Tag Archives: developing leadership intelligence

Adjusting and adapting

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In my recent newsletter I wrote about what it takes to thrive in hard times and today’s posting touches on the essential quality (which we can all develop and increase) of flexibility:

One of the most significant differences between those who are thriving in the current economic downturn and those who are not lies in their willingness to adapt. Carl is clear about his goals and, at the same time, highly flexible in the means by which he achieves them. Because he is so clear about what outcomes he wants to achieve, he is constantly adapting his approach to secure progress in each new circumstance.

For Carl, and others like him, the aim is to keep trying new things until he succeeds. He is happy to see what does and doesn’t work. In this way, there is no such thing as failure. When something doesn’t move him towards his goals he knows, simply, that it’s time to adjust his approach.

Carl’s commitment to his goals, coupled with his belief that he will find ways to reach them and his willingness to adjust, combine to create a sense of lightness and play. After all, if success is only a matter of time and if there are many ways to achieve success, why would he feel gloomy?

Today, rather than offer a step-by-step process to support you in increasing your adaptability, I offer a mixed offering of things you might like to consider along the way:

  • Know the difference between the means and the end: Many people confuse the end goal or underlying need with the means by which they hope to secure the end goal. The buyer of a high-status car may be unaware of how his or her purchase meets a need for self esteem for example. Or the man or woman who wants to have an intimate relationship may get stuck when things go wrong in relationship with his or her “one and only”. Unearthing your underlying need means going beyond any strategy that is specific to time, place or person. If you want to understand your end goal ask yourself “what would that do for me?” when you think you want something – and keep asking;
  • Take one step at a time: You may want to have the whole route planned out ahead of time. At the same time, some of life’s highest achievers start out with a goal and then take just one step at a time. They focus on the end goal, notice where they are starting from and ask themselves: “what’s the next step?” This is far easier than focussing on the big gap between the goal and the starting place and lifts the spirit considerably;
  • Select beliefs that support you: Perhaps the most helpful belief, one of the presuppositions of neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) is “there’s no failure, only feedback”. When we adopt this belief, we often find it easier to experiment and to try things out, knowing that whatever the outcome, we’ve made a step forward. If our action doesn’t work, we know more about how (or how not) to make progress. Another helpful belief is “you can’t change the others, you can only change yourself”. This can help you to avoid the inflexibility that comes from looking to others to make changes they are unlikely to make. Paying attention to your beliefs can help you select presuppositions that support a flexible approach;
  • Take a break: It can be easy to get stuck in a single track of thinking, especially when the going is hard. This can lead to frustration – the belief, for example, that the only way to achieve a goal relies on something or someone who’s not co-operating. Taking a break – a walk, for example, or a conversation with someone about something quite different – can loosen up single track thinking and open up new possibilities;
  • Ask for help: I wrote about asking for help in a recent posting as part of this series (see 29th May 2009). Adjusting and adapting relies on flexibility in the way you look at a problem so asking for help may include asking others to help you identify multiple ways of looking at a situation. Equally, it may be that someone can provide just the help you need to take your next step forward.

Choosing beliefs that empower

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The beliefs we choose can restrict or empower us and are often the subject of scrutiny in coaching. Our beliefs can contribute to – or undermine – our resilience in hard times. In my recent newsletter I wrote:

The resources that empower us include the beliefs we hold. Carl’s belief, for example, that he has what it takes to succeed no matter what raises his energy levels and encourages him to access the resources he needs to succeed.

This is different to Lesley. Holding the belief that losing her job is in some way a sign that there’s “something wrong” with her generates a sense of fear. This fear undermines her current performance as well as reducing her capacity to thrive in the event that her job is indeed made redundant.

On the surface, choosing beliefs that empower may make no difference in the near term. Currently, for example, Carl and Lesley are both at risk of losing their jobs. At the same time, their different beliefs are likely to lead to different responses even when their circumstances are the same. Over time, with different underlying beliefs, you can expect that Carl, Lesley, John and others will each create different lives.

