Tag Archives: developing leadership intelligence

Managing relationships as a key to success

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

Once again, Harvard Business Review’s Morning Advantage has come up with a gem in the form of the article below, with links to further articles:

Debunking the “Proven Winner” Myth

If you were the new owner of a middling National Hockey League franchise, and were looking to bring on a new head coach, you’d probably hire a proven winner, right? Well, according to Glenn Rowe in the Ivy Business Journal, hiring a winner may not be the best option. In fact, there’s a good chance your team will get worse — really.

Data shows that it’s extremely rare for a Stanley Cup-winning coach to replicate his success with a new team — and the same goes for professional baseball and football coaches too. Perhaps one reason is proven winners can’t leverage the “complex relationships” they developed within their old organizations. More bad news: this isn’t just a sports problem. Rowe cites this HBR article by Boris Groysberg, who found that the performance of star stock analysts fell as much as 20 percent when they jumped to a new firm. So what are companies to do? When looking for stars, look within your own organization. Train and mentor them. Work like hell to retain them.


Now you may not know much about the Stanley Cup – I certainly don’t – and still, I’m guessing you get the point.  I notice, too, how there’s advice tucked away for those people who want to be winners.  Kevin Evers, who put this brief article together, doesn’t dwell on it and still – the point is there.  Building and managing relationships is a significant aspect of what makes people successful.


You might be thinking “does that mean I should stay where I am?” or even “but I’ve been here for years and I’m just rubbish at building relationships!”  The point is, once you recognise you need to manage key relationships in your current or future employing organisation, you can start to think about what that means in practice.  Here are a few tips:

  • If you want to build a relationship with others, you need to develop a relationship with yourself.  The more you understand your own drivers and motivations, the more you’ll be able to show insight into the drivers and motivations of others;  the more you are able to be authentic with yourself, the more you’ll be able to be authentic with others;
  • Which relationships?  There are people towards whom you naturally gravitate and these may well become key friends and allies at work.  There are also any number of people who, because of their roles, are important to your success at work – often called “key stakeholders”.  Taking time to understand who you need to be in touch with is a great start in a new job;
  • Don’t just wait until you need someone.  From the beginning you need to establish a relationship.  Make time for coffee.  Let people know you’ve arrived.  Get clear ahead of time about the kind of relationship you’d like to build – on which more below;
  • Every now and then you’ll meet someone – a key stakeholder – and wonder what on earth they’re doing in the job.  And still, they are a stakeholder.  The more your emotions are stimulated when you think about that person, the more that’s a reflection on you.  Learn to build relationships of mutual respect even with the people you think least deserve it.  They have things to teach you as much as you have things to teach them.

I could write more but first, I’d love to know what challenges you face or what you aspire to do in your workplace relationships that you haven’t mastered – yet.  Please leave a comment to share your experience.

  

Unintended consequences of our learning

Coaching, Developing as a leader, ,

Working as I do to support people to develop as leaders, I am often struck by the way coaching continues to add value long after it has finished.  I’m currently talking to a number of former clients about their experiences following coaching and I look forward to sharing what they have to say.

One conversation I had recently reminded me that the experiences that follow coaching are not all positive – at times there can be a bewildering array of side effects and unexpected consequences.  The same truth applies to all sorts of personal changes.  This is what I want to focus on today.

I want to preface my posting by adding that, over time, such challenges tend to “come good” and still, they can be hard to fathom at the time.  Here are just a few of the side-effects that I have experienced personally or observed in others over the years:

