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Virgil, I love your model! (Especially how entry-level Superman or Superwoman is able to "distinguish between short and tall buildings," while mid-level Superman or Superwoman can actually leap them in a single bound.)

I did have one question, though; in the model you note that at the "defined" or mid-level management level, entrepreneurial effort is not consistently successful. At higher levels, how successful should entrepreneurial effort be expected to be? It seems to be that at least some failures will always be a part of entrepreneurship--but a more mature leader would know how to handle those failures well, adapt, and learn from them. What do you think?

That is super-cool! I can definitely see how people working for/in an association could relate to those levels. And you could say one quality of a good manager (at whatever managerial level) would be to be able to help themselves, and the staff under them, move from one level to the next in a fluid way.

Thanks, Lisa and Maddie. My thinking around such a model is still very much in the formulative stage and, thus, I'm sure that I've omitted some important issues and perhaps been unclear about those that I have highlighted. So your comments and suggestions are really helpful.

Lisa, I think you are on the right track about entrepreneurial effort. The points I was focusing on were: 1) Entry level managers tend to be narrowly focused on task-specific specialties and may be expected to see and deal with problems. Their experience and vision may not prepare them (yet) to see and deal with opportunities. 2) It seems to take a certain level of experience (middile management level) before one begins to see and follow opportunities on an entrepreneurial basis; 3) With increased experience, one's view of opportunities, and what will (and will not) succeed, improves substantially.

Entrepreneurial endeavors entail risk and risk-management, so they are probably never 100% successful--no pain, no gain. Middle managers, seems to me, should be encouraged (expected) to be entrepreneurial, even though they may be expected to fail (perhaps as much as they succeed--just don't fail twice in the same area or endeavor). Mature leaders, however, should be much more successful, if for no other reason than they should have learned from their earlier (middile management) failures. But even mature leaders can and will fail, if they are taking risks. Does this make any sense? Could this be more clearly stated in the hypothetical table?

Virgil, your explanation makes a lot of sense to me--thank you. I think the table does make it fairly clear as well ... but perhaps in the optimized stage you could add something along the lines of "strong entrepreneurial effort & consistency, with prudent management of risks associated with both success and failure"? Does that do any justice to what you're trying to say?

Okay, I haven't looked at the document yet, but in response to Virgil's comment: I'm not sure that mature leaders will necessarily succeed more than middle managers. Maybe they just take different kinds of risks? If we fail less, maybe we're not pushing ourselves hard enough?

I promise to read the stuff and comment more.

Jamie, you need to study the hypothetical model. It is based on the perspective that there is a qualitative difference between early, mid-level and senior executive leaders, their capabilities and successes/failures--that's the point I am trying to make.

There is also, in my experience, a significant scope difference in the issues entrusted to early, mid-level and senior executive leaders.

I am not interested in a quantative comparison--who has the most or least of anything. The number of successes and failures achieved by leaders of all levels is really irrelevant, unless one is painting symbols on one's fuselage. It's the quality and scope of the successes and failures that I think matters most. YMMV.