But what if we want to examine our beliefs – perhaps to notice where they are holding us back or to adopt more helpful beliefs? Here are some ideas for you to play with:

  • It helps to notice what beliefs you already hold. This implies recognising that different people – including you – hold a variety of beliefs. So a great place to start is to get curious and playful in noticing your own and others’ beliefs. What are the beliefs – or presuppositions – tucked away behind the comments people make or the actions they take? My invitation here is not so much to change anything as to notice beliefs and the impact they have in your and others’ lives;
  • A great question to ask yourself as you examine your own beliefs is “what is the mother of all beliefs I hold?” Often, our beliefs boil down to one of two extremes – that there is abundance or scarcity in the world, for example, or that people are either loving and generous or mean and selfish. What is the mother of all beliefs for you?
  • You might want to pay particular attention to the beliefs held by people you in some way admire or whose lives you’d like to enjoy yourself. What beliefs do they hold and in what way do those beliefs play out in their intentions and actions? And with what outcomes in every area of their lives? Doing this can provide both a raised awareness of the role of beliefs and a library of beliefs that you might want to adopt for yourself;
  • Don’t be afraid to take a variety of beliefs and to try them on for size. You can do this ahead of time by simply sitting with them and seeing what impact they have on you as you imagine living your life according to a variety of different beliefs. It’s likely that you’ll be able to notice which beliefs empower you and which beliefs undermine you. This may lead you to make changes to your own beliefs;
  • It’s possible that you’ll try on a new belief and find it opens up a whole new range of possibilities – and still you’ll find you resist adopting it in practice. In this case, you might like to spend some time getting to understand your current beliefs more fully. What is your positive intention in holding the belief you’d like to let go of? What does it do for you? You may want to ask this question repeatedly until you get to the root of your reasons for holding a belief. Once you have this understanding you can ask yourself how you can fulfil your intentions in a different way.

Perhaps it’s worth adding that changes in behaviour often come from changes in belief. So if you find you are choosing behaviours you’d like to change and you don’t know how, it may be that you need to examine the beliefs that are driving your unwanted behaviours.

Accessing the resources you need

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In my recent newsletter I wrote:

Accessing the resources you need is not only about reaching out for help. Carl’s readiness to reach out for help is a reflection of his own inner resources, including his belief that he is fundamentally OK, no matter what he knows or has yet to learn. Our inner resources include our personality traits, states of mind and beliefs.

In coaching, coaches make a powerful contribution when they help the people with whom they work in coaching partnership to identify and to access the resources they need. This contribution depends on holding the belief that their clients have the resources they need to succeed – the belief that clients are creative, resourceful and whole.

With or without the help of a coach, Carl is able constantly to access the inner resources he needs to maintain equilibrium in challenging times, as well as to achieve happiness and success.

How do people access the resouces they need in hard times? My training in neuro-linguistic programming (or NLP) provides some simple steps we can take:

  • Step 1: Know what you want. Before you access your inner resources, you need to know what you want them to do for you. I wrote about ways to explore what you want in my posting on 27th May 2009;
  • Step 2: Identify – name – the inner resources you need to make progress towards your desired outcomes. These may be beliefs, states of mind, emotions… When you ask yourself what inner resources you need it’s likely that your other-than-conscious mind will have some answers – and some of them may surprise you!
  • Step 3: Try them on for size. It’s not enough to have an intellectual understanding that you need confidence and a belief in your capability. Trying these resources on for size gives you the full package – a powerful felt sense that you already have these resources. Trying them on for size is like building a muscle: the more you do this, the more you have these resources at your immediate disposal;
  • Step 4: Notice any resistance or incongruity. Sometimes, there will be reasons why you resist accessing a resource. Perhaps you have a belief that you need to work hard to get what you want, for example, which stands in the way of accessing a sense of ease. This may be something you need to explore – to work with with your coach, for example, before you can truly access the resources you have identified.

