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Mindshifting: The Critical Thinking Leader

• First Online: 02 August 2018

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• James Laub 5  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment ((PSTWSP))

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How does a leader shift their underlying perceptions about leadership? How might someone transform their thinking from an autocratic or paternalistic view to a servant-minded view? The mindshifts considered will deal with the leader’s view of himself or herself, the leader’s view of the led, and the leader’s view of the true purpose of leadership. Models of critical thinking will be applied to the practical challenge of addressing and changing our mental models to leverage our servant leadership power. The Mindset Pathways Model is presented, providing a way to seek lasting leadership mindset change. Multiple mindsets are considered and contrasted in this model to provide direction for the critical thinking leader.

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Laub, J. (2018). Mindshifting: The Critical Thinking Leader. In: Leveraging the Power of Servant Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Workplace Spirituality and Fulfillment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77143-4_12

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Published : 02 August 2018

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The Relationship between Leadership Development and Critical Thinking Skills

2005, Journal of Leadership Education

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Daryl Watkins

ABSTRACTCritical thinking involves an important set of competencies, skills, and behaviors that can be systematically developed and cultivated. Critical thinking is fostered within the Master of Science in Leadership Program to help students achieve higher levels of thinking through the program and also to help them improve their leadership acumen. The paper describes critical thinking, provides background on the Paulian view of critical thinking used within the program, and presents the approach used to infuse critical thinking into the curriculum. The Master of Science in Leadership Program introduces critical thinking in the first required course and weaves critical thinking concepts and exercises throughout the entire program. Program administrators and course developers incorporated desired learning points into the curriculum through conceptual frameworks, active learning activities, targeted instructional techniques, and intellectual moves. Each of those components is part of ...

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The primary purpose of this correlational study was to explain the relationship between discipline specific critical thinking skills in agriculture and leadership and critical thinking dispositions of selected youth leaders in the National FFA Organization. Voluntary participants in the study included 212 youth leaders from 50 states. The researcherdeveloped critical thinking skills tests and critical thinking disposition inventory (EMI), which were distributed online and by conventional mailing procedures indicated positive, but low relationships between critical thinking skills and the innovativeness and engagement dispositions. Additionally, low, but negative relationships were found between critical thinking skills and the maturity critical thinking disposition. In the recommendations section, educators are asked to consider influencing critical thinking dispositions by exposing students to a wide range of cultures and experiences through field trips, service-learning activities...

"This study describes the development of a grounded theory of applied critical thinking in leadership studies and examines how student-centered experiential learning in leadership education bridged critical thinking with action. Over three semester undergraduate students in an upper level leadership studies course at a large four-year public institution in the southeastern United States completed a written assignment in which they were asked to define the concept of “leading critically.” A grounded theory of critical leadership – utilizing critical thinking skills to make decisions about leadership actions in different situations – emerged after completing a qualitative document analysis of these papers and incorporating the researchers’ existing knowledge of leadership and student development theory. The hope is that this research will create dialogue concerning new approaches to leadership education and encourage practices that apply critical thinking skills to leadership."

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• DOI: 10.12806/V10/I2/TF1
• Corpus ID: 146632570

Leading Critically: A Grounded Theory of Applied Critical Thinking in Leadership Studies

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• Education, Business
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A Short Guide to Building Your Team’s Critical Thinking Skills

• Matt Plummer

Critical thinking isn’t an innate skill. It can be learned.

Most employers lack an effective way to objectively assess critical thinking skills and most managers don’t know how to provide specific instruction to team members in need of becoming better thinkers. Instead, most managers employ a sink-or-swim approach, ultimately creating work-arounds to keep those who can’t figure out how to “swim” from making important decisions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To demystify what critical thinking is and how it is developed, the author’s team turned to three research-backed models: The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment, Pearson’s RED Critical Thinking Model, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Using these models, they developed the Critical Thinking Roadmap, a framework that breaks critical thinking down into four measurable phases: the ability to execute, synthesize, recommend, and generate.

With critical thinking ranking among the most in-demand skills for job candidates , you would think that educational institutions would prepare candidates well to be exceptional thinkers, and employers would be adept at developing such skills in existing employees. Unfortunately, both are largely untrue.

• Matt Plummer (@mtplummer) is the founder of Zarvana, which offers online programs and coaching services to help working professionals become more productive by developing time-saving habits. Before starting Zarvana, Matt spent six years at Bain & Company spin-out, The Bridgespan Group, a strategy and management consulting firm for nonprofits, foundations, and philanthropists.  

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Seven critical thinking tactics high-performing leaders use to make informed decisions.

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3x Best Selling Author, Executive Coach, Keynote Speaker, Podcast Host — focused on people, performance and potential  www.debrakasowski.com

Critical thinking is a skill that must be developed in leaders, particularly for leaders who might be lacking in this area. Critical thinking allows leaders at every level to evaluate their decision-making and how these decisions ultimately impact results.

