Table Of ContentExploring Leadership
Drivers and Blockers
Ian C. Woodward
Samah Shaffakat
Vincent H. Dominé
Exploring Leadership Drivers and Blockers
Ian C. Woodward • Samah Shaffakat
Vincent H. Dominé
Exploring Leadership
Drivers and Blockers
Ian C. Woodward Samah Shaffakat
Professor of Management Practice Senior Lecturer
INSEAD Liverpool Business School
Asia Campus, Singapore Liverpool, UK
Vincent H. Dominé
Adjunct Professor of Leadership
INSEAD
Fontainebleau, France
ISBN 978-981-13-6275-0 ISBN 978-981-13-6276-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6276-7
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Keywords Leadership development • Self-awareness • Conscious and
unconscious • Drivers • Blockers • Drivers and blockers • Immunity to
change • Insightfully aware leadership • Leadership transformation •
Individual change • Leadership development objectives • Coaching
approaches and tools
P
reface
The three of us share a commitment to helping leaders to achieve transfor-
mation and become the “best version” of themselves that they can imag-
ine. Through our leadership development research, teaching and coaching
work over the past decade, we have become increasingly interested in
examining ways to accelerate leadership development change and to
increase levels of profound self-awareness.
So, our book—Exploring Leadership Drivers and Blockers—is a multi-
author monograph, presenting research on one area that we have seen as
increasingly important in our leadership development and change support
mission. This is the idea of exploring both conscious and unconscious
drivers and blockers related to a leader’s development objectives and their
personal change or leadership transformation efforts.
In the book, we argue that exploring drivers and blockers is a prerequi-
site to enhanced and profound levels of self-awareness. Drivers are those
“assumptions” and “forces” in people that create, promote and power
activity, as well as give impetus and desire to personal change action.
Drivers guide and sustain objectives and goal-directed behaviors. Blockers,
on the other hand, are those “assumptions” and “forces” in us that
obstruct and impede by screening out, or standing in the way, of making
change—even when we are consciously or rationally determined or com-
mitted to making an important personal change.
Drivers and blockers are powerful forces, yet previous research has
largely focused on the role of either drivers or blockers, not integrating the
two to consider that the same factor can be both a driver and a blocker for
different people and in different contexts. Our research makes that
vii
viii PREFACE
connection and integration, employing a systems psychodynamic perspec-
tive and drawing upon well-established conceptual frameworks (such as
Intentional Change Theory and positive psychology).
In particular, we acknowledge that the most important foundation for
our research is the work of Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey (2001a, 2009),
whose groundbreaking research on understanding “immunity to change”
and “competing commitments” exemplifies a deep understanding of poten-
tial blockers in leaders’ change efforts. Their work has made an extremely
significant contribution to leadership development research, practice and
coaching during the past decade and half, and will continue to do so.
What Is thIs Book aBout?
Our book is designed to encapsulate and synthesize the relevant academic
literature relating to drivers and blockers; share our own research includ-
ing field research examples; and provide leadership development scholars
and practitioners (such as leadership faculty, coaches and consultants) with
concrete approaches and practical material to help explore drivers and
blockers. Throughout the book, we show more than 40 examples of driv-
ers and blockers from our field research—including four complete mini
case studies—to illuminate the concepts. There is also a copy of our
“Drivers and Blockers Exploration Tool” for use or adaptation. We have
used that surfacing tool and exploration method with more than 2000
global executives in the past five years.
Throughout the book, we argue that allowing a person to explore both
the conscious and unconscious sources and attributes of their drivers and
blockers deepens awareness, creates profound insights and increases the
chances that meaningful change can occur in the leader’s development.
We also note the complementarity of the concept of exploring drivers and
blockers to a wide range of leadership development approaches including
adaptive leadership and personalization, as well as to emotional intelli-
gence. The book also highlights that exploring drivers and blockers in and
of itself does not constitute integrated leadership development—rather, it
is aimed at increasing profound self-awareness. To be meaningful and
actionable, exploring drivers and blockers should be part of a well-designed
and integrated leadership development approach that includes feedback,
reflection, practice, coaching/mentoring and a support system—all
designed to help an individual develop themselves and achieve their
desired transformational change over time.