  • The “dramatic mistake” when trying something new:  Perhaps one of the greatest fears of someone who is making changes is that they will try something new and that it will go dramatically wrong.  This can range from sharing oneself – one’s opinions, feelings etc. – more fully with somebody close (our boss, spouse etc.), all the way to taking on a new role which constitutes a significant stretch.  In practice, it’s rare in my experience that the most feared outcome materialises and it’s even more rare that the world falls apart when it does.  More often, clients take small steps and discover that their fears were unfounded.  Even when something doesn’t pan out as expected it can be highly liberating to discover that we can make mistakes and still come through;
  • Relationship challenges:  A common challenge that we face when we make changes is difficulties in relationships, be they colleagues in the workplace or our loved ones at home.  I remember, for example, how one of my friends just fell away when I was in the midst of my professional coach training.  She stopped making contact and, when I commented on the change, sent me a letter saying how much I had changed and that she didn’t want to spend time with me any more.  I never knew what changes she was observing or what the impact was on her experience of our friendship.  There is, of course, a balance to be struck here.  At one end of the scale is what we might call the (insensitive) “zeal of the newly converted” – there’s nothing worse than having someone try to impose their new learning on us.  At the other end of the scale are the changes we make gently and slowly out of our growing awareness.  Sometimes the changes we make serve to deepen and strengthen our relationships.  The same changes serve to highlight those relationships that aren’t working.  Over time we may find ways to make them work.  Equally, we may be faced with the question, can this relationship be made to work – or is it time to step away?
  • Facing the truth about an untenable situation:  Coaching can support clients in finding ways to respond to challenging situations, whatever they are.  Perhaps we take steps to succeed in a role in which we were failing or to manage our relationship with a difficult boss.  Perhaps our sales go up dramatically or our profile in the business soars.  At the same time, we may become aware that our situation is untenable even whilst learning to handle it well.  We’re selling more of a product we don’t believe in, for example, or succeeding in a role at the same time as realising it’s not the right role for us.  The immediate joy of making progress can give way to doubts and uncertainty as we go beyond the challenges that brought us to coaching to face some deeper truth.  Coming to the right decision can take time and may happen long after coaching is completed;
  • The pain that comes with growing awareness:  Along the way we may experience feelings of pain and discomfort as we become more aware of things which, previously, were outside our awareness.  Sometimes, these may be the very things we needed to learn ourselves.  Having learnt to be effective in coaching those we lead, for example, our sensitivities are now heightened when we observe how our peers provide instruction without any support to staff.  Perhaps the pain we experience relates to our own unmet needs, especially when we are increasingly aware of them and have not yet found a way to meet them.

Have you experienced these or other unintended consequences of your learning?  It may be a time to get back in touch with your coach for a follow-up session.  It may a time to be attentive – to notice and to get under the skin of your thoughts and feelings to understand what’s going on.  It’s certainly a time for compassion – for yourself, for those around you, including those who stimulate the pain in you.

Developing your leadership? Bring on the compassion

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, ,

You’ve got the promotion.  You’re in your new role.  You’re putting on a brave face.  You’re maxing up the ‘positive self-talk’.  Come on, you can do it.  They wouldn’t have put me in the role if they didn’t think I was up to it.  And remember that project for Asia last year – this can’t be more difficult than that.  You know you have what it takes to succeed – intellectually, you know.  But sometimes, the intellectual knowing just isn’t enough.

It gets worse.  It gets personal.  You know that, in order to succeed, you need to make headway in developing new skills.  Perhaps you need to rely less on your technical skills (as an accountant, lawyer, doctor etc.) and cultivate skills in a whole new area – leadership, emotional intelligence, call it what you will.  Perhaps you have to let go of doing what you’ve always done best and start to deliver with and through others.  You’ve always got huge plaudits for your ability to deliver – but can you get others to deliver in the same way?

Maybe it gets even worse than that.  You know – you know – that whether it’s in this job or another there’s no turning back.  Doing everything yourself was barely working for you in your old job – you have to find new ways of working, whatever your job.  You were on your way to burn-out and you know it.  Or perhaps you’d got as far as you could go by getting angry with yourself, or your staff, and you know you’ve got to find new strategies.

The trouble is, you’ve acknowledged the problem – but you don’t begin to know how to address it.  You’re in one of life’s most tender spots – you’ve crossed a threshold and you don’t know where to go.  Joseph Campbell highlighted this aspect of the human journey in his research which I briefly summarised in one of the most often visited posting on this blog, entitled Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey.  Crossing the threshold means stepping out of our comfort zone and accepting some challenge or ‘call to adventure’.  Campbell’s research – into the myths of many cultures on this subject – shows how we have to accept the call to adventure before the resources we need begin to show up.