And as I write I notice how hurried I am knowing I am due to go away on Friday. It’s time to notice what resources I need to feel confident I have all the time I need to get things done before I go away…

Reaching out for help

Developing as a leader,

Friday. I start the day with a “to do” list as long as my arm and a clear priority: I want to publish my regular newsletter by the end of the day – the end of the month. Before I start I take time to meditate in my garden. This is a new pleasure – the first time this year. Mr Fox has been visiting and I can smell his musky odour as I breathe deeply.

In my newsletter, I have identified reaching out for help as one of the traits or behaviours that build resilience:

When Carl married and became a father, he decided to find an alternative to his job in sales, even though he had been very successful. He wanted to spend time with his wife and children and he knew that to continue in his current sales role would make this hard to achieve. He decided he wanted to manage the sales function in his region and he set out to make this a possibility.

Like many people who thrive, Carl shows a willingness to reach out for help. Sometimes, he looks for resources to support him in his success, reading about leadership, for example, and looking on the internet for information. Sometimes he makes contact with people he thinks might be able to help him. He is constantly on the lookout for the resources he needs to make progress towards his goals.

Reaching out for help can include sharing our thoughts and emotions with others. Whilst hoarding our troubles can magnify them immensely, we need not be alone. Our capacity to confide when we are finding things tough can in itself increase our resilience in hard times.

What first steps can I suggest for the man or woman who is unpractised in reaching out for help? Here are a few ideas:

  • I start with an exercise which scientist James Pennebaker used with workers from Texas Instruments who had recently been laid off. He divided the workers into three groups and invited one of these groups to take time, for five consecutive days, to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about the loss of their job. After four months, Pennebaker found that 35% of this group had found jobs as compared to 5% of a control group. Eight months after the start of his experiment 53% of this group had found jobs as compared to 24% and 14% of workers assigned other activities. Even if you don’t want to share what’s going on for you, it seems that being present to your experiences – by writing about your thoughts and feelings – can build your resilience;
  • Carl’s experiences (above) point to another way to reach out for help if for any reason you do not want to ask others for help directly. Carl avidly researches areas of interest, identifying resources on the internet or reading books which supply much needed information. It was in this way that he developed approaches to sales that have placed him in the top 10% of his company’s sales people. In what areas do you need help? What sources of information can you find to support you?
  • Our capacity to reach out for help includes our ability to ask others to support us. It helps to get clear what we really want. What need are we seeking to meet by reaching out for help? And what can other people do to help us to meet that need? One colleague, at a time when he was beginning to realise how little he asked for help, practised making requests of total strangers – on the bus, tube or plane. He made a point of getting clear about what need he wanted to meet before formulating his request. He also made a point of noticing what words and phrases elicited a willing response from the people of whom he made requests;
  • For some people who find it hard to reach out for help, the fear of “rejection” is what keeps them from asking. Amongst many ways of eliminating this fear one method intrigues me and I offer it here. This exercise is about making requests of people where you know the answer will be no, in order simply to hear others’ “no” and to know it in no way constitutes a personal rejection. One way to do this is to go into shops and to ask for something you know they don’t stock (for sellotape in a bakery, for example), or to request a service of an organisation you know they don’t provide (legal advice of your doctor, for example). This exercise has the merit of being something you can practise on total strangers;
  • Professional support, such as coaching or therapy, can be invaluable to support you in expanding your capacity to reach out for help. Perhaps you recognise that you are would like to reach out for help and yet you fear reaching out for support in any area of your life. This may be an indication that some therapeutic support will be invaluable. Perhaps you have been reaching out for support from friends and family and are finding you need more than they can give. In this case, it may be coaching, therapy or some other source of support that will best meet your needs.