What made a leader successful in the past is often not what will make them successful in the future. At each level, a leader must think like a leader at the next level above them to better understand the impact on the systems and people involved in their decisions. As leaders grow within the organization, they become more acutely aware of their priorities, available resources, and how they need to be accountable for their decisions. High performing leaders tend to be tactical in their approach.

Be open-minded and stay curious.  

High-performing leaders know they need to critically think through situations and draw on past experiences. However, do not let past experiences be the sole viewpoint from which you make decisions. Seasoned leaders know that the past is the past for a reason. You can pull valuable data and observations from what worked and what did not work in the past. 

Leaders ask questions. They know there has been progress in their company — new employees who bring their own diverse experiences, talent, skills and abilities into the workplace. New technology can also be incorporated to better manage processes and create new solutions. Success leaves clues. What information do you need to gather to be informed? What are you not seeing?

Be an observer and listen carefully.  

Whenever possible, a leader should walk amongst their people and see them in action. Connect with individual team members regularly as well as together. Observe their interactions and listen to their questions, concerns and challenges. Challenges provide valuable information about what can be improved. A deeper exploration of the situations employees bring to your attention can result in a big win for your company.

Reflect on learning.  

Exceptional leaders reflect on their experiences and interactions with others. With every new experience, take time to reflect and journal out what was successful, what needs to be improved and what was learned. You can accept feedback that serves you and see how best to integrate it into your practice. Do not be afraid to ask your peers, colleagues or clients for feedback.

As an emerging leader, you may feel pressured to keep implementing without reflecting on your results. With every action made, the two questions that should be asked are: Is the step I am taking aligned with getting the results I want? And did the action I took get the results expected? If not, why? The next step is revealed by answering these questions.

Assimilate new knowledge and experiences.  

As you are exposed to new knowledge and experiences, you need to analyze, evaluate and reason with how this new information can be applied and integrated into what you already know. Dig deeper in your research by collecting facts, figures and statistics to inform your decisions and actions. Every advanced level a leader steps into comes with its own challenges. You may find you now need to adapt or flex to a new situation. What got you here does not always get you there!

Start conversations with others to gain a different perspective.  

For a new leader, it can be affirming and validating to have people agree with their ideas and actions. It can also be limiting to their growth as a leader. Although the old adage suggests you surround yourself with like-minded people, you may want to consider surrounding yourself with people who think and act differently than you. 

When you share stories and engage in conversations with others who have different perspectives, you may discover ways to collaborate, create, or innovate. How do you know you are "right?" You can almost always find the rationale to support your viewpoint. However, your viewpoint may not offer the whole picture of a situation.  

Brainstorm solution-focused ideas.  

You may want to interview or ask others for input on their experience with a similar situation. Share a case study or a scenario. Allow others to contribute to breaking down complex concepts into more manageable pieces. Team members can share the approaches and open the discussion to discovering new ideas otherwise not thought of before. 

The question is not, "How can we approach this?” The questions that will ignite discussion are, "What can we do?" and "What is possible?"

Evaluate the opinions, judgments and decisions of others.  

Many people like to offer their opinions and judgments about what your decision should be in any given situation. When you hear them, you will discover people’s beliefs and fears. It is important to discern what is relevant and what is not. 

What is informing or influencing you? Be careful not to be swayed into pleasing others. No matter the decision, you will find people who support it and others who do not. It is valuable to gain insight and other perspectives. At the end of the day, you or your team will have to make an informed decision — one you all feel confident with.

A high-performing leader demonstrates strong critical-thinking skills and is decisive. They know when they need to be tactical in their approach, and do so with informed decision-making and accountability for results. In what ways can you develop your critical thinking and become more tactical to achieve the results you want?

Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?

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Critical Thinking in leadership: Is it necessary?

October 23, 2020 by Lauren Dunleavy

Critical thinking in leadership;Is it Necessary?

Is critical thinking an important component of leadership? One would think it is a useful tool to have in your thinking toolbox. So, what exactly is critical thinking? It was easy to find many similar definitions but; Critical thinking is defined as “ the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement” (Merriam-Webster, 2020). Critical thinking has been around for at least 2500 years. Mr. Socrates himself supposedly established a method of questioning that was able to shut down claims of knowledge back in the BC era that was very similar to critical thinking as we know it today(Paul et al., 1997). So what is critical thinking used for? It should be used for many things, but mainly we use critical thinking when we want to analyze options in making decisions(Paul et al., 1997). 

How and why is critical thinking applied in the workplace? Critical thinking in the workplace comes in many forms. We see critical thinking being used in teams to help effectively resolve problems. We even see critical thinking being used in the workplace to help teams figure out what issues exist, and then we see teams come up with possible answers for those issues. Why is critical thinking applied to research theories? Lets evaluate this question! 