What’s it like to stand in this most tender of spots?  Recently, a conversation with a colleague reminded me of the feelings that can – if we let them – overwhelm us in this place.  Sometimes, there is intense sadness, grief and loss as we acknowledge the impact on our lives of the choices we have made in the past.  We may be overwhelmed with compassion for our younger self who learned, for example, how to do everything personally rather than to face the ire of a parent or teacher when we asked for help.  We may be sorrowful when we realise just how much this early choice has shaped our lives, keeping us from reaching out for help.  And we may be intensely scared when we think of what we might have to do that we have never done before.

Navigating this stage of our own journeys requires a large measure of compassion, both for the way it shines a light on those areas in which we need to develop and for all the emotions that comes with this.  The language of leadership development – ‘areas for development’, weaknesses’, ‘growing edge’ marches on past this level of emotion with barely a side-glance of acknowledgement.  It helps if we are not alone in holding our emotions in this tender place – if we have a trusted coach, or mentor, or peers, or family.  All the love and support we need is available to us, though learning to receive it may be a hero’s journey in itself.

Campbell talks of the hero but we might equally talk of leaders.  Leaders are made in this place, because they are the people who constantly step across each new threshold as they meet it.  And if they can only stand close to the fire of their emotions, they are also the people who learn how to understand themselves and others – an essential quality if we are to lead others in ways which engage and inspire.

If you want to read more about Campbell’s work, I recommend his books (especially The Power of Myth) and also The Hero’s Journey by Robert Dilts and Stephen Gillighan.  For now, though, I wonder, what are the thresholds you face right now?

Listening to the wild dogs barking in your cellar

Developing as a leader, Developing leadership across your organisation, , , ,
Let me adapt some of Nietzsche’s words and say this to you:
“To become wise you must learn to listen to the wild dogs barking in your cellar”

Irvin Yalom
Staring at the Sun:  Overcoming the Dread of Death

I would read anything by Irvin Yalom, which is – far more than its subject matter – how I came to be reading his book Staring at the Sun:  Overcoming the Dread of Death.  I first encountered his deeply compassionate writings when a colleague recommended his book Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy.  I have enjoyed a number of his books including his novels:  Lying on the Couch made me laugh out loud.

Yalom’s work as a psychotherapist has contributed enormously to his field.  Whilst, historically, some psychotherapists have taken the view that psychotherapy is all about the client, Yalom has understood the impossibility for the psychotherapist of being a blank canvas – a distant and dispassionate observer.  For any man or woman brings a personal history to the role of therapist.  The therapist needs to cultivate self awareness in order not to entangle clients in his or her own unfinished business.

What’s more, dispassion and distance does little to promote healing for the client.  Yalom stands alongside Carl Rogers and others in viewing relationship and especially unconditional positive regard as an important contributory factor when it comes to the success of therapy.  His writings offer many examples of interactions with clients which might well horrify colleagues from other branches of his profession.

Now, since I work as a coach and my clients are leaders, you may well be wondering “what has this got to do with me?”  The truth is that both coaches and leaders need high levels of self-awareness if they are to be effective.  Daniel Goleman (in his book Working with Emotional Intelligence) lists three competencies which are concerned with self-awareness, based on research into what makes us effective at work.  Our self awareness is also the basis for our ability to relate to others – our ability to lead, to influence, to develop others (and so on) depends on our willingness to understand others and this, in turn, depends on our willingness to understand ourselves.

Perhaps the greatest challenge is to have empathy for others even whilst recognising the fullness of their strengths, weaknesses, quirks and limitations.  We can only do this if we can view ourselves in the fullness of our own strengths, weaknesses, quirks and limitations.  There can be a paradox here;  for if we believe that excellence in leadership depends on being better than our fellow human beings, we undermine the very basis for our outstanding performance as a leader.

It’s for this reason that the quote above strikes such a deep chord.  When we can listen to the wild dogs barking in our own cellars, we can begin to understand ourselves – and others.  It takes a huge measure of compassion to be present to all sorts of thoughts, feelings, characteristics and motivations which, as children, we have learnt to condemn.  It takes compassion, discipline and dedication.

