Cognitive Skills are common elements in any leadership model, and most leaders excel at these qualities. However, traditional leadership models may emphasise aspects such as analytical thinking, rational decision-making, or logic. Of course, such skills are still critical today. However, leaders need to expand their cognitive skill set according to the context we are operating in nowadays. The world is highly interconnected and complex, and the speed of change can be overwhelming.

The Inner Development Goals (IDG) offer a new leadership framework to tackle today’s challenges. In this third episode on the IDGs, we discuss the second category of this framework: Thinking. It consists of five skills and qualities:

Complexity Awareness goes beyond mere awareness but includes understanding and skills in working with systemic conditions and causalities (systems theory). We can’t possibly know all the parameters and casualties that impact outcomes. Leaders can’t control an organisation like a machine but can influence the system through their interactions with others.

Perspective Skills refer to “seeking, understanding and actively making use of insights from contrasting perspectives.” This requires humility, awareness of blind spots, and the openness to invite views that are very different from ours.

Sense-Making is directly related to how the human brain operates. We continuously interpret what is going on in our environment and adapt accordingly. This is critical for survival. However, we must challenge whether our sense-making of the past is still useful today. In addition, we make sense through our interactions with others, and we need to share our thinking processes to do so more effectively.

Critical Thinking is what most leaders are very good at already. The art is in applying critical thinking in the right places: at times, we may be overly critical, slowing things down unnecessarily, or frustrating others. On other occasions, we might not be critical enough, especially when we are influenced by our own confirmation bias.

Long-term Orientation & Visioning is another area in which most leaders do quite well. The challenge is often in a) defining short-term goals which support the long-term vision and goals and b) sustaining the commitment to achieving the long-term goals.

Reflection Questions for Leaders:

• How can I let go of control and instead, exert influence  to achieve the organisational goals?
• How well do I understand the degree of complexity in a situation?
• Where may I tend to oversimplify, where might I make things too complicated?
• What (or who’s) perspective are we missing here?
• How aware am I of my blind spots?
• How well do I nurture a climate  for different perspectives to be shared?
• Where might past sense-making limit me in the future? What might I need to re-visit in a different context today?
• How do I make my own sense-making more transparent and involving?
• Looking at the five THINKING skills and qualities, which ones do need to further develop to remain successful in the future?

See also:
The Inner Development Goals - The Leadership Model for the Future
and
Why Successful Leaders Focus on "Being" before "Doing" － Inner Development Goals Part 2

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