Session Type: Interactive Roundtable Accepted by MIG(s): Time Allotted: 75 Description: This paper discusses how leadership simulations help today's leaders meet challenges through mission-focused leadership development experiences that align the individual with the organization’s mission, systems and structure. They accelerate development by actively engaging leaders in mission-focused scenarios that demand fast-paced decisions, test current leadership limits, and result in realistic consequences. Abstract: Rapid changes in the environment demand a flexible and efficient federal government workforce that must continually absorb new and increasingly complex mission priorities. As a result, effective leadership has become equally challenging in an environment where new and unique skills are required daily; the workforce is becoming more diverse functionally, culturally, and generationally; and the speed of technological change is difficult to absorb (Day & Halpin, 2004; Milliken & Martins, 1996). Current and future federal government employees must meet the dynamic demands of their internal and external environments to protect, defend and serve our nation.
To effectively establish a cadre of competent leaders in the government requires a comprehensive, integrated approach to leadership development that enables employees to assume leadership behaviors and responsibilities in conjunction with their agency’s mission. Moreover, given the constantly changing nature of the environment, it is important to develop a leadership development approach that is fluid, adaptable, and tailored to individual and organization needs (McCall & Hollenbeck, 2007).
Leadership simulations are a key way to help meet these challenges (see Yukl, 2006) through mission-focused leadership development experiences that align the individual with the organization’s mission, systems and structure. They accelerate development by actively engaging leaders in mission-focused scenarios that demand fast-paced decisions, test current leadership limits, and result in realistic consequences.
Leadership simulations can use several approaches depending upon the audience, purpose, and the resources available. For example, online simulations allow leaders to interact with realistic or abstract representations of real-world systems, scenarios, or processes within a computer-based environment. Tabletop simulations allow leaders to perform a role or responsibility within a planned scenario that mimics their actual role or responsibility in a face-to-face or virtual real-time interaction. Analog simulations allow leaders to interact with a physical depiction of a scenario managed by a set of rules in a face-to-face experiential interaction that focuses on decision making without relying upon extensive modeling.
This paper will present a three-phase process for leadership simulations that effectively primes leaders and systems for change, simulates complex mission-focused challenges, and supports ongoing development. To begin, participants assess their leadership style, strengths and individual challenges with 360-feedback or leadership assessments and prepare for a mission-focused simulation. Next, participants engage in complex leadership simulations reflecting current and/or future mission-critical challenges. They make real-time decisions with immediate consequences that provide insight to how their leadership style interacts within the organizational system. Finally, participants receive immediate and ongoing feedback that capitalizes on insights gained through the simulation to maximize learning and implement mission-focused changes in the organization. Support systems, such as coaching, mentoring programs, or networking activities, are created or refined to ensure skill transfer and sustainable development over time.
This paper will also discuss the approach, methodology and results of actual leadership simulations that incorporated this process in the federal government. In conclusion, leadership simulations have been used to successfully develop leaders from a variety of government organizations. This paper will discuss implications for generalizing simulation approaches to other organizations, and how this approach can help the science and practice of leadership adjust to the resources and challenges of the digital age.
References
Day, D. V., & Halpin, S. M. (2004). Growing Leaders for Tomorrow: An Introduction. In D. V. Day, S. J. Zaccaro & S. M. Halpin (Eds.), Leader development for transforming organizations: Growing leaders for tomorrow. (pp. 3-22). Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
McCall, M. W., & Hollenbeck, G. P. (2007). Getting leader development right: Competence not competencies. In J. A.Conger & R. E.Riggio (Eds.), The Practice of Leadership: Developing the Next Generation of Leaders (pp. 331-344). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Milliken, F. J., & Martins, L. L. (1996). Searching for Common Threads: Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups. The Academy of Management Review, 21, 402-433.
Yukl, G. A. (2006). Leadership in Organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Torrey Wilkinson, Booz Allen Hamilton
Bio: Dr. Wilkinson is an Associate in the Human Capital and Learning group at Booz Allen Hamilton. Her academic work includes survey development and analysis, leadership and personality assessment, training evaluation, leadership development and performance measurement in Fortune 500 companies. She has experience leading teams to perform executive coaching, leader development, career development, personnel selection, job analysis, and statistical analysis in both the public and private sectors. Dr. Wilkinson has extensive experience with executive assessment, coaching and development, including owning Trademark Consulting, LLC, a consulting firm that provided senior executives with self-assessments and 360-degree leadership performance evaluations as well as leader development through extensive one-on-one coaching. Her work has helped several clients assess CEO candidates, transfer ownership of their firm, and develop their leadership pipeline.
Lisa Gulick, Booz Allen Hamilton
Bio: Lisa M. V. Gulick is a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton where she specializes in developing leaders to work effectively in complex global environments both domestically and internationally. She also has extensive experience in training design and evaluation, competency modeling, job analysis, career development, organizational cultural assessment, and quantitative and qualitative data analysis. She holds a Master's degree in Industrial Organizational Psychology from George Mason University and is completing her Ph.D. in the same subject. Her academic work has focused on designing strategies to accelerate leadership development, increase individual adaptability, and cross-cultural selection and training.
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