So, if you want to get by as a leader, you can afford to read this posting – and move on.  If, though, you want to go beyond getting by, I invite you to ponder the quote at the top of this posting.  How willing are you to listen to the wild dogs barking in your cellar?

When it comes to consulting your staff

Developing as a leader, , ,

Years ago I was involved in a project to audit the leadership “bench strength” of a company in the process of de-merger.  The company’s CEO was anxious about the capability of his senior leadership team – it seemed to him that whenever he asked them for ideas at meetings they were slow to contribute.  Interviewing members of his leadership team it became clear why.  To a man (they were all men) the people we interviewed told us how it was always the CEO’s ideas that prevailed – why put forward ideas that will only ever be dismissed?

Whether it was the quality of the leaders’ ideas that were wanting or the CEO’s willingness to explore the ideas of others, this story tells us something about the challenges of consulting our staff.  Daniel Goleman, in his book The New Leaders:  Transforming The Art Of Leadership Into The Science Of Results, highlights the democratic leadership style as one of several that builds resonance amongst employees which, in turn, leads to improved business outcomes.  At the same time, if you plan to consult your employees, you need to think carefully ahead of time.

Here are a few thoughts from me about when and how to consult:

  •  If a decision is urgent, highly critical for the organisation or if your employees lack the skills or knowledge to add value, think carefully before consulting them.  Used well, the democratic style builds commitment to a course of action but, used badly, it can also undermine it.   You need to ask for their input when you’re open to new ideas and have time to explore their input with them and to reach an agreement with them that works for everyone involved;
  • Do what you can to get clear ahead of time about why you want to consult staff and frame your questions to support your desired outcomes.  There’s a big difference, for example, between saying “let’s think about how we can save money” and “we’ve been charged with saving £3 million pounds and  I’d like to work with you to find ways to do this that maintain high levels of service to our customer and improve the efficiency of our processes”.  This is about both clarity and honesty – the more you are clear up front about your aims, the more likely you are to build trust as well as getting the input you need;
  • If you’re going to consult staff, it helps to have in place ground rules for handling the ideas that come up.  De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats provide one framework for brainstorming ideas.  I am, as you may already know, a fan of Roger Schwarz’s ground rules for effective groups – outlined in his book The Skilled Facilitator Approach.  In particular, take care to differentiate between interests and strategies – a strategy is a means to an end and the interest is the end itself.  Exploring how suggestions will contribute to an end result is one way to ensure that ideas are seen to be heard whether or not they are adopted;
  • Be clear ahead of time about how inputs will be used.  If the decision rests with you, then say so.  If it will be made at a more senior levels, then say so.  If you’d like the team to decide, then say so too – and agree up front how a decision will be made.  In this way, you support a positive experience of the democratic style;
  • Think about consulting staff on a regular basis as a way of building their skills and yours.  If your team is new to this style, you might like to start with a light touch – asking them for ideas, for example, about a non-business critical decision that you will make yourself.  Over time, your use of the democratic style will develop the skills of your staff and shape them as a team.  Ultimately, your team should be visible to your boss and to your boss’s peers and seniors as a highly effective team with plenty of ideas to offer to the organisation.  Even so…
  • Start where you are now.  Hold your team with compassion if this kind of consultation is new to them.  Take it one step at a time and use your judgement in deciding when and how to consult.
I’d like to hear about your experiences of consulting or of being consulted.  Please share the good, the bad and the ugly by posting your comment below.

