Mental Models and Transformative Learning: The Key to Leadership Development?

What separates successful leaders from unsuccessful ones is their mental models or meaning structures, not their knowledge, information, training, or experience per se. Thus the development of leaders should focus on acquisition of new mental models, models that offer more valid and useful ways for effectively dealing with the complex challenges of leadership. This article describes a process, based on transformative learning, that seems to be the key to assisting leaders in acquiring more useful mental models and in turn becoming more effective leaders.