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Mental Complexity

By Randy Ziegenfuss

I have been working my way through Kegan and Lahey’s Immunity to Change and think it is an important construct for us school leaders to wrap our collective heads around.

Plateaus of Mental Complexity (Kegan and Lahey, 2009. Immunity to Change. p.16.)

Plateaus of Mental ComplexityMental complexity can change over the course of the lifespan and generally gets more complex.

  • Socialized Mind – How do I get on the bus? What is everyone else doing? OK…I’ll do that.
  • Self-Authoring Mind – How do I get on the bus, and in the driver’s seat? It’s my map, and I’m going to get us there. I’m tied to my frame of reference.
  • Self-Transforming Mind – How do I get in the driver’s seat, but remain open to the possibilities of a changing map? I’m not tied to my frame of reference. I can step back and see other possibilities.

The reality today: “…we are asking more and more workers who could once perform their work successfully with socialized minds – good soldiers – to shift to self-authoring minds. And we are asking more and more leaders who could once lead successfully with self-authoring minds – sure and certain captains – to develop self-transforming minds. In short, we are asking for a quantum shift in individual mental complexity across the board” (Keegan & Lahey, 2009, p. 27)

As a leader, locate yourself in this paradigm. Where are you? What evidence leads you to believe this? What are your stories? Do we see the construct of mental complexity relevant to others you see work in leadership roles? What is the evidence? What are your stories? Do the leaders we label as “effective” – leaders bringing about a more progressive model of learning and challenging the status quo in their work context – tend to be self-transforming? What is the evidence? Did we have, or even need, self-transforming leaders, say, 30 years ago? Can school leaders today be effective with only a self-authoring mindset? How could this model make a difference in your leadership?

So how to we reach our goal of the self-transforming mindset? If we had more of these kinds of leaders in educational positions, would our system change? How?

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Randy Ziegenfuss
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Randy Ziegenfuss
I've retired from public education after 34 years, most recently as Superintendent. In addition to blogging at WorkingAtTheEdge.org, I co-host two podcasts at TLTalkRadio.org and ShiftYourParadigm.org. Learn more at https://workingattheedge.org/about/.
Randy Ziegenfuss
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About Working At The Edge:

My name is Randy Ziegenfuss, and I'm a retired public school superintendent and a life-long educator with over 34 years experience developing a passion for teaching, learning, leadership and technology. <read more...>

I first came across the phrase working at the edge while learning about the work of Marzano, et al. School Leadership That Works: From Research to Results. In this work, the researchers define 21 responsibilities of the school leader, one being change agent. A change agent is defined as one who is, "...willing to challenge school practices that have been in place for a long time and promoting the value of working at the edge of one's competence."

Randy Ziegenfuss, Ed.D.

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