Compassion: fuel for progress and accountability

Clients and testimonials, Developing as a leader, , , ,
It has long been my view that accountability – including accountability to ourselves – works best when it rests firmly on a compassionate foundation.  It’s all very well to harangue ourselves when we are not making the progress we crave or think we ought but somehow, the haranguing doesn’t make the progress any faster.  Indeed, it tends to depress our spirits and to make us more cautious about or resistant to taking our next steps.
Given this view, I am not the best coach for any client who wants to be “whipped into shape”.  When it comes to checking progress at the top of a coaching meeting I tend to prefer curiosity over any metaphorical flagellation.  If a client hasn’t taken the steps they thought they would (maybe if they still haven’t taken they steps they thought they would) I prefer to explore than to judge or condemn.  Often, the exploration brings new clarity or insights.  Perhaps a client needs help to overcome some inner resistance or to plug a gap in their skills or resources.  Perhaps s/he needs to check if a course of action really does hit the spot.
It’s always a matter of celebration for me when this philosophy is reflected in feedback from a coaching client, as it is below.  For why would we take the hard road when there is a more compassionate route which takes us more quickly to our destination?  And who wouldn’t want a client to achieve outstanding results within a framework of compassion?
This is what one client said about her experience of coaching:
I signed up for weekly telephone coaching with Dorothy following a recommendation from one of her clients who is also a friend of mine.  Initially I thought we’d work for three months or so but several times I extended the coaching and we ended up working for about eight months.
Dorothy facilitated the coaching each week, helping me to identify areas in which I most wanted help.  I thought coaching would be far more instructive than it was but it was me who came up with the answers and next steps.  I valued her empathy – she was extremely caring and supportive which, in hindsight, I needed more than a “crack of the whip”.  She was objective and constructive, and helped me to get clear on what I needed and to take steps forward.  I particularly valued the way she helped me to notice and congratulate myself on some of my achievements, which gave me added motivation and momentum.
As a result of our work together, I’m much clearer than I was about the kind of culture that I want to work in.  I decided to move from a contracting role to a senior corporate role where I’m now adding value and feeling good about myself.  I’ve also taken a look at the leadership qualities I want to exhibit and am taking steps to develop in key areas.
Celestine Hyde
Vice President
Investment Banking

Learning leadership from role models

Developing as a leader, ,

Harvard Business Review’s Morning Advantage came up with another neat article recently.  What did HBR say about the article?


Do you subscribe to the notion of “born leaders?” Or do you believe that the ability to lead is derived from a set of psychological properties that can be learned? The answer to that question, says Art Markman, goes to the heart of how much you’ll be influenced by role models. Not surprisingly, the more you think that leadership skills can be acquired, the greater the positive influence of others on your behaviour. Markman’s belief is that we can all learn — at the very least, improve — our leadership skills. Thus, those of us who don’t seek and study role models are missing an important opportunity.

Click here if you’d like to read the full article which is offered by Psychology Today.

The dance of honesty – being honest with others

Developing as a leader, Emotional Intelligence, , , ,

It’s taken me a while to get to this posting, in which I want to explore what it takes to be honest to others.  Having written three postings on what I’m calling the dance of honesty I am aware that this is a vast subject – I shall touch it lightly today.

Let’s do this together.  Take a moment to think of something you’d like to share with someone at home or at work – something you’d like to share but hesitate to mention.  Notice what you feel when you think about sharing it.  Perhaps it’s irritation because you feel the other person “ought to know”.  Perhaps you feel concerned when you think the other person might be hurt or anxious when you think they might be offended.  It is these feelings and the thoughts that sit behind them that are holding you back.

Having checked in with your feelings, notice the thoughts that accompany them.  Often, when we hesitate to share some truth, it is because we have a sense that there’s some risk involved.  Perhaps there is a risk – you might know, for example, how critical your boss is of anyone who doesn’t share his view.  (I once worked with a leadership team who all told me how they’d stopped sharing ideas with their boss because his ideas always prevailed.  The boss thought his team had no creativity at all).  Perhaps your thoughts echo some old theme in your life, usually from childhood – you always feel anxious about sharing your feelings or expressing an alternative point of view.

This difference – between some objectively identifiable risk and some old fear is important.  If it’s the latter, it may be especially important that you start to take steps which will help you to differentiate between situations you faced way back when and what is true in the here and now.  (That’s a whole other posting in itself).  Either way, though, telling the truth depends on your willingness to face consequences that are – as yet – unknown.  So, right now, thinking about the thing you have not yet said, just notice how willing you are to face unknown outcomes.  It isn’t always easy.

