Developing the 'eye' of leadership

"The 'eye' of leadership" is actually the title of a book by Nigel Nicholson (Professor at the London Business School) - though he writes it as "The 'I' of leadership". Nigel is someone I'm lucky enough to have worked with quite a bit and what I really like about his book (and his whole approach) is that he doesn't say leadership is this or is that, but rather that leadership is a ongoing dynamic process of paying attention - in his model to "Seeing", "Being" and "Doing". This fits with my personal experience of the reality of leadership, and it also fits the way I work as a coach to leaders, or in designing leadership development programmes.

The model I use, for what I call "learning by experience", has the same 6 pathways, but a slightly different construct, involving "Seeing", "Feeling" and "Thinking" as the loops between "Knowing" and "Doing". (NB You can click on the picture to enlarge it)

The message in both our models - supported by neuroscience as much as personal observation and theorising - is that you need to focus on "Seeing" (ie "Perception") as the key to success.

Practices every leader should practice

A couple of weeks ago I was working with a large multi-national on a development programme for their senior leaders from around the world. It was specifically focused on dealing with a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous world - the world we all seem to be faced with these days! What we worked on were essentially the three thinking practices that I have recommended for many years to the executives I coach - and I realise I have never posted about them before. So here they are:

1. Focus attention on the inner world. This means looking at the assumptions, beliefs, biases and blind spots which distort our perception, and hence constrain our thinking and our actions. It means paying attention not only to your own inner world, but also to that of others you interact with, and to the the collective inner world of the organisation. This allows you to be more aware of habitual patterns of thinking or action, giving you the option of interrupting automatic processes and making more intentional decisions.

2. Take another's perspective. We all believe we do this all the time, but actually it is harder than we think. Often we get stuck in our own heads, and simply project our thinking onto others - so we don't really look from their perspective, we imagine they are seeing things as we do. I find I need the explicit help of dialogue with other people, or specific thinking tools, to really shift my point of view.

3. Use the power of the non-rational. I would usually combine this with both 1 and 2. I am talking here about listening to what your body is telling you, and using pictures, imagery, and metaphor to understand (and communicate) complexity. In complex situations the non-rational right brain often understands much more than the rational left brain can cope with.

All these ways of thinking (practices) are things we can get better at by repetition (practice). With practice they take less effort and you become more fluent and effective in their use. So don't let them be one-off experiences on a programme. Practice, practice, practice.

Performing at altitude!

I've had a long break over the London 2012 summer, so it's a while since I've blogged. But I think I have a good insight to kick of this new season - at least, it has been really helpful to me!

In the last two weeks I have been working on programmes with very senior participants who appeared far less skilled than you would have expected from people at their level, especially around building relationships, understanding the politics of the situation and exercising influence without direct authority. What became clear in our work was that they already used these skills in getting to where they were, but something was now de-skilling them - that something being what you might call the "altitude" of their situation.

Let me explain the reference. I am not a rock climber, but a friend who is once told me that climbs are rated for difficulty on two measures. One is technical difficulty and the other is "exposure" - essentially a measure of how scary it looks and feels. You could call it the fear factor. Climbers recognise that what seems easy at one height becomes almost impossible at another. Even without going into the brain science, we all know this from experience. Imagine walking along a bench one foot wide but only one foot off the floor - no risk, no fear, so no problem at all. You know that you'd probably even be happy to jump up and down, joke around, stand on one leg etc, all without falling off. Now imagine that was the one foot wide top of the parapet surrounding the viewing platform of a great tower - you probably wouldn't even get up there, and you certainly wouldn't mess around.

So take this back to the senior executives / partners I was working with and look at some of the key skills they needed to use but weren't. One of those skills is keeping your attention focused on the other person when listening. Not exactly a new concept for them. But what happens when you suddenly realise how important this conversation is? Let's say the other person is a global CEO of your key client, you only meet him once a year, other people are watching how you do - you'd better not screw it up! It's hard not to start thinking about what you are going to say to impress them, what you have to offer, how you are doing so far etc. In other words, all your attention is on you! So guess what, you've already screwed it up!

Another skill is seeing things from another perspective - again, not rocket science and something every successful executive can do. But what if the stakes are really high? Ultimately the other person's view is something you're imagining, whereas your own view is the reality you see. Are you really going to trust your imagination over your own perception? No way! So your ability (or agility) is gone and you are stuck in your own world view with no sensitivity to how it looks to others. Again, that's not a recipe for success.

The last example is the skill of using non-rational data, in other words your senses and your intuitions. This is also something that nearly all successful people can do to a greater or lesser extent. But for many, it is yet another skill that deserts them just when they need it most. When the situation feels high risk, we may sense that a particular action is right, but we won't actually take it until we have checked out our instincts with rational analysis. And that brings two problems. One is that the moment for that action may have passed before we've finished thinking. And the other is that our rational brain is not well equipped to give us the right answer. So what we feel is reducing the risk of getting it wrong is actually increasing that risk. 

