opinion

The exhilaration of a new role

You join a new organisation, excited and energised at the thought of what you’re going to be able to contribute and the changes you’re going to introduce to make this a better place to work and to make it function more effectively. You feel confident of being able to do a better job than your predecessor did.

Disillusionment begins

Just a few weeks after you arrive, you realise that the theme tune from the CEO conflicts fundamentally with what you believe to be right. Sixth months further on, and it’s clear – and even more serious – that the CEO is not open to fresh perspectives and views, and that the influencing skills that have served you well in the past, and accounted for some of your success to date, are definitely not working here.

You feel conflicted and frustrated, while performance in your team seems to be on a steady, albeit slow, slide. You seem to be having no more success than your predecessor, and the scope you have to make a real impact seems disappointingly limited.

Your need for a culture change

Your personal values seem to be at odds with those demonstrated by how the culture plays out in your new organisation. You can’t see yourself being able to tolerate this unless there’s a radical culture change – and you can’t see how you might influence that change for the better.

You feel isolated, unacknowledged and unheard: you seem to be unable to fully occupy your role.

It looks as though you may have made the wrong decision in accepting this job, and realising this comes as a blow.

A systemic constellations view

In such situations it’s easy for an individual’s confidence and self-esteem to feel under threat. In addition they can often feel that there’s no way out other than to leave – which would impact their career plans, the quality of their CV and their reputation.

Interestingly, when one looks at it systemically, a different perspective might show up. When an individual isn’t able to perform in their role, it may indicate that the role itself is burdened, and may explain why things seem so intractable. In a coaching constellations context, one could look at what might have been ignored in the organisation’s remembering, what or who might have been excluded or unacknowledged – and especially what might not have been acknowledged about the contribution of a previous occupant of the role. This is in particular the case when someone has left the organisation under a cloud or with some kind of negative connotation attached to them.

In reality, as long as that person and their contribution remain unacknowledged, the system will try to re-member them. This will manifest as some kind of dissonance – an apparently capable successor inexplicably unable to occupy their authority, or something seeming to inhibit the flow of energy in the organisation, for example.

The power of acknowledging

Precisely this occurred for one of my very senior clients, who was puzzled that, for the first time in her career, she lacked confidence and the self-assurance she had been used to – and notably a sense that her boss had confidence in her. When she acknowledged, with compassion, the experience of her boss – who had preceded her in her role some years before – the pressure he had been under in the glare of publicity, and his achievements, things shifted for her. Without any direct communication with him, she began to experience both a renewed sense from him that he trusted her and a renewal of her own self-confidence.

Fascinatingly, the simple act of acknowledgment can unlock a culture change for the better. Voices become heard, contributions along the timeline are made explicit, your influence as a leader becomes a more transparent and ‘flowing’ process, the stuckness dissipates, and blame diminishes.

Changing the culture means ‘being’ before ‘doing’

And as a result, team cohesion and alignment can improve, retention rates rise, and the mood music changes. Leadership becomes more effective. It becomes apparent that culture change is less a task and more a way of being, and your influence becomes a more culturally-aligned process.

Energy is released and you are freed up to do as a leader what you do best.

Photo by NOGRAN s.r.o. via Compfight

Influence, impact and culture change: a systemic view

When a new broom comes in to a senior role with high expectations, but is inexplicably unable to occupy their authority, the situation can benefit from a systemic constellations perspective. This means looking at what might have been ignored in the organisation’s remembering, what or who might have been excluded or unacknowledged - and especially what might not have been acknowledged about the contribution of a previous occupant of the role. Energy is then released and the leader is freed up to do what they do best.

Compassionate leadership

Compassion at work increases our willingness to trust: our brains respond more positively to bosses who have shown us empathy – and compassion increases the health and wellbeing not only of employees but also of the bottom line. When compassion is low, engagement and levels of discretionary effort are low, retention and recruitment are more difficult, stress and absenteeism are high, and success becomes more elusive.

Self-leadership

Unless we know how to lead ourselves, we can’t expect to be effective leaders of others - and self-coaching engenders a capacity for self-leadership as a pre-condition for leading others. High-quality leadership isn’t a check-list: it’s a question of how the leader brings the essence of themselves to their role, and for this, leaders need to courageously examine their own practices and thinking, and to build their self-awareness, self-understanding, and awareness of how the systems of relationships and influences around them work, and how they impact on each other.

Making an impact - through self- and system-awareness

Creating an impact that is authentic - and therefore compelling and lasting - means going beyond the tools and techniques for managing body language, creating rapport and getting 'in the zone' for a presentation. The individual needs to be at ease with themselves through a high level of self-awareness and centredness, and a comprehensive clarity about their relationship to the systems they move within.

Post-truth leadership

We are witnessing the rise of post-truth politics: a culture in which statements are framed largely by appeals to emotion, completely disconnected from the political facts, and in which factual rebuttals in discussion are ignored. Are we also seeing the rise of post-truth leadership?

Wilful blindness, belonging and exclusion

Wilful blindness - the blinding of oneself to uncomfortable facts - comes from fear of conflict and fear of change. A powerful, unconscious impulse to obey, conform, and preserve our sense of belonging, means that we favour information that makes us feel good about ourselves, and that makes us feel comfortable and more certain. However, it actually leaves us crippled, vulnerable and powerless. Without challenging our belonging, the chances of growth, progress and anchored, sustained change are diminished.

Coaching qualifications and accreditations: a new angle

Knowledge and experience alone may have little or nothing to do with what makes for an excellent coach – and yet until now many of the principles underlying coach assessment have been about competencies. Tatiana Bachkirova and Carmelina Lawton-Smith (2015), of Oxford Brookes University, argue that the complexity and unpredictability of coaching may need a new model, and they propose a capabilities approach rather than a competencies approach.

#hellomynameis: Courage, passion and pioneering

Consultant geriatrician Kate Granger, who set up, and became the force behind, the campaign #hellomynameis, has died of terminal cancer aged 34. Passionate about person-centred, compassionate care, she was a leader by virtue of her passion, commitment, courage and determination to reach as many people as she could in service of a message which she believed would create a better quality of medical professional by releasing more of their inherent humanity.

Leadership and the EU referendum

Leaders need not only to fully understand the issue they’re dealing with, especially if it challenges groupthink, but they also need to be able to communicate it in a way that is accessible and compelling to their audiences. The leader who connects with their followers will hold them in the palm of their hands. This is truly where the power is.

Culture and culture change

Organisational culture shows up in literally hundreds of different ways in which people behave and live out attitudes and beliefs. Changing a culture needs to be addressed both at the level of the leader and at the level of the whole system - and by exploring how these two interact. A culture in which the past is honoured is a culture in which change towards a new future can be embedded most effectively and sustainably.

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