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John Adair - Action Centered Leadership

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John Adair - Action Centered Leadership

About John Adair 
John Adair, born 1934, developed his Action Centred Leadership model while lecturing at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy and as assistant director and head of leadership department at The Industrial Society.

This would have been during the 1960's and 70's, so in terms of management theories, Adair's works is relatively recent. His work certainly encompasses and endorses much of the previous thinking on human needs and motivation by Maslow, Herzberg and Fayol, and his theory adds an elegant and simple additional organisational dimension to these earlier works.

Very importantly, Adair was probably the first to demonstrate that leadership is a trainable, transferable skill, rather than it being an exclusively inborn ability.

He helped change the perception of management to encompass leadership, to include associated abilities of decision-making, communication and time-management. As well as developing the Action Centred Leadership model, Adair wrote over 40 books on management and leadership, including:
Effective Leadership
Not Bosses but Leaders, and
Great Leaders.

Adair is now a management consultant and also has his own publishing company in Surrey, England. He also maintains links with the University of Surrey, where he was the first UK chair of leadership studies, 1979-83.

Adair used the original word meanings to emphasise this:
Leadership is an ancient ability about deciding direction, from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning the road or path ahead; knowing the next step and then taking others with you to it.
Managing is a later concept, from Latin 'manus', meaning hand, and more associated with handling a system or machine of some kind.

The original concept of managing began in the 19th century when engineers and accountants started to become entrepreneurs. There are valuable elements of management not necessarily found in leadership, eg administration and managing resources.
Leadership on the other hand contains elements not necessarily found in management, eg, inspiring others through the leaders own enthusiasm and commitment.

The Action Centred Leadership model is Adair's best known work, in which the three elements - Achieving the Task
Developing the Team and
Developing Individuals - are mutually dependent, as well as being separately essential to the overall leadership role.

Importantly as well, Adair set out these core functions of leadership and says they are vital to the Action Centered Leadership model:
Planning - seeking information, defining tasks, setting aims Initiating - briefing, task allocation, setting standards
Controlling - maintaining standards, ensuring progress, ongoing decision-making
Supporting - individuals' contributions, encouraging, team spirit, reconciling, morale Informing - clarifying tasks and plans, updating, receiving feedback and interpreting
Evaluating - feasibility of ideas, performance, enabling self assessment

The Action Centred Leadership model therefore does not stand alone, it must be part of an integrated approach to managing and leading, and also which should include a strong emphasis on applying these principles through training.

Adair also promotes a '50:50 rule' which he applies to various situations involving two possible influencers, eg the view that 50% of motivation lies with the individual and 50% comes from external factors, among them leadership from another.

This contradicts most of the motivation gurus who assert that most motivation is from within the individual. He also suggests that 50% of team building success comes from the team and 50% from the leader.

John Adair is an example of how change management becomes more sophisticated over time, and in response to the development of previous management thinking. Adair's work is far more accessible and relevant than much of the traditional previous gurus' thinking - it's holistic as well - you can see how it works easily in a multi-dimensional way, and above all believe it gets right to the heart of the leadership role, which explains very clearly why some succeed and others do not.

Specific Activities to support John Adair's work:
Strength Deployment Inventory
Change Management Workshop
Leadership Workshop
The Krypton Maze
All For One
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