So what? What can you do about all this? Well, I suppose the benefit of this insight is that once you recognise the true problem, you can find the right solutions. You don't necessarily need to learn new skills, you need to do two other things. Firstly, you need to work directly on the fear factor, by learning how to monitor your state and use appropriate techniques to manage it. Secondly, you need to make sure that certain skills you do have become such ingrained habits that they do not desert you even at altitude - and you do this through conscious developmental practice.

It sounds like the approach of a top athlete, doesn't it. Which is not surprising, because they know better than anyone that once you have reached a certain level, it is not your technical skills that limit you, it is your ability to use them when it matters most.

Talking about feelings vs speaking with feeling

It's amazing how often we make exactly the wrong choice about which of these to do!

Let's look first at talking about feelings. Sometimes we think we should do this when we feel something is (emotionally) important to us. And yet it can sometimes fall strangely flat so that other people just don't seem to engage with it. This is actually not surprising. As a physiological effect, when you name an emotion you reduce your own (and others) emotional response to it. It seems that in naming it you objectify it, so that you do not experience it. For example, in saying "I'm really excited" you lose some of the feeling of excitement. So you don't want to name the positive feeling, you want to talk with excitement about what is making you excited. You DO want to name your negative feelings! For example, saying "I can feel I'm starting to get really angry" actually lessens the anger. Yet in many management meetings I've been to, it's the "I'm excited" comment that gets said a lot, and the "I'm getting angry" comment that is taboo. With predictable consequences!

Contrast that with speaking with feeling. This is what we do when we allow our feelings to show in what we say and how we say it. Colloquially we say we are speaking from the heart. This intensifies the emotional impact not just on you but also on those listening to you, through the power of limbic resonance. This ability to speak from the heart is something all good leaders need to develop. Yet too many still see that being business-like and professional means speaking without feeling. Even worse, they can try to talk in a business-like way about things they actually feel strongly positive about. Oh dear! Perhaps they are afraid the feelings will overwhelm them or others. But if the feeling is getting too strong, and becoming overwhelming, you can always use naming to bring it back under control.

So to paraphrase a famous prayer, you need courage to speak from the heart (ie speak with feeling) when it's helpful, humility to acknowledge your emotions (ie talk about feelings) when they are not, and wisdom to distinguish between the two situations.

What are you afraid of?

I've been musing a lot about fear in the last week - it's always present in our work (and in our lives) but often below the level of our conscious awareness. I've been focusing on it more consciously because of a series of workshops I've been giving looking at behaviour from a neuro-biology perspective. Fear (avoidance of threat / danger) is one of the primary organising principles of the brain.

Fear can be a useful stimulant. At reasonable levels, it certainly mobilises us to action. Unfortunately, the brain chemicals which stimulate action have the side effect of disabling new thinking. So we are energised to act, but on instinct or habit rather than by conscious choice. This is why people rarely find original or creative solutions under stress or in a crisis - they simply do more of what they have always done. Look at the Financial Services industry in the last few years (or European politicians in the last few months). Part of a leaders job is to decrease, not increase, the fear. Yet few seem to know that this is what they should do, let alone how to do it.

Fear is decreased when we recognise it. Too often we attempt to suppress fear by denial, or by using another covering emotion like anger, which only makes the brain's fear response stronger. To really free ourselves from fear, we should actively look out for it and name it when we feel it. It seems that in recognising our fear, we are also recognising that the threat is in our head rather than external. As the old phrase goes, "there is nothing to fear except fear itself". In other words, what we fear is our interpretation of the situation rather than the situation itself. This is why re-framing also works so well as the second step in reducing fear - it changes our view of a situation so it is not a threat but an opportunity.

Fear can even be what stops some people coming to coaching or from exploring their deeper issues within the coaching. For example, there are the generic fears associated with the Centaur character styles, ie fear of looking foolish / vulnerable, fear of the coach's disapproval, fear of being seen as ordinary / worthless, or simply fear of being seen at all. (I've only listed four, as the fifth style's fear - fear of being ignored / deprived - is not likely to stop them entering into coaching, though it may stop them resolving their issues and thus ending the coaching.) Like a leader, part of the coach's role is to recognise and help decrease the fear, so as to enable new thinking.

So I believe coaches and leaders both have to be comfortable with fear. What are you afraid of?!

The leader's dilemma is a "Prisoner's Dilemma"

Most people have heard of the "Prisoner's Dilemma" in the context of using game theory to explore approaches to collaboration, negotiation etc. I'm using it as a way of introducing the use of two-chair / empty chair work to unblock empathy.