It may not be wise.  Before you speak your truth, you may like to ask yourself, what outcome am I hoping for?  Let’s take the example above – your boss is pursuing a proposal you think is bad for your organisation.  At the same time, you know he’s slow to take on board the ideas of others.  You may have more influence over the outcomes if you take time to think through how best to convey your ideas so that he will hear you.  Perhaps you need to address his main concerns when you share your views – showing, for example, how another strategy may be more effective in boosting sales or reducing staffing costs.  Perhaps you need to speak quietly with others to whom he might listen more willingly – his most trusted colleagues in the business.

If you do decide to speak with him directly, you could do worse than follow some simple guidelines – which I combine from a number of sources (including Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication:  A Language for Life and Roger Schwarz’s The Skilled Facilitator):

  • Build and maintain connection – especially when you’re sharing something difficult for both parties, it’s important to remember to build and maintain rapport.  You can do this in many different ways – by checking in (“how is this landing with you?”), by gently mirroring body language and tone of voice, by seeking to understand what’s important to him or her.  Begin by holding the intention to connect and remind yourself of this intention if things get tough;
  • Focus on interests, not positions – be clear on what needs you want to meet by being honest and be open to the needs of others.  Do what you can to share your own needs and to hear and understand the needs of the other person.  Then you can explore strategies – a path of action – that meets everyone’s needs;
  • Share observations and avoid judgements – you’ll make it easier for the other person to hear you if you share relevant information in the form of observations (“when you said ‘X…'”) rather than presenting your conclusions as the truth.  This might include sharing your thoughts and feelings as observations – there’s a big difference between saying “You’re getting this completely wrong” and saying “I’m telling myself that you’re getting this completely wrong and that makes me feel anxious”;
  • Make clear requests – be clear what response you want and ask for it.  Be ready, too, to accept a “no”.  Equally, be ready to receive requests from the person you are talking with and be ready to say “yes” or “no”.
Whether you are speaking honestly at work or in your private life you may or may not get to an outcome that meets your needs well.  Being honest, though, helps you to test what’s possible.  It may open up a far better outcome than you expected – or provide information that tells your needs won’t be met in the way you hoped.  This, too, opens up the opportunity to explore alternative ways to meet your needs.
I wonder, how does this land with you?

Being at choice

Developing as a leader, Your personal and professional well-being, , , ,

The kitchen is finally moving towards completion.  Gary has put together his “Schindler” of all the things that need to be done before we can say it’s finished.  I am looking forward to populating the cupboards which need to be painted inside before I can finally move in (meantime, Gary and Wills have been making liberal use of them for tools and other items of their trade).

Wills was full of cold at the beginning of last week and I, too, succumbed so that on Friday I caught myself reflecting on all the reasons why I might have caught the cold – catching it from Wills, the impact of the long hard slog of accommodating work in the kitchen, the cold weather…

…and then I caught myself in the act of thinking that somehow the cold had “happened to me”.  To a degree it had of course.  Henry Dreher, in his book The Immune Power Personality (which I’ve mentioned before on this blog), talks of breakthroughs in 19th century science, when “the researches of German physician Robert Koch and French physician Louis Pasteur led to the theory of specific etiology – the idea that diseases were caused by a single microorganism and could be eradicated by a single strategy for destroying the invader”.

Dreher also talks, though, of the work of Claude Bernard, the mid-19th-century French physiologist.  To quote briefly from Dreher’s already much abbreviated description of Bernard’s work, “Health was predicated on balance, and disease was a by-product of imbalance in the interior environment”.  Germs were not so much omnipotent as ready to to take root when the conditions were right.  Reflecting on my own health at this time brought home the tiny deteriorations in my normal health regimes in recent months – drinking far less of my usual “Supergreens“, overlooking my usual vitamin supplements, a diet that isn’t quite up to par, less walking… I knew I was reaping the results of small changes I was already aware of.  I have been telling myself that I’ll get back on track when the kitchen is done.  This is true – and still, the accumulation of small changes is also the sum of my own decisions in recent weeks.

