What We're Thinking
Ideas I have found useful
Success in navigating complexity requires a particular outlook or mindset, which includes a commitment to staying in the present as much as possible. I’m always surprised at how challenging my monkey brain makes it to do that. Staying in the moment requires letting go any worries about the future and any assessments from the past.
Looking for lessons.
I write this from my office in London, where I sit following a largely sleepless night. Before the first polls closed on America’s historic election night, I hosted a lovely dinner with a handful of friends and colleagues where, mercifully, very little conversation was devoted to the campaign or the potential results that were only a few hours away.
Seeing the system sometimes means looking in the mirror.
Lately, our news in the US has been full of stories about young men who have committed crimes of horrific violence. Stabbings. Shootings. Bombings. Mass killings. Terrorism. Last week I came across this thoughtful analysis in The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/2dh48Ms
We focus on the wrong things.
One of the best leadership development experiences I ever participated in didn’t even bill itself as having to do with leadership at all. It was one of those men’s weekends. You know, where a bunch of guys who don’t know each other sign up for two and a half days together, usually in a remote setting, to learn more about “what it means to be a man” in today’s world.
I don’t mean that as cynically as it sounds. It was a profound experience for me and for many who participated.
It had such an impact because we created an environment where there was no place for hubris and ego, and where genuine emotions were authentically on display. We did a great deal of work on ourselves, increasing self-awareness and building self-knowledge. In this micro-culture of our own making, we each found trust, respect, compassion, and empathy. This made it possible to be our best selves, as leaders when needed and as followers the rest of the time.
These characteristics are exactly what should be part of any leadership development effort.
I say “should be” because most often they aren’t. Instead, we get hours and hours on competencies, skill, development, and techniques. Or worse, “best practices”. It gets drilled into us from every angle that a good leader is a confident leader, and we in turn conflate this confidence with competence.
If this was true, why are we always surprised when the charming, charismatic, confident leader flames out in such a spectacular way when the heat is on?
Ray Williams in his blog in Psychology Today has a bit to say in response to this question. A big part of the challenge comes from the superficial way we “do leadership development.” Many organizations tend to view leadership development as a product, and this leads to a search for quick fixes, the latest book, and the biggest guru.
Closely connected to this perspective is the need to measure everything. Don’t get me wrong, measurement is useful for many things. Leadership development isn’t one of them, at least not in the short term. If you want to look out over years and track how leaders are growing in your organization and give some credit for that to your development efforts, that can work. Pressures to deliver often create an urgency to find quicker payoffs, and that can be a problem.
A perennial leadership debate is the built vs. inborn question: Are leaders born or can leadership be taught? I find it can be taught, but not in the ways we traditionally think. Self-awareness, empathy, and humility are the cornerstones of strong and powerful leadership. We reduce the likelihood of sustainable change if we don’t start here.
Last point (for now): Leadership development is not a commodity. It is not something only brought in from the outside. It needs to be nurtured and embedded in the culture of the organization.
What have been your experiences with leadership development?
