Spot your default action logic under pressure
Notice how you reliably respond when your authority or safety at work is challenged, and compare it with the seven descriptions.
Warum es wirkt
Rooke and Torbert define an action logic by how a leader interprets surroundings and reacts when power or safety is challenged, because that is when a person falls back on their most practiced frame. Ordinary days let people borrow behaviors from many frames; pressure strips the borrowing away. Reviewing several real challenge moments against the seven descriptions turns an abstract map into evidence about your own habits.
So gehst du vor
- List three recent moments at work when your judgment, authority, or standing was questioned.
- For each, write what you did in the first ten minutes, not what you meant to do.
- Compare those actions with the seven characteristics: winning any way possible (Opportunist), smoothing conflict to belong (Diplomat), defending the logically correct answer (Expert), driving to the agreed goal (Achiever), weighing competing logics (Individualist), inviting mutual inquiry into the frame itself (Strategist), or acting from awareness of the whole moment (Alchemist).
- Note which description fits most of your first moves. Treat it as a working hypothesis, not a result.
Evidenz
The definition of an action logic as how leaders interpret their surroundings and react when power or safety is challenged comes from Rooke and Torbert’s 2005 HBR article. The one-line characteristics used here are from the table Starr and Torbert (2005) adapted from that article with permission. Self-review against descriptions is a reflective exercise, not a validated measure. (anecdotal)
People tend to recognize themselves in the more flattering descriptions, and behavior under pressure also reflects role, culture, and fatigue. This exercise generates a hypothesis; it does not place you.
Quellen
- Rooke, D., & Torbert, W. R. (2005). Seven Transformations of Leadership. Harvard Business Review, April 2005.
- Starr, A., & Torbert, B. (2005). Timely and Transforming Leadership Inquiry and Action: Toward Triple-loop Awareness. Integral Review, 1, 85–97.
Häufiger Fehler
Reviewing your best moments instead of your typical ones. The calm, curious way you handled one hard meeting tells you what you can do, not what you usually do.
Übe das mit IX Coach
Weitere Übungen für Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
- Get a scored profile instead of self-typing
If you want an estimate of your action logic, take a sentence-completion profile scored by trained raters — and write down your own guess first.
- Review a decision through three loops of feedback
After a decision plays out, ask in turn whether the action was right, whether the strategy was right, and what your attention was doing.
- Ask colleagues for feedback on your frame, not just your results
Invite people you work with to tell you how you tend to see situations, not only how well you performed.
- Try out the next action logic in a real, lower-stakes role
Take on a real responsibility that demands the next logic’s moves, with regular reflection alongside it.
- Use all four parts of speech in hard conversations
In a difficult conversation, check that you are framing, advocating, illustrating and inquiring — not just advocating.
- Match an organizational change to the action logics leading it
Before leading a deep organizational change, look honestly at whether the people leading it can question their own frame — and bring in someone who can.
- Name each action logic’s strength before its limit
When you see a colleague’s action logic, start with what it does well, so the map informs collaboration instead of ranking people.
Verwandte Konzepte
- Kegans Subjekt-Objekt-Theorie, praktisch erklärt
Vom Beherrschtwerden durch die eigenen Annahmen zur Fähigkeit, sie zu untersuchen
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Adaptive Führung, praktisch gemacht
Adaptive Herausforderungen von technischen Problemen unterscheiden — und entsprechend führen
- Spiral Dynamics, praktisch angewendet
Verstehen, wie sich Wertesysteme entwickeln, und wie man zwischen ihnen navigiert