Leadership Perspectives

Jennifer Miller

There are multiple ways and means to create a talented, ethical, and committed workforce. New and known tactics exist, including metacognition and meta-leadership, to attract and build tomorrow’s leaders, improve recruiting and hiring efforts, share knowledge, and manage performance.

One other powerful way to attract and build tomorrow’s leaders, improve recruiting and hiring efforts, share knowledge, and manage performance is through perspectives from pupils, peers, or professionals. These two ways to develop individuals on their professional journeys are even better when combined with technological advances.

First, there is metacognition or what I call “Meta-cognition, I think;” introduced as a concept by John Flavell in the 1970s–1980s, more specifically his 1979 work “Metacognition and Cognitive Monitoring: A New Area of Cognitive-developmental Inquiry.” Dictionary.com defines metacognition as “higher-order thinking that enables understanding, analysis, and control of one’s cognitive processes, especially when engaged in learning.” Hence the society-quip and simpler definitions that metacognition is “thinking about thinking” or “knowing about knowing.”

In practice, I like to think metacognition is something like the fishbone diagram technique where a person continues to ask questions for the sake of gaining multiple perspectives and richer, deeper thoughts about thinking rather than finding a root cause to a problem. Of course, reaching a root cause of a problem can be helpful, too, depending on the purpose of a person’s thinking about thinking. For a brief example, let us say a person answers a riddle with the first response that comes to mind. Regardless of whether the response is correct, let alone plausible, an answer was provided and can be thought about, reviewed, analyzed, and inspected. This is metacognition at work. Thoughts might include: What caused the person to answer? How fast was the answer provided? How did the person arrive at this answer? What experiences, knowledge, skills, and abilities influenced the response content? Would the person come up with the same answer under different conditions? Were other responses similar or different? The thoughts keep going, too! Now that you are thinking about thinking, let us look to another idea.

Related to metacognition is meta-leadership, also acknowledged as a means to overcome silo thinking. I call this “Meta-leadership, I do.” According to Marcus, Dorn, and Henderson, in “Meta-leadership and National Emergency Preparedness: A Model to Build Government Connectivity” meta-leadership is “overarching leadership that intentionally connects the purposes and work of different organizations or organizational units.” If visualized, meta-leaders are those charismatic, wildly effective individuals traversing organizational lines to garner individual and collective success.

Chances are you have seen a meta-leader in person, on television, or from a secondary source touting how influential a leader was that the source knew during their career. In my career, meta-leaders have typically exuded humble confidence, positive influence, slow-to-anger style, and nourished network linkages from every experience the leader can call upon at a moment’s notice.

The meta-leader has a difficult-to-describe quality that quickly earns respect and trust whether due to known expertise or acquired acumen. Finally, meta-leaders leave an impression, a lasting mark on their pupils, peers, and other professionals. I mentioned that metacognition and meta-leadership are related because of the observation that meta-leaders seem to have a perspective beyond face-value impressions and simple thought. Instead, meta-leaders peel the layers of the onion back to defy operational, strategic, and tactical silos. Meta-leaders can actively think about thinking and build connections, fulfill purposes, and overcome obstacles. To me, metacognition and meta-leadership are all about transitional perspectives.

On this previously shared mention of pupils, peers, and professionals, I offer how maintaining perspective during individual development garners benefits along professional journeys. It is worth noting that each perspective can easily overlap another simultaneously. And no, this is not a midlife crisis jab. Instead, it is a theory of how individuals develop from a vision of being a leader to being that leader. As each of us contributes to our constituents, regardless of the career field, we are pupils, peers, and professionals actively engaging and occupying each role. Striking a respectable balance of breadth and depth through our professional development may be as taxing as an attempt to be in two places simultaneously, but possible.

The growth process begins with a majority of our time spent in a “pupil” status, like that of an intern, building each other as peers and eventually achieving the esteemed “professional” status. I liken this progression to being among the most junior in an organization and then reaching some levels of management before attaining a lauded leadership role.

There is a saying about the importance of knowing where you’re going and where you came from so you know when you’ve reached the destination. This is how career progression is navigated. With that in mind, “pupil” is one perspective and frame of mind most are familiar with from firsthand experience. I firmly believe in achieving professional depth and breadth by several linked career objectives serving as a catalyst from one to the next. As a financial management intern with the U.S. Air Force (USAF), I ventured into a fascinating and beneficial career with the federal government. Because of my positive experiences, I have remained involved with the intern program since my 2012 graduation.

... meta-leaders seem to have a perspective beyond face-value impressions and simple thought. Instead, meta-leaders peel the layers of the onion back to defy operational, strategic, and tactical silos.

