelligence—seeing the way. Attaining the highest goals in life.
NORTH: Action intelligence—embodying the way. Driving for results.
CENTER: Spiritual intelligence—learning to learn. Realizing our full potential.
As an entrepreneur it is important to be aware of your strengths and areas of development. Sidle, proposes that we identify our dominant strength and then cultivate the other intelligences to become better leaders, team members and ultimately better people. For example if you have strong intellectual intelligence then often the weakness (or as Sidle refers to it the “shadow” side) of that style is being insensitive and inflexible. Developing a strategy to become more aware of both emotional and intuitive intelligence would provide deeper insight into how to handle situations with greater flexibility. To develop as a leader all five intelligences need to be considered and nurtured. The model is articulated as a wheel with spiritual intelligence at the centre with a balance of intellect, emotion, intuition and action on the four sides. Acknowledging and cultivating our shadow side(s) will ultimately help us to be more effective leaders.
About the Author
Dr. Janice Forsyth is a facilitator, consultant, coach, entrepreneur and founder of Foresight Management Consulting. Janice obtained her undergraduate and Master’s degree in Human Kinetics from the University of Windsor. She earned her PhD in Instructional Technology from the College of Education at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan focusing on the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management and evaluation of processes and resources for learning.
Her unique background, which includes workplace learning, instructional design, resource development, evaluation, strategic planning and leadership development, makes her ideally suited to work with leaders and organizations who need to motivate and mobilize their people to succeed in a constantly changing environment. A skilled and experienced facilitator, Janice has worked with a diverse range of public, not-for-profit and private sector organizations at the local, regional and national level.
