The Leadership Roadmap is a feature within the Sounding Board dashboard where users outline and track their leadership development objectives and document their progress towards those goals. These goals drive the focus of the developmental journey.
This feature was created with three main objectives:
- It serves as a framework for monitoring the growth and development of leaders through guidance and support, whether through coaching, mentoring, or similar interactions. The Leadership Roadmap acts as a central tool for capturing the work done within and outside these engagement interactions.
- It aims to increase visibility into the leadership development occurring through these interactions, particularly as they are sponsored by the company. This helps manage perceptions surrounding the individual's growth and development.
- It provides a platform to demonstrate the tangible impact leaders make within the company as a result of their development efforts. Through self-reporting of results, individuals can showcase the outcomes stemming from changes in mindset and behavior.
The framework of the Leadership Roadmap is grounded in several widely accepted adult learning theories and models that honor different styles of adult learning. While not exhaustive, below is a list of some of the influencing theories and research.
- Bloom's Taxonomy asserts that there are typical cognitive processes by which adults encounter and work with new knowledge. These processes build off of each other: Remember > Understand > Apply > Analyze > Evaluate > Create.
- Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory asserts that some people learn best by starting with active experimentation or a concrete experience (e.g., Actions > Results > Insights) while others learn best through reflective observation or abstract conceptualization (e.g., Insights > Actions > Results). Our leadership roadmap is flexible to all of these starting points to the learning cycle.
- Learning theory supports that development can occur even with a focus on one or two development areas. Coaches and/or mentors work with coachees to identify and create an average of 2-4 goals within their roadmap.
- Neuroplasticity research asserts that adults can learn to think in ways that change their capacity to feel, think, and act. Therefore, shifts in mindset (i.e., Insights) can lead to shifts in behavior (i.e., Actions). Our leadership roadmap is designed to capture both changes in thinking and behavior and the results achieved through both.
- Mindfulness research asserts that when we become more mindful of our own mental processes, we increase the possibility of choosing new behavior. Self-awareness is what enables adults to recognize they want to change. It might take a few sessions to create meaningful goals within the leadership roadmap because leaders need first to gain self-awareness before they can move into self-improvement.
- Science of Happiness research supports that documenting “wins” and “successes” (i.e., Insights, actions, and results) increases work satisfaction, hence why we work to document progress within the leadership roadmap throughout the engagement.