(> LEADERSHIP): The World Bank Institute’s Leadership for Development Program

A Focus on the How

Despite decades of technical and financial assistance, moving development programs forward remains a major challenge for many countries. The bulk of development work has focused on finding technical solutions to problems, starting with diagnoses of what’s wrong, to recommendations of good practice, to assistance toward transplanting those good practices. Uneven results arising from this approach suggest that addressing development problems includes, but goes beyond, technical solutions.

In addition to technical expertise, successful development programs require getting various individuals, groups, and organizations to work collaboratively toward achieving a complex set of objectives. This process requires acceptance of new ways of doing things. Simply put, this is about the How of reforms, ranging from project-level initiatives to large-scale policy change.

Greater than Leadership

The World Bank Institute (WBI) has launched a collaborative leadership program— (>LEADERSHIP) or (>L)— designed to help change agents confront the challenge of the How. (>L) defines leadership as a process through which reform teams seek to comprehend and influence behaviors, mindsets, and values of various stakeholders. These actors become catalysts for change by creating and sustaining coalitions often critical for moving development programs forward.

(>L) is problem-focused and team based. Each delivery is anchored in a specific focal area, for example, water sector reform. Participants come as members of a country team, with a total of four to six teams per delivery. Each team must agree on a specific problem it plans to tackle within the focal area.

Delivered during the course of a year, the program offers a blend of structured and action learning organized around four pillars:

• a preparatory phase for teams to agree on the precise nature of the problem they will tackle, ensuring that every member is on the same page;
• a five-and-a- half-day intensive leadership skills structured learning course;
• an eleven-month results laboratory phase for teams to apply their new skills through a learning-by-doing process, with WBI providing ongoing assistance through a Help Desk and a set of expert networks that can  provide field-based coaching and support;
• a customized e-learning/knowledge exchange series for teams to learn the technical aspects underpinning development programs, with sessions before and/or after the structured learning course. 

(>L) helps teams make the unpredictable and treacherous journey toward the success and sustainability of development programs through five highly integrated modules:

• Mapping the landscape: By using Coalition Building Diagnostics, participants identify and understand fundamental constraints to coalition building. Participants are also introduced to a hands-on stakeholder mapping tool to evaluate the political landscape they will need to travel.
• Charting the unknown: Through experiential learning, Adaptive Leadership teaches participants to recognize the drive toward development results as a combination of technical and adaptive challenges. Participants are introduced to concepts and tactics useful for unpacking and tackling adaptive challenges, charting unfamiliar paths to transforming behaviors, mindsets, and values.
• Building an all-terrain vehicle: Based on a set of practical management tools and processes, The Rapid Results Approach (RRA) cultivates collaborative teams and helps them discover innovative solutions. RRA anchors the results laboratory phase of the program and serves as an onboarding vehicle, using shorter-term results to encourage others to join the journey toward ultimate program success.
• Navigating a shifting environment: Through sophisticated use of persuasion, participation, and negotiation techniques, Strategic Communication helps teams build political and public support through opinion, attitude, and behavior change. Ongoing dialogue with stakeholders enables teams to continually know where they are, who else they need to bring along, and what alternative paths exist or need to be created.
• Keeping faith throughout the journey: Through Self Mastery, participants enhance their ability to maintain focus and determination in the face of unpredictable challenges they will encounter on the path to change.