Leadership in the New Normal (part two): what's your role in relation to others?

Leaders Lead…

The second of our beautiful conversations exploring leadership in the ‘new normal’ was on the question,

What’s your role as a leader in relation to others?

I often ask a question with clients, and of myself, about where my focus is in any moment, and how much it’s on the task, the ‘work’, and how much it’s on the person in front of me.

At work, it’s usually the case that we’re rewarded for the task part more than the people part. There is a ‘job description’, there are often targets, expectations, and judgements in relation to how we occupy time and what sort of outputs we create.

Even the word ‘leader’ implies directionality, a destination, a chain of influence.

That’s the world of work right?

People-Oriented versus Task-Oriented?

I like to think I can hold both—we all can—and I can see them as discrete places to focus, to switch attention back and forth, but it can also be helpful to imagine them as a continuum with task / people at either end and, therefore, set this as a trade-off as if we had only 100 attention points and had to distribute them between these two points.

An exercise, not a model of reality, but it can illuminate where we are placing our attention and that awareness creates a feedback mechanism and options for where we look and listen next.

Coaches Coach…

In my work as a coach, I’m rarely, if ever, being held accountable for the outcome of someone’s work and so I usually imagine my focus is in the 90/10 zone—10% task, 90% person.

What if I check-in again? Rather than go with what I usually think to be true, I sat with the question again as we went into the call yesterday, and found a different answer—that it was probably closer to 50/50.

I found my focus split between the people who joined the event and how I imagined the call might go—the timing, the questions and exercises I was going to run, how it might go, who might attend…

I don’t want to make one focus right or wrong, better or worse, but it’s good to notice, and it gives us a place to choose to re-focus, should we want to.

We need both, of course, but in our very task-focused world it’s a nice reminder of where the pull is and what’s actually important.

What is It to Be People-Oriented?

And, even when we think we are being person-oriented, how much of it is for the purpose of… which is another way of moving the people pieces for a particular outcome.

Yes, of course, we have a duty of care, a responsibility and a desire to grow and support the people in our world. But, I wonder, if we are truly honest, how much of this is for a purpose—to build capacity, grow skills, develop that person as a leader within the context of the organisation. Or to develop them in the direction I or you think is good for them?

I’d be curious how easy it is. or how much discomfort it creates, for you to let go of, or loosen any attachment to a task-related outcome?

Ask yourself honestly, and take a moment if you can, because it’s rare I’ve sat with someone who is able to answer a clear, unequivocal ‘yes’ to that question.

These are understandable motives, and good-hearted ones, ones you get paid for (!), but I want you to notice the difference. Notice in yourself, and also notice in the people around you.

What if we stripped back the ‘purpose’ of anything we do in relation to the people around us, other than simply be with, and appreciate them?

This is where we went yesterday—in the short time we had—dipping a toe into what this conceptually and also trying out, in a small way, what this felt like in practice.

I ask these kinds of questions, and I facilitate activities, not to preach, at least that’s not my intention, but to expand horizons, and to shift perspectives so when you join a conversation you can take away what looks interesting and helpful to you, and leave behind the rest.

These ‘Leadership Series’ conversations are short, but I want them to be a space to come as you are, to allow the noise of the day to settle and to play a little with something new and potentially different.

Foundations and Futures…

In step one, we explored the question, what does it mean to be grounded? What is it that creates a solid foundation no matter what? And what, might be the implications for how as a leader when you’re standing on firm, versus shaky ground?

In step three we go back to the personal, back to you, and look at what it means to be ‘authentic’. An over-used word but I’m still trying to find a better one for that sense of feeling secure in who we are, knowing that are equipped for the work in front of us and being able to put down any pretence we make at being someone else. It’s great to be learning, to have ambition to be better, to strive for mastery… I want that for you too! But we all know that’s a different feeling to losing our ‘self’ in some perfect, imagined, future way of being that will solve any and every challenge we have now.

If you’re curious about other events, please do join the priority list (sign-up below) or check out what’s next here.

With love,

Cathy