And just as a reminder, I offer coaching, working mainly with senior leaders in organisations. I’m always happy to talk to establish what support you need. you can reach me at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk.

Taking action towards desired outcomes

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Today I realise that if I don’t post my newsletter by the end of this week it will suddenly become my June newsletter. I am on the case! I also choose to post some ideas here on the blog about another way of thriving in hard times, one I have written about in my newsletter:

People who know what they want can take action to make their dreams come true. This includes spotting and acting on opportunities. During our current recession, it’s striking how much those people who are thriving use the word “opportunity”. What is it that enables people to stay alert to opportunities during hard times?

Carl, like many successful people, is able to hold a vision for the future whilst not knowing how to reach his goals. Carl’s vision is not limited to results he knows he can achieve: he believes he will find ways to achieve his goals.

Carl and others like him are willing to try something and to learn from their attempts. For these people, simply taking action is a success. For whether or not an action yields the desired results, it supplies information about what does and doesn’t work and this in turn can help them to make progress.

Perhaps for this reason, Carl is willing to sow seeds which may not bear fruit until after the recession is over. He knows that the actions he takes during difficult times are leading him towards his goals and this, in turn, provides a powerful sense of momentum no matter what the economic climate.

Now, I confess, I grew up in the school of “perfection” so that, for many years, I found it hard to take any action unless I knew that success was guaranteed. It was a very limiting way of living my life. So, for those of you who want to become more bold in taking actions to realise your dreams I offer the following ideas, which draw on neuro-linguistic programming’s (or NLP’s) outcome framework:

  • Step 1: Practise connecting with your most heartfelt dreams, be they business, career or personal dreams. I wrote about how you might do this in yesterday’s post (see Knowing What You Want). The aim here is to feel truly connected with your goals and alive to their possibilities;
  • Step 2: Notice where you’re starting from on your journey towards your goals. I especially invite you to view your starting-point through a lens that empowers – rather than undermines – you. Try asking yourself: “what steps have I already taken in my life that are leading me towards my goals?” or “what resources do I already have that are helping me on my way?”
  • Step 3: Explore what steps you can take right now that will help you to make progress towards your goals. The idea, here, is not to map out all the steps you will need to take to get to your desired outcomes. Rather, the aim is to identify any steps you can easily take right now that will move you in the right direction. You may want to brainstorm ideas or invite suggestions from others;
  • Step 4: Take action! Choose any step or steps that you feel ready to take and take them. Usually, even in hard times, taking action leaves you feeling more resourceful than not taking action, so be sure to notice and swim around in any resourceful feelings you experience;
  • Step 5: Welcome feedback! Be curious about the outcomes from each step you take. Perhaps you will notice how well something works and what new possibilities it opens up. Perhaps you will find your action doesn’t lead to the outcome you desired. As long as you remember that “there’s no failure, only feedback” you will be able to welcome whatever outcome you get – it’s just information;
  • Step 6: Perhaps the next step is to go back to Step 1, enriched by the experience of taking action and with the new awareness that comes from having taken action. In this way you build momentum and make progress towards your goals.

Knowing what you want

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I can’t write about traits that underpin resilience without writing about knowing what you want. Ian McDermott, in the field of neurolinguistic programming (or NLP) defines outcome orientation as one of the four pillars of success. Marshall Rosenberg, originator of nonviolent communication, highlights how often, when working as a clinical psychologist and treating people who suffered from depression, he would find that they were at a loss to know what they really wanted – and how to make it happen. In my own work with senior leaders in a wide range of settings, research has demonstrated how the most effective leaders set and work towards challenging goals for themselves and others.

In my newsletter, I write:

One aspect of developing an internal locus of control is knowing what you want. In hard times, it’s easy to be clear about what you want to avoid. For John, for example, avoiding redundancy is about protecting his mortgage payments whilst for Lesley, keeping her job is about avoiding the loss of face she fears will come with redundancy. Carl has taken a different view. Rather than seeking to avoid certain outcomes he actively focuses on those outcomes he wants to achieve: his primary objective at work is to provide for his family and to have fun whilst doing so.

