John Adair is the Chair of Strategic Leadership for the United Nations and one of Britain's foremost authorities on leadership and leadership development in organizations. In this post, you'll learn about one of his most important contributions to the understanding of leadership.

Before Adair, and arguably still today, people associate leadership with the so called 'Great Man Theory.'  In other words, we see leadership as one charismatic individual who uses his or her personal power and rhetoric to mobilize the company.  Even Adair admits that this mentality needs to change.   

Adair approaches leadership from a more practical and simple angle; by describing what leaders have to do and the actions they need to take.  This is a warm welcome to many MBA graduates who seek to be a high achiever and are looking for a path to greater career success.  Knowing what to do and how to act is one of their largest hurdles. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), about 156,250 MBA degrees are granted each year in the US. MBA students represent about 25% of all Master’s graduates.  That’s a lot of potential leaders heading into the corporate world every year.  But many graduates have little leadership experience and are cast into organizations that hold the perception that MBAs are created to lead.

Where should MBAs graduates begin?  “It is absolutely essential that MBAs take on board the relatively recently discovered generic role of a business (using that term in the widest sense) leader. For that centres on the three circles of task, team and individual. So it forms the basis of effective leadership at all three levels: team, operational and strategic,” says Adair.

These circles are part of Adair’s Action-Centered Leadership Model.  Each circle overlaps and influences the other. A good leader recognizes that a healthy interaction between the team, the task and the individual is vital. So for example, if you’re leading a project, then you, as the leader, would need to think about:

            Task:  what are the goals, what are the resources needed, what are the timelines, etc.

Team:  how will the tasks be divided amongst the team, how often will they meet, how will they interact with stakeholders, how will they measure success etc.

Individual:  are the team members working to their strengths? Are they learning from each experience? Are they being listened to on the team? etc.

Basically if one person is to run a group of others, then the size of the group will be determined in the first place by the task requirements of the job. This is the first area of need that a leader must to look at, i.e. task needs. They also have to try to use the expertise and talents of their subordinates and more importantly, coordinate one person with another and create an effective working group or team.  Success is achieved by balancing all three circles.

                                           

We can see through our own experience in everyday life, how these three areas interact with each other and how sometimes one area can be ignored, resulting in disruption in the other two.  In organizations, such disruptions invoke a leader mindset failure that if ignored for a length of time can easily derail your personal success. 

As an MBA graduate, you’re expected to be a good leader.  If you remain focused on Adair’s three circles, you can prove your worth at almost any level of the organization.

If the three circles aren’t providing you enough clarity for proper execution, you may want to take a step back and engage in introspection.  Adair has provided many great resources to aid in creating more success.  Among these are his ‘100 Greatest Ideas’ series which includes ‘100 Greatest Ideas for Being a Brilliant Manager’  and ‘100 Greatest Ideas for Effective Leadership’. 

We would like to thank Dr. John Adair for taking the time to share his expertise with us.  You can learn more about his work at http://www.adair-international.com and http://www.johnadair.co.uk. 

Please stay tuned for more of his expertise in our upcoming ebook series for MBA potentials, students and graduates.

Action Centred Leadership and the Three Circles (words and image) are trademarks™ used by John Adair and Adair International Ltd.  ACL is a registered trademark®  of John Adair.