In it's original form, the story is that two prisoners are locked in cells with keypad locks (ok, I've modernised this bit). One prisoner has managed to find out half the code, the other prisoner has found out the other half, and they agree to share what they know. The dilemma is whether to share the truth. If you give the other prisoner the right code and they give you a false code, then they will get out but you won't. On the other hand if you are false but they give you the truth, you escape and they don't. If neither of you tells the truth, neither of you gets out - the lose-lose scenario. Only if both tell the truth do you both go free - the win-win scenario.

I used this recently as a metaphor for the leader's dilemma re connection. To connect emotionally with (and hence inspire) someone in your team, requires both parties to open up a bit and share their true thoughts and feelings. But many leaders hold back for fear of being the "loser" in this deal - they would rather risk the "lose-lose" scenario than risk looking foolish for their (one-way) openness.

There are two ways to use this metaphorical story to change your behaviour. The first approach is simply to believe in game theory, which suggests that the only logical action is to share the truth, because you do not lose anything by it. The other person might gain something and you gain nothing, but you do not actually lose. You could call this trust in logic the Mr Spock [from Star Trek] approach!

The second approach, which we could call the Captain Kirk approach, is to cheat! [For non Star Trek fans, he famously didn't believe in the no win Kobayashi Maru scenario, so re-programmed it the night before his test.] What I mean by "cheat" in this case is that you can try to find out their part of the code (ie what they are thinking and feeling) without them telling you. This is where the two-chair / empty chair work can help. And the goal is positive - it's to use what you learn in this way to connect and inspire, ie to set you both free.

Developing the "vision thing"

Communicating your vision is a pretty important part of your role as a leader. Yet it's something a lot of people have great difficulty with. It was discussed a lot on a recent leadership development programme I worked on, both in the main room and in the smaller coaching group I was leading, and during these discussions I noticed something which I think is significant and which might help in this area.

When people were specifically asked to explain their vision, a few things typically seemed to happen. They got a little anxious, they started to think about what "should" be in a vision, and they started to look for inspiration from corporate strategy or other vision statements they had read. In other words it was a pretty cognitive (left brain) process. And the end result was usually pretty impersonal and uninspiring - it didn't create much emotional connection.

When they were asked to talk about something apparently purely personal, eg why they still stayed with the organisation, or the story of their ideal future with the orgnaisation, something completely different happened. They usually spoke straight from the heart, they didn't talk about business strategy but painted a picture of what it will be like in the future (how it feels, what is seen as important in the organisation, how others see it etc). It was usually truly inspiring - engaging me emotionally and raising their and my energy.

And it struck me this is just another application of my principle that business is always personal. Their personal answers were their business visions. If the purpose of your vision is to inspire the people you lead, you have to engage their emotions not their rationality. And the place to start is with what truly inspires you, ie where you, as the leader, want to go.

Is your boss a "competitive dad"? Or are you?

The title is a reference to a character in a TV comedy sketch show ("The Fast Show"). If you haven't seen it, this character was the dad of two small boys, who was constantly playing games with them (eg cricket), but instead of helping them get better at the game or get satisfaction out of playing, he would simply try to show them how good he was by trying to win. Eventually they would always just abandon the game to talk to mum, leaving him still desperately competing, but completely ignored by them. Very funny, partly because although it's a caricature, we've all seen that behaviour - though obviously never done it ourselves!

It came up as the perfect way for one of my clients to describe their boss - or at least the experience of working with them. As you can imagine, they weren't very motivated! I won't go into all the work we did from that, but it was a helpful image to allow them to engage with the boss rather than just withdraw, to overcome their feelings of inadequacy, and to have an adult to adult conversation with their boss about the dynamic of their interaction.

It's not an uncommon problem. Marshall Goldsmith, in his book "What got you here won't get you there", lists "Twenty habits that hold you back". Number 1 is "Winning too much" and number 2 is "Adding too much value" - which is another way of showing you can always do better than others. They are fantastic traits on the way up. They can be real problems when your job as a leader is to make everyone else do better, ie make them winners. I'd recommend the book - the title alone is worth having on your bookshelves as a constant reminder!

Sustainability requires a personal stance

I went to a talk on sustainability in business, which focused on the concept of "responsible management". As I listened I was struck by the way this chimed perfectly with seeing business more personally and was a good example of how the route to responsible management might be simpler than we want to believe.

I wondered if responsible management would be a natural consequence of encouraging more leaders to take personal responsibility for their decisions, rather than justifying them as just a part of the business role they play. We want them to be saying "I think this is right" rather than the more impersonal "I think this is what I have to do in the interests of shareholders", or even "of stakeholders".

Of course, this assumes that leaders bringing more of themselves to work and following their own conscience would actually be more responsible. But for the "good guys" that will be true. And this change would only affect the "good guys". There would be no change for the "bad guys" - of whom I think there are, in any case, relatively few. They've always acted on their own personal agenda, and always will!

So the sustainability message could simply be that business leadership is not just about doing a job, it's about taking a personal stance. Then all we need to worry about is who we are appointing as our leaders! Which, of course is always the real issue.