Carl’s view of what he wants provides a sense of excitement and momentum. In coaching, helping clients to clarify what they want is amongst the primary tasks of coaching: getting clear on what you want produces a positive energy and can provide the basis for action.

Some people might view this as paradoxical: after all, isn’t it precisely those times when we don’t get what we want that we find hard? At the same time, it’s often true that those people – including people in leadership roles – who have a clear vision of the outcomes they want to achieve are precisely the people who show the most resilience in hard times.

What are your options if you want to get clear on what you want? As a coach, I have found that clients value a whole variety of ways to identify what they want. I’ll be writing about some of them under the heading Staying Connected. Meantime, here are some of the methods my clients use to generate an over-arching vision of their “ten out of ten” life, career, business or other outcome:

  • Whether you are thinking about your work or the whole of your life, it helps to find ways to daydream about your “ten out of ten” life. There are many of these and I invite you to choose ways that work for you. If you enjoy pictures, it can help to set up a “dream board” and to look out for pictures that in some way represent something that is important to you as part of your “ten out of ten” life. Equally, you might like to use a scrapbook or notebook for this purpose;
  • Some clients favour writing as a way to generate ideas. It may not surprise readers that this is one of my preferred approaches. Every now and again, I take time to daydream in writing. For me, this is the process of writing about what I want, whether my focus is on my business aspirations, my life as a whole or some particular aspect of what I’m wanting;
  • In the workplace, some approaches are favoured more than others to generate ideas. Brainstorming is one way of sharing possibilities and can be used with teams. Alternatively, having people write their ideas on post it notes before sharing them and grouping them by themes and discussing them can make it easy for every member of a team to contribute ideas.

I want to highlight two principles that my clients find invaluable, no matter what method they are using to identify what they want. The first is to suspend any questions about how you might get what you want. This allows you to range freelly, trusting that you will find ways to make your dreams come true at a later stage. The second is to “try it on for size”. This is the process of imagining what you want as if you already have it, an approach beloved of Olympic sportsmen and women. This helps you to check out ahead of time whether you really do want what you imagine you want: if you don’t, you’ll feel it somewhere in the body. In addition, by imagining you already have it, you start to rehearse what it might take to get it.

I invite you to share your response to this posting. Do you have ways of getting in touch with what you want that you’re willing to share here? Which of the ideas above have you tried out and with what outcomes?

Choosing to choose

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Writing my newsletter, I include choosing to choose as one aspect of demonstrating resilience in hard times:

Choosing the way we view the current recession is just one aspect of choosing to choose. Whilst some people look outside of themselves for change – looking to other people to make changes or for a change in circumstances – others focus on the choices they can make themselves.

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter coined the now familiar term internal locus of control to describe the way some people make choices. He noticed that those people who have an internal locus of control believe that events result primarily from their own actions and behaviour. They tend to develop a better mastery of their own behaviour and to assume their efforts will be successful. Rotter also noted that people with a high internal locus of control are more likely than others to seek information and knowledge about their situation and to engage in political behaviour.

In the world of coaching, choosing to choose has become known as being at choice or even being at cause. Over time, the habit of choosing to choose is like building a muscle. Whilst some people are unaware of the extent to which their life is determined by their own choices, Carl knows that life is the sum of all his choices: the more he builds the muscle of choosing to choose, the more he becomes “match fit” and ready to thrive no matter what.

