However, individuals often find it difficult to change the mental model that their job title elicits, both in others and in themselves. "I'm a high school principal...I'm an elementary principal...I'm a middle school teacher..." Most of us find comfort living within the boundaries and expectations that these job titles create. A good first step in developing systems thinkers is to have your leadership team take the Change Style Indicator (CSI) assessment published by Discovery Learning Press. This psychometric tool is designed to measure each person's preferred style in approaching change and dealing with its ramifications. The test places people on a change style continuum ranging from "conservers" who prefer to keep the current structure running smoothly, to "pragmatists" who prefer balanced inquiry, to "originators" who prefer to challenge accepted structures. The CSI has no right and wrong answers, and no style is better or worse than another. Instead, it helps each person uncover his or her preferred change style. This awareness can equip the team to work more effectively as they attempt to develop into systems thinkers.

However, changing mental models from the relatively safe silos of individual job descriptions to the unknown demands of system-wide thinking is extremely complex, so how does a leadership team move from theory into practice?

"For systems thinking to have its intended affect, it can't be for a small group of specialists; it must be made practically accessible to a large group of new and emerging leaders. We need powerful concepts of change but the power will be realized only if the concepts can be rendered understandable by typical intelligent leaders. . .for every abstract concept, we need to be able to point to a corresponding concrete policy or strategy that is intended to advance the concept in practice..." (Leadership Sustainability, p 43).