Guy Pilens
Guy Pilens is an Australian author, systems thinker and experienced operational leader. He is the author of The Contribution Shift: Elevate Your Impact and Leadership Intelligence: The Missing Intelligence?, and creator of CMMO®, the Contribution Maturity Model for Organisations.
New book
Leadership Intelligence: The Missing Intelligence?
Leadership Intelligence builds on The Contribution Shift and asks the defining leadership question: how well do other people contribute because of your leadership?
The book introduces Leadership Intelligence — LI — as the ability to read what contribution a situation requires, shift how you contribute, and create the conditions in which other people can think, decide, grow and multiply impact.
It is the bridge from understanding people to multiplying contribution, extending Guy’s practical work from individual leadership behaviour into teams, systems, succession and organisational capability.
A framework shaped by real work
Guy did not set out to create another leadership theory. The ideas behind The Contribution Shift were formed through decades of practical work across engineering, healthcare technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, IT operations, service delivery, public-sector systems and volunteer organisations.
Across very different environments, the same patterns kept appearing: capable people becoming bottlenecks, leaders protecting teams too much, responsibility moving without authority, and processes that looked reliable while contribution remained fragile.
Guy turned those recurring patterns into practical language and tools that help people see not only who is doing the work, but whether judgement, trust, capability, authority and accountability are moving through the organisation with it.
Leadership is not measured only by what improves while you are present, but by what continues to work, grow and adapt after you step away.
From a book to a practical contribution ecosystem
The Contribution Shift asks a different question: not simply how a leader can perform better, but what becomes stronger because of their contribution. The book led to the Contribution Shift iPhone app, the practical resources on this website, and visual tools that show how contribution flows through an organisation.
That work includes CMMO®, the Contribution Maturity Model for Organisations, and the CMMO® Organisational Contribution Map. Together, they help organisations make hidden dependency, weak contribution relationships, implementation risk and the Critical Contribution Path visible before those weaknesses become failure.
The aim is practical: to help people, teams and organisations move from individual effort and heroic rescue towards shared judgement, stronger systems and contribution that continues when one person is no longer in the room.
Guy Pilens’ areas of work
Guy’s work connects leadership, organisational development, systems thinking and operational delivery. His central focus is contribution through others: how leaders build capability, reduce dependency, clarify authority, strengthen trust and leave the organisation more capable than they found it.
This thinking is expressed through the language of The Contribution Shift and Leadership Intelligence, the five maturity levels of CMMO®, the seven organisational contribution conditions, the Contribution Shift Mentor and the Organisational Contribution Map.
Recognition
Who’s Who interview
Guy has been interviewed for Who’s Who, providing an opportunity to reflect on more than 40 years of introducing, adapting and embedding leading-edge technologies across engineering, healthcare technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, IT operations and public-sector environments. The interview also explores the experiences and practical work behind his books, CMMO® and the wider Contribution Shift ecosystem, together with his volunteering and philanthropic work supporting food security and raising awareness of endangered species.