What if you want to test the extent to which you are choosing to choose? What if you want to build your choosing to choose muscle? I offer the following exercise, which I have adapted from an exercise Marshall Rosenberg shares in his CD set Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships and Your World in Harmony With Your Values. It has four simple steps:

  • Step 1: Write a list of all the things you do because you believe you have to. Keep writing for as long as it takes to identify everything you do from a sense of obligation or duty;
  • Step 2: Replace the language “I have to” with “I choose to” at the beginning of every sentence. To do this may stimulate some discomfort in you! At the same time, if you want to choose to choose, this step will help you to recognise that you are already choosing;
  • Step 3: Take time to review this list, asking yourself what needs of yours you are meeting by choosing to do those things that are on your list. You can expect different actions to meet different needs. At the same time, you may find patterns that are worth noticing;
  • Step 4: For each action on your list, make a new choice that fully meets your needs. In some cases, this may be a case of choosing the same action from a renewed sense of your reason for doing it. In these cases, you can expect to feel better about taking your chosen action because you understand how it meets your needs. In some cases, you may decide not to do something you were doing because it doesn’t meet your needs. In this case you can feel better about making a choice that works for you – though you may have to accept that other people may not enjoy your choices.

Owning our choices presents all sorts of challenges. Sometimes, it’s easier to assign responsibility for our actions to another person, to “duty” or to some impersonal force rather than to own them as our own. Equally, you can be sure that choosing not to do some of the things you currently do because you “have to” will have profound implications for you.

What did you learn from doing this exercise? I’d love to see some examples of your new choices here on the blog. If you’d like to contribute, please post your comments here where other readers can benefit from them.

Recession: taking a wider view

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Recently, I wrote in my newsletter, John and Lesley* were discussing the prospect of redundancies in their organisation. For them, redundancy was a very real possibility. As well as thinking about the possibility that they might be made redundant, they thought about the potential outcomes from being made redundant. Their spirits were low.

Carl*, on the other hand, was in a different place. This was Carl’s first experience of a recession during his career. He was excited to learn about how to thrive in business during a downturn and actively looking for opportunities. His spirits were high.

Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, famously observed how, even in the concentration camps in which he was prisoner during the Second World War, some prisioners found it in themselves to give away their last pieces of bread to comfort others and pointed to the freedom we all have: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

In this posting, I offer some thoughts about what you can do if you want consciously to choose your response to a challenging situation, be it your current circumstances in the recession or any other situation:

  • You might start by noticing the response you have, unconsciously, chosen. What are you feeling about your current situation and what thoughts are leading you to feel that way? This implies owning that it’s your thoughts about your situation rather than the situation per se that’s leading you to feel the way you do;
  • Once you’ve tuned into your current way of thinking and feeling, ask yourself, “what is my positive intention in choosing this way of thinking and feeling?” This is a way of honouring the intentions you are holding whilst recognising that there may be other ways of fulfilling your intentions;
  • Whether or not you have carried out the exercises above, one way to generate alternatives is to brainstorm. How many different ways can you think of to view your current situation? How many different ways are there to feel about it? I invite you to offer yourself some stretch here by including ways of viewing your circumstances that you are telling youself are in some way “wrong”, “inappropriate” or (insert whatever label springs to mind here);
  • Another way to generate different perspectives is to ask yourself questions that invite you to adopt a different point of view. For example, how might you view your current situation in the context of your whole life? How would you like to be able to look back on it in years to come? How might (insert the name of someone you admire or someone you find amusing) view your current situation?
  • It’s possible that you might find it helpful to give yourself permission to choose your way of viewing your current situation. This could open up new possibilities. What way would you choose to view your current circumstances if any way were OK, for example? What way would you choose to view your current circumstances if you wanted to feel (insert desired feeling here)?
  • Finally, you may find it helpful to share ideas with other people before choosing, especially if you are struggling to see things in more than one way or in a way that leaves you feeling comfortable. You may find that talking with a friend or colleague is enough to help you to choose a way of viewing things that works for you. You may find that your professional adviser (coach, therapist or other professional adviser) can give you the support you need to find a way of viewing your circumstances that works for you.

In the end it’s you who gets to choose your point of view. By checking in with yourself, you will know how well your current perspective is serving you.

