Avoiding Accidental Leadership
A Competence-Based Approach to Conscious Leadership
Many leadership failures are not caused by poor intent, lack of effort, or insufficient knowledge. They emerge when responsibility grows faster than a leader’s internal capacity to manage complexity.
In Avoiding Accidental Leadership, John Climpson explores how leaders often drift into positions of influence without deliberate development—and why traditional leadership models frequently fail to address the real challenges leaders face.
Drawing on academic research and extensive leadership coaching practice, this book introduces the CONSCIOUS Leadership Competence System, a research-informed framework built around four interdependent capacities:
- Cognitive Competence — how leaders think and make sense of complexity
- Emotional Competence — how leaders experience and regulate themselves
- Social Competence — how leaders relate to others and the wider system
- Meta Competence — how leaders reflect, learn, and evolve over time
Rather than prescribing behaviours or styles, the book reframes leadership development as an internal, developmental process—one that supports leaders in becoming more conscious, adaptable, and effective as contexts change.
