It seems that Peter was not just unhappy—neither was he terribly competent in leading a growing and geographically extended enterprise. From the very start, Peter Armentrout had been a dreamer. This was probably a carryover from his days as a college professor. Ideas and visions drew his attention—not the daily reality of running a business. He enjoyed viewing Mt. Shasta on the way to his Oregon nursery much more than he enjoyed actually working with the staff of his Oregon operation. Faced with the gentle urging of Sarah, Peter did hire an Operations person to complement his lack of grounding in reality.
However, Peter was a bit of a control-freak. He probably was turned off by committee meetings at his college and was attracted to sole ownership of a new business in large part because he could run the business himself, while he could not run the committee (or the college). The strong need for control surprised Sarah – and even Peter himself. The combination of vision and control proved to be a bit toxic. His newly hired Operations manager left after six months. Peter was finding it difficult to recruit a new operations person—especially after he decided to be honest and tell those who applied for the job about his need for considerable control.
Having worked with an executive coach in her corporate position, Sarah suggested that Peter find his own executive coach to assist him in addressing the challenges and preparing for succession and leaving a legacy. There is an executive coach with whom Sarah worked. This gifted coach (Catherine Townsend) has also been doing quite a bit of training in the field of leadership development. She provides a program called Legacy Leadership and guides her own executive coaching around the five basic Practices and Principles that serve as the foundation for Legacy Leadership. Catherine Townsend is engaged by Peter Armentrout and invites him into her Legacy-based Ark of Leadership and Coaching.”
Section One: Competencies and Chaos on the Ark
Chapter One
The Ark of Leadership We Must Build: Five Leadership Competencies
“Leadership can be complex—especially as we consider how 21st Century organizations must be led effectively. Together with her colleague, Dr. Lee Smith, one of us [Dr. Jeannine Sandstrom] has simplified and distinguished five core competency platforms and associated critical success skills for successful leadership.”
Chapter Two
On Board the Ark: The Chaos We Are Facing
“As leaders, we often face the “perfect storm” of organizational challenge and anxiety. Perhaps the easiest way to sum up the multiple sources of challenge and anxiety is to evoke the now commonly used acronym: VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). To this we add conditions of turbulence and contradiction (VUCA-Plus). The challenges in a VUCA-Plus environment involve both determining what is “real” and how one predicts and makes decisions based on an assessment of this elusive reality.”
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