At one level, I’m talking about a common cold.  At another level, I’m also talking about the wider question of what mindset we bring to our lives.  When something goes wrong, do you focus on what has happened to you?  Perhaps wish things were different that are beyond your control?  Or do you focus on your own contribution – what you have done that has made a contribution and what you can do to move forward?

There is a phrase used by some coaches (and no doubt others, too) – “being at choice”.  We are at choice when we focus on our own choices rather than seeing ourselves as the helpless victim of circumstance.  Others use the term “in your own power”.  Over the years I have seen how successful leaders have mastered the art of being at choice.  These are the leaders who use their power of choice to achieve outcomes they desire.  They are often optimistic and resilient in the most difficult of circumstances.  Rather than expend energy in wishing (fruitlessly) that things were different, they harness their creativity to the question “what can I do?”

And lest you are beating yourself up right now or yearning to do things differently and not knowing how, I hasten to add that this isn’t an “either/or” scenario.  Most of us have moments when we are at choice (standing in our power) and others when we are not.  Moving to a more powerful position is something we do one step at a time.  For me, in recent days, just noticing that I am not at choice has opened up possibilities to make different choices.  

The leader’s new clothes

Developing as a leader,


On Friday, a late cancellation afforded me the opportunity to have a late breakfast, watching Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic at the beginning of the men’s singles semi-finals in the Australian Open.  After finishing an assessment report I returned over lunch to watch the end of the match.  It was tantalisingly close.  At times Djokovic – currently world number 1 – was clearly the better player.  Even so, there were moments when Murray’s performance had me thinking it might be possible, just possible, that he might steal the match.

Coming on the back of so many assessments – interviewing men and women on their path to greater seniority at work – I found myself wondering about Murray’s self image at this stage in his career.  Because – as W. Timothy Gallwey pointed out in his book The Inner Game of Tennis, winning at tennis depends significantly on what is going on in the player’s head.  The same is true for the leader, so that perhaps it should come as no surprise that Gallwey’s book has been an enduring hit with men and women in business since it was first published in 1974.

What do I mean by “self image”?  The following comments are adapted from Wikipedia:

A person’s self image is a mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair colour etc.) but also items that have been learned by the person about him or herself, either from personal experiences or by internalising the judgements of others.  A more technical term for self image is self-schema.  Like any schemas, self-schemas store information and influence the way we think and remember.  For example, research indicates that information which refers to the self is preferentially encoded and recalled in memory tests.

Thinking of Andy Murray I wonder, does he think of himself as a world number 1 in the making?  This is important because it will influence many choices that he makes both off the court and on:  choices that, in time, may lead him towards – or block his path to – his first Grand Slam title.

Men and women in leadership roles face the same issue.  Each new promotion brings with it a new set of responsibilities which may challenge their self image.  Perhaps the newly promoted leader asks “am I really up to this?” or “is this really me?”  Perhaps s/he seeks to play down the change by imagining that no promotion or other change makes any difference because “I am who I am”.

A successful transition includes the integration into the leader’s self image of beliefs which support success and which also have a basis in reality.  Such a belief might be “I can engage others in a common vision and work with and through others to achieve our goals”.  Of course, the newly promoted leader needs to show that this is actually true – hence my phrase “a basis in reality”.  And there may need to be some interim belief such as “I can learn to engage others in a common vision and to work with and through others to achieve our goals”.

Paradoxically, individuals who are confident in themselves are often better able to integrate new concepts, precisely because they have a strong self image and are not afraid of losing themselves in the midst of changes and adjustments.  Of course, it also helps if they have a clear understanding of what’s needed in their new role, so that the adjustments they make support their success.  In some ways, as we adjust our self image we are like scientists, observing ourselves and identifying what is working for us and what is not as well as studying the differences between our previous role and the new role we have taken on or to which we aspire.

And of course, the need to adjust and adapt our self image is a constant through life as we meet many changes – moving from adolescence to adulthood, from being single to being married, to being a parent, to being old.  These and many other changes demand that we revisit our self image.