PREFACE ix
acknoWledgments and InformatIon
This book progressively developed in its research and writing across the
period 2013–2018. The work began when we were all involved at
INSEAD—the Business School for the World. We acknowledge the sig-
nificant assistance in review of the ideas and concepts in this book by a
range of current and former INSEAD faculty, including Professors
Herminia Ibarra, Eric Uhlmann, Schon Beechler and Narayan Pant.
We also express our gratitude for the review assistance given by Professor
Tatiana Bachkirova of Oxford Brookes University (whose work on devel-
opmental coaching is extensively cited in our work) and Professor Elizabeth
A. More (of the Australian Institute of Management).
During our working time on the book, we were able to provide an ear-
lier draft of our work for reference to Dr. Lisa Lahey of the Harvard
Graduate School of Education (whose work on Immunity to Change with
Robert Kegan is one of the main academic foundations for our work).
Very importantly, we are extremely appreciative of the feedback on
exploring drivers and blockers we received from so many INSEAD and
other executive program participants and their dedicated coaches (such as
Els Valk and Kavitha Iyer—the INSEAD Advanced Management Program
coaching directors) as they worked with the concept of drivers and block-
ers. Program participant and coach feedback contributed strongly to our
research. We also acknowledge the numerous examples of exploring driv-
ers and blockers drawn from participants in our programs and coaching
work that we have cited throughout the book as anonymized examples.
We acknowledge the permission from British poet William Ayot to
reprint one of his poems as a final reflection in the book. We are also thank-
ful for the assistance of Dr. Archana Das Goveravaram at INSEAD, with
some of the specialist research editorial work. We are grateful for the edito-
rial work and support of Karthiga Ramu at Springer Nature; as well as to the
editorial leaders and staff, including Vishal Daryanomel, the editor, Political
Sciences and Business/Economics for Palgrave Macmillan at Springer
Nature, who encouraged us in this project and saw it through to completion.
The drivers and blockers information in the book and its exploration
tool are presented for reference and use by scholars and practitioners in
the field of leadership development, including faculty, coaches and training
consultants. We are providing permission for anyone interested in using
the tool to do so (see Sect. 10.7). We recognize that our work covers a
wide range of research and literature sources—and there are active schol-
x PREFACE
arly debates in many of the areas we raise. So, comments and insights from
scholars and practitioners on using the book’s concepts and exploration
tool will be warmly welcomed—as we will be continuing our work (appli-
cation and research) on drivers and blockers well into the future. We have
all found that exploring drivers and blockers together has led to profound
and invaluable insights for leaders trying to create an actionable agenda of
transformational change in their leadership development.
Pebble Bay, Singapore Ian C. Woodward
Liverpool, UK Samah Shaffakat
Fontainebleau, France Vincent H. Dominé
November 2018
For information: “Drivers and Blockers Exploration Tool”. Access to the
tool questions and methodology is found in Sect. 10.8. It is also avail-
able with information about the Drivers and Blockers concepts at: www.
driversandblockers.com.
references
Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. (2001a). The real reason people won’t change. Harvard
Business Review, 79(10), 85–92.
Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. (2009). Immunity to change: How to overcome it and
unlock the potential in yourself and in your organization. Boston: Harvard
Business Press.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 W hat Are Drivers and Blockers? 3
1.2 O verview of the Chapters 4
2 Profound Self-Awareness and the Need to Explore
Drivers and Blockers 9
2.1 A dult Mind Development Stages and the “Immunity to
Change” Process 13
2.1.1 A dult Mind Development and Stages 14
2.1.2 T he “Immunity to Change” Process 17
3 Exploring the Reservoirs of Drivers and Blockers:
Conscious and Unconscious Selves 21
3.1 T he Role of Conscious and Unconscious Mind, Mini-selves
and Possible-Selves 22
3.2 T he Conscious and Unconscious Mind 22
3.3 E go and Mini-selves 25
3.4 P ossible-Selves and Identity 27
xi