One place where critical thinking has become a necessity is in leadership. Leadership is defined as a process where a person influences a group of people to achieve a set of common goals (Northouse, 2016). Leadership in theory has dated back to over 5000 years ago, where it was found to have been written in ancient Hieroglyphics (Paul et al. 1997). In ancient times, leadership was suggested that those who appeared powerful were to be followed. The need for critical thinking in leadership has always been around. A model was developed in 1925, called the watson-glaser critical thinking model which helps organizations identify factors in people that are important for critical thinking and judgement making, which explains why critical thinking needs to be a part of leadership approaches (Cox, 2011). 

Critical thinking is applied to leadership approaches because it’s important for leaders to have critical thinking skills, be able to understand logical relationships between ideas, recognize the importance and the relationship of an argument, as well as recognize mistakes in reasoning and then be able to make the right decisions (Sanscartier, 2013). 

There are many different leadership approaches to look at in applying critical thinking. Let’s evaluate critical thinking within the transformational approach of leadership. Transformational leadership theory suggests that it is a process that changes people(PSU WC L10 P2).  It is a leadership approach that is able to get leaders to motivate followers to do more than what is expected (PSU WC L10 P2). A leadership approach that enables a leader to generate and build an empire. It is part of the “new leadership paradigm” which focuses more attention on charisma and affect in leadership (Northouse, 2016). There is a lot of evidence that Transformational leadership focus is highly successful (Northouse, 2016). One factor affects another, in that a leader must appeal to the followers by appealing to their principals and higher cause (PSU WC L10 P4). Critical thinking is a larger component of the transformational theory because, in order to go through a process and be able to transform a person would need to make real, sometimes hard decisions. 

What if a person is not a good critical thinker? Can they still be a good leader? Having poor critical thinking skills can lead a person to make bad decisions, errors, repeated mistakes and even make bad assumptions. Weak critical thinking skills can cause a person to be unable to evaluate and prepare for situations (Sanscartier, 2013). So it looks like being a leader may require some critical thinking skills. So, are leaders that lack critical thinking skills doomed forever? WIll they be able to lead in a productive way? Apparently, there are still ways to develop and master critical thinking skills. 

So what does this all mean? Catherine Rezak from the International Institute of Directors and Managers suggests that leaders should take control of their critical thinking processes, evaluate them and then take action on them (Rezak,2020). So critical thinking skills could be learned, it just depends on a person’s discipline and drive to follow through with the learning process as well as adaptations to understanding it. Whether or not a person has critical thinking skills, the implications of the research suggest that critical thinking skills can be learned, or they can be innate and either way, they are useful in leadership. This is significant because although not everyone may have these skills, they still have an opportunity to learn them. 

       So what’s next? Being able to attain critical thinking skills means that possibly anyone could be a leader because the skills are transferable as long as the person is able to take control and use discipline to learn.  All of this information suggests that a less than good leader, who lacks critical thinking skills may make bad decisions, misjudge an issue, and ultimately fail the leader systems in place. One example of this is when I first started working in wraparound as a family support worker. WHen i first started I had no idea what I was doing. The job was really a fly by the seat of your pants kind of job, until you can learn the skill sets. There was a lot of critical thinking involved, when I was untrained. I had to be able to understand a full situation that I had never experienced before and know when and what skillset to use with the family member. When I used the wrong skill set, the team was unable to plan with a family, in turn creating turmoil. Being able to understand, evaluate and come to the correct decision is such an important part of leading a team. The good thing is that if we don’t know what we are doing, there is always an opportunity to learn! 

In conclusion, the evidence presented today suggests that leaders who have, or attain good critical thinking skills will be able to evaluate, judge, better understand and resolve issues more efficiently. We need more critical thinkers in this world! Using critical thinking within leadership approaches is an important component and probably should not be overlooked. A leader should have good critical thinking skills. 

Paul, R., Elder,L., Bartell, T. (March 1997). Critical Thinking: Research, findings and policy recommendations. Retrieved from: https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/a-brief-history-of-the-idea-of-critical-thinking/408 

Cox, K. (November 25, 2011). The evolution of leadership. A look at where leadership is heading. Retrieved from: https://cvdl.ben.edu/blog/the-evolution-of-leadership-a-look-at-where-leadership-is-heading/

Rezak, C. (April, 2020). Developing your Critical thinking skills. Retrieved from: https://www.marchfifteen.ca/leadership-the-importance-of-critical-thinking/#:~:text=A%20leader%20with%20critical%20thinking,reasoning%2C%20and%20make%20proper%20decisions .

https://www.iidmglobal.com/expert_talk/expert-talk-categories/leadership/leadership_skill/id45293.html#:~:text=Developed%20in%201925%2C%20the%20model,Inference

Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. 7th Edition. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.

Pennsylvania State University (2020). Leadership in work. Module 7: Power and influence Retrieved from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2075467/modules/items/30110461