In addition to internship, there are educational and training environments. Each day I actively build upon a growing history of professional military education (PME), on-the-job training (OJT), and other development (created or discovered) endeavors. I am a bit of a self-proclaimed nerd, better phrased as “education advocate,” so it was a wonderful irony to intern with the USAF’s Air Education and Training Command, let alone being stationed at an Air Force base nicknamed “the college of colleges.”

Interning at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, the home of Air University, permitted me a range of “cherries” to add to the abundance of flavors and varieties of “development ice cream.” Whether in a formal academic setting or as an intern, I wore my “pupil” hat to arrive at a slogan I apply generously: “Any declination of an opportunity to learn is an example of stupidity.” From another point of view, “Why would anyone decline an opportunity to learn?!” While we should never completely abandon any of the phases of our journeys, it is important to remain aware and take advantage of all options to expand knowledge and development before moving forward. At the time of transition, a pupil increasingly will occupy a role of peer and professional.

As a “peer,” one starts to peer over the horizon in some ways. During the transition of deemphasizing a “pupil” status and increasing the “peer” and “professional” statuses, individuals seem to progress by building networks across the globe, conducting groundbreaking research, exploring professional publication, and professionally practicing as a contributing, informal educator and mentor within the field.

As an example of the “peer” status, consider a handful of brilliant individuals early in their technology-based careers like Michael Dell, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs. It is likely that a developing person will take on previously unthinkable challenges accompanied by a step outside of their comfort zone like a taste of the private sector, higher education, supervisory positions, or career broadening in a field vastly different from the familiar. The latter two challenges are often encouraged for federal interns because of the seemingly required experience leaders possess and the structure inherent with most career-broadening assignments. Both offer opportunities to develop, expand knowledge, and gain hands-on experience, though much more is obtained in hindsight.

At present, I am interested in a range of opportunities best suited for peers and professionals, including Civilian Expeditionary Workforce experiences (i.e., deploying overseas as a civilian) and venturing to positions outside of my general schedule Financial Administration and Program Series. Personal and professional lives meld, giving way to opportunities for future leaders to be informal and formal educators, advanced professionals, and developers with a cohort of global peers. In any endeavor, individuals’ peer and professional choices seem based on the best interests of breadth and depth to become the best leader possible for pupils. So what’s next, now?

Thus far we have discovered how to be in two places and fulfill two roles simultaneously as the earlier mentioned examples balanced the progress of “pupil” and “peer.” Let us now journey to the career’s ultimate promised land for many. The emphasis shifts toward the status of “peer-professional.”

As stated before, we should never become too haughty and thereby abandon one status or another since life is an experimental journey of absorbing, retaining, practicing, and sharing. Each is an activity engaged in regardless of the status one claims predominantly to occupy.

The famous John Kotter observed, especially in his book, Leading Change, that for many leaders, the idea is to “outgrow” the competition through lifelong learning and have the drive to do so. The pinnacle of a career, where we are most prepared and knowledgeable, is the time to fulfill what I view as a joyous obligation to return the priceless gifts we have received. As individuals develop through nurture and nature, it is time to shift a large percentage of our efforts toward developing those we lead. This may be accomplished by mentorship, creating opportunities, formal instruction, or avenues utilized by students like those mentioned earlier.

If you are not inspired to give back once you attain the status associated with a “professional,” I offer my own experience. During college, as a pupil and peer, I gained an abundance of knowledge from some of the most admirable individuals I have met in life. My respect for my educational leaders and what each offered every day has proved to be perpetual. Though I now work in a different career field, I am still amazed when I reflect on my first experience with a college-level instructor. This instructor’s lecturing abilities, humble mentality, and inspiring approach effortlessly commanded the room of rambunctious dual-enrolled high-school and college students. What most exuded from this instructor was a passionate interest in the field of study. The instructor did not want students to stop at knowing enough to pass tests; the goal was to build a lasting thirst for knowing and learning about the world in relation to the future population’s power to modify it. I cannot speak for all of my classmates, but I do speak for myself and those I remain in contact with when I say that this instructor excelled, and many of the instructor’s traits are characteristic of the world’s best and brightest leaders: meta-leaders.

As many agree, there are multiple ways and means to improve skills and mentor leaders. I have shared just a few ways: metacognition and traversing perspectives— whether one is a pupil, peer, or professional. These two ways to develop in our professional journeys are emerging trends that offer great benefits. Each of us is capable of occupying the statuses separately or in combination through our developmental efforts of absorbing, retaining, practicing, and sharing. Our only limitation to embodying more than one status is the mindset we adopt while balancing the goal of achieving breadth and depth as we dabble among the trio on our journey. Through metacognition and different perspectives, meta-leaders develop.

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