(*John, Lesley and Carl are fictional characters used for illustration of the points being made)

Thriving in hard times

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What differentiates those who thrive in hard times from those who suffer? What does it take to develop the resilience needed to survive – to thrive, even – in hard times?

Our current economic downturn is throwing up tough challenges for many people. At the same time, others are clearly thriving. This week I’ve been writing the main article for my newsletter, focussing on the subject of what it takes to thrive in hard times.

I’ve been drawing on various sources – from research to direct observation – to answer this question. I’m aware just how diverse the response to the recession is amongst friends, colleagues, people in public life as well as amongst those with whom I work in coaching partnership.

In the coming days I’ll be sharing ideas from my article and building on them here on this blog. It’s one thing to know what it takes to thrive, but quite another to fill the gap if you don’t – yet – have what it takes. This is an opportunity I look forward to along with your comments.

And if you’re not thriving, why not treat yourself to a coaching “stock take”? This can be a way of stepping back to distinguish the wood from the trees. If you’d like to find out more please drop me a line at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk.

Meantime, enjoy your weekend.

Accounting for your leadership style

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Arundhati Roy was surely onto the source of all joys when she named her novel (itself a thing of beauty and joy) The God of Small Things. I know I am attuned to this god when the world offers me the opportunity (as it has done in recent days) to rejoice in the small and simple things in life and when, taking that opportunity, I feel both joy and peace.

Recently, I had one such “small” joy. This took place when one of my university colleagues read about my blog in our college review and was moved to take a look and then to drop me a line. I have been enjoying our correspondence, knowing instinctively that we had and still have the potential to enrich each others’ lives.

Last week I came home after running a training for clients in how to interview leaders using a competency-based approach, only to find she had sent me an intriguing question. With her permission I am sharing it with you. She said:

I have an interview in a few weeks and will likely be asked about my style as a leader!! If one isn’t a natural leader but ain’t bad at it, how does one convincingly convey this?! Is it reasonable to say I have observed other leaders I admire and have taken on attributes I feel comfortable with?

This description reminds me of many professionals who progress to take on leadership roles to which they were not initially attracted. Seeking to adapt to the role, some of them will struggle to get excited about work whose results are measured in terms of the work of a wider team – for isn’t “work” something you do yourself? For some, time spent building relationships, managing staff etc. is perceived as time wasted – a distraction from the work itself. Recognising that when you are a leader engaging others is the work itself can constitute a big shift.

It strikes me that my friend is on the right track. Whilst the “born or made” debate continues, it’s often true that we model our leadership style on those whose leadership we admire and seek to adapt it so that we are both effective (maybe even inspiring) leaders and also remain true to ourselves. I am reminded of Daniel Goleman’s book The New Leaders which is so effective in bringing some solid research to a wider audience. What key points might I want to share with my friend ahead of her interview? They include:

  • Research shows leaders use a range of different leadership styles and that each style can be predicted to have a different outcome;
  • Some of these styles build motivation and engagement. They get the best out of people over time. Goleman describes these as “resonant” and identifies them as the visionary, coaching, affiliative and democratic styles;
  • Some of them (coercive/commanding, pace-setting) have their place but need to be used sparingly. Otherwise they tend to reduce engagement and motivation and undermine performance. Goleman describes them as “dissonant” styles;
  • Each style has a place! Knowing when to use which style and being able to adapt one’s style to fit the situation is what makes a truly great leader.

Knowing which style to use when requires both insight and flexibility: the most effective leaders have a command of the full range of styles and know when to use them. Sometimes these are the men and women who seem never to have reflected on leadership but rather to have an instinctive grasp of what’s needed. More often, truly great leaders are great because, over time, they have paid attention to what works and what doesn’t work and, in this way, developed a level of mastery in their leadership.

So, as my friend prepares for her interview I wonder what it means to say one “ain’t bad” at leadership. Teasing this out ahead of time could be valuable interview preparation.