Larry, you have just finished your second book on leadership. What IS this Ideal Leadership Model of yours?

It states that a leader is one who leads his or her organization forward in a positive direction. The components of leadership are leadership conditions and leadership capital. The conditions determine who gets to be a leader in the first place. Basically, a person must be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things, with the right people in order to have an opportunity to lead. How well they lead depends on their leadership capital; their philosophical orientation made up of their vision and values, their personal characteristics of wisdom and courage, and their interpersonal interaction of trust and voice.

It still sounds a little abstract. Can you put it in more simple terms?

Let's try an analogy. Imagine that I am the world's greatest football player (I know this requires great imagination, but humor me.) My skills and abilities could be considered my player's capital. This is similar to what is termed leadership capital in the Ideal Leadership Model. Leadership capital is comprised of the characteristics and talent that enable an individual to effectively lead others. In other words, the innate talents and abilities that are available to the individual. But, going back to the football analogy, unless I have a team to compete with, an opponent to compete against, a playing field to compete on, etc. - my abilities could never be demonstrated. These are similar to leadership conditions, which are the circumstances that permit an individual to lead others. The Ideal Leadership Model describes the dynamic interaction between leadership capital and leadership conditions. In very basic terms, capital is what a leader can do and the conditions allow them to do it.

This makes sense. Why has no one else ever talked about this before?

I guess it is because I found myself in a rather unique situation. Virtually all the writings on leadership were developed out of Western societies and directed at those who were in authority or aspired to be. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was an immediate dearth in leadership because there were no role models. Every domain of society; education, politics, law, business, even religion, were desperate for those who could point the way forward. We were forced to examine leadership from the very basics because we were literally starting from ground zero.

But you end up describing leaders as those with courage and vision and such, just like everyone else.

We do more than simply list attributes. Everyone has tried to do that (even Napoleon came up with a list of 115 key traits of a military leader). What we have done is reduced them down to their essence - which we term the leadership capital elements. We have identified six key element areas that fall into three categories; philosophical, personal, and interpersonal. The philosophical elements are vision and values. Vision is the direction the leader wants to take an organization, and their values are the road they use to get there. Personal elements are wisdom and courage; the resources used to solve problems, make decisions, implement strategy, etc. Interpersonal characteristics are trust and voice, which describe how a leader interacts with people.

This doesn't sound so unusual. What exactly is so special about this leadership idea?

It is a comprehensive model. It describes leadership wherever and whenever it is found, anywhere in the world. This is extremely unique. Most theorists have speculated that leadership evolves or that there is no one-size-fits-all that can describe leadership. In other words, each person must discover his or her own particular leadership 'style' and use it in the best way to lead. The Ideal Leadership Model flies in the face of that and claims to be universal. There is one framework that can be used to explain leadership - in all domains, with all types of people, through all of history.

How is that possible? What makes you think you are right?

Like I said, we had to start from ground zero. In 1997, when I first started examining leadership, I decided to approach it scientifically. In other words, I realized that any theory about leadership, if true, would have to be descriptive, prescriptive, and predictive.

Wait - put that in English. What do you mean by "descriptive?"

A theory should accurately describe the phenomenon that it relates to. What that means, in relation to leadership, is that a theory should be able to fully describe what makes a leader.

Of course. That is logical. All leadership books describe leaders.

There is a difference between describing leaders and having a descriptive model. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are generally recognized as two of the greatest American presidents. Yet anyone looking at their lives would immediately note that these two men could not be more different in their upbringing, their temperament, their communicative styles, and almost everything else. The Ideal Leadership Model explains how this is possible.

So how is it possible?

According to the Ideal Leadership Model, the conditions were ripe for their leadership, and they had the appropriate leadership capital for their given circumstances which enabled them to lead effectively.

What do you mean by "prescriptive?"

It follows the descriptive part. If we can understand something well enough to fully describe it, we should know how to fix what might be broken. Prescriptive means that if adjustments are made by the leader in relation to the theory - they will be a more effective leader.

How does that work in practice?

We conduct an Ideal Leadership Assessment, which measures the individual's capital and conditions. (This is the descriptive part.) Based on the results, we coach them on areas that they need to improve. (This is the prescriptive part.)

You 'measure' leadership capital? How is that possible?

For the past several years, we have been developing a rather extensive research instrument called the Ideal Leadership Assessment (ILA). It is a self-assessment consisting of numerous bi-polar questions (meaning the individual must choose between two extremes). We have conducted nearly four hundred ILAs, and only in a handful of cases have individuals felt that the results were not reflective of their capacities.

Can you give an example of one of the questions on the ILA?

Actually, I would rather not, but let me give you a general idea of how it works. Take the area of leadership competency of wisdom, for example. The researcher Robert Clinton noted that leaders are life-long learners. So, one of the questions we ask is how much a person keeps up on their professional reading. Leaders recognize that they need to continually upgrade their wisdom, therefore, they would always be hungering to learn more. A person who does not keep himself or herself abreast of new professional knowledge would rate lower on the wisdom competency scale than one who does.

I get the idea. So you are saying that on the basis of asking questions like this, you know what kind of a leader the person is?

No psychological test is perfect, including ours. At best, it gives a general idea of where a person stands, and how he or she can improve. We have found that when we conduct this assessment at the beginning of a coaching session and again at the end, we can ascertain exactly how an individual has developed.

But don't other organizations do much the same thing?

Not exactly. Other organizations focus on the characteristics or skill set of leaders - things such as teambuilding, communication effectiveness, delegation, that sort of thing. It is true that leaders do these things. It is also true that the better a person performs these skills, the better they will probably lead their organizations. These leader skills could be analogous to a baseball player's skills - running, hitting, fielding, etc. The better the ball player skills, the better they are at playing the game of baseball. The Ideal Leadership Model does this also, we describe the skills and attributes needed to lead effectively, but with one important distinction. We actually describe how to play the game!

Come again?

This is a key distinction of Ideal Leadership. The skills of baseball only make sense when they are in the context of understanding the game. That is what has been missing so long with leadership theory. No one has actually described what the "game" of leadership is. This is why we believe Ideal Leadership is a universal model. Baseball is baseball no matter where it is played, and leadership is leadership no matter where it is found.

Isn't that what Stephen Covey does in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People?

No, not really. I have the highest regard for Stephen Covey, and quote him often, but in that particular book he was not writing about leadership, but about personal self-management. Since writing 7 Habits, Covey has tried to develop his ideas into a working leadership model, which he describes as modeling the seven habits, path finding, aligning and empowering. But his ideas keep evolving. For example, Covey recently added an eighth habit, which parallels very closely to my leadership competency of Voice. He does not have a true theory that could be said to be descriptive, prescriptive, and predictive.

Okay, I'm beginning to understand what you mean by "descriptive" and "prescriptive." What about your last point about theory - "predictive." Are you saying that you can actually predict who will be the leaders of the future?

To a point, yes. First, the conditions must be right. We help a person know when the time is ripe for them to lead. Second, each of the six leadership capital competency areas has an embryo that grows before the person actually needs to use it. We help identify these - hence we 'predict' who would be the best leaders.

An "embryo" of leadership? Better explain that.

Well, think about it. Some people seem to have vision and others don't. Some have courage and others don't. Where does that come from? It has to come from somewhere. We have worked very hard at identifying those embryonic elements of each of the capital areas of vision, values, wisdom, courage, trust, and voice.

I still don't see the connection between this ILA and how it can predict leaders.

Well, again, let's use the example above. If you find a young person who has a high capacity for self-development, there is a much greater chance that they will become wiser in future years than one who does not have this drive.

Okay, I'll give you that. But wisdom is easy - how about courage or vision? How can you tell someone has courage or vision before they need it?

Let's look at those one at a time. Study the biographies of leaders through the centuries and you will find that they all were 'dreamers' in one sense. Their vision was birthed out of those dreams. When I ask young people about their dreams, I either see their eyes light up (which means they have the seeds of vision within them), or they have no clue what I am talking about (hence, they lack the potential of a visionary leader).

And courage? How do you tell if they are courageous before they rush into a burning building to save a baby?

Courage is related to risk. We examine a person's ability to take risks in everyday problem solving as an indication of leadership courage. This is no guarantee that they would be willing to rush into a burning building, of course, but a person who has a higher propensity for risk is more likely to do so than one who does not.

It all seems to make sense, but one thing is still not clear. Why is the Ideal Leadership Model so important to you?

Quite frankly, I believe it can change the world. If the Ideal Leadership Model would become accepted as the standard, there would no longer be a pragmatic or post-modern view toward leaders. Leaders, by definition, would have to be wise, visionary and trustworthy individuals with strong values that would move their organizations forward in a positive direction. No one would speak of Hitler and Stalin as leaders, but as anti-leaders; the contrary of good leadership capital. I dream of a world where strong leaders desire to make the world a better place - and I believe that the Ideal Leadership Model can help build that kind of leadership.