opinion

Stress, relationships and business results are often pronounced in the same breath.

Stress is often linked to working relationships

The stress that leaders and their reports talk about is often related to the nature of their working relationships, the scope they experience at work for being recognised and valued (or not) for who they are, and the space for them to bring their authentic selves to work – as well as the sheer pressure of the demands of the workload, of course.

The link between authenticity, team effectiveness and business results

One of my clients discovered during his coaching the direct link between his authenticity, his team’s effectiveness, and his business results. He came to coaching wanting to change some behaviours that were habitual but which others experienced as dismissive, arrogant and impatient – to the extent that rates of staff retention were moving in distinctly the wrong direction and the reputational damage was becoming a source of corporate concern.

Feedback indicated that some of his reports were spending significant amounts of time preparing psychologically for the stressful, negative and wounding experience they had come to expect of him when they needed his input on how to tackle a particular task, or worse, when there was bad news to share. During that preparation time they said they were unproductive and distracted.

A disconnect between behaviour and values

Fascinatingly, this client was aware that his behaviour didn’t correspond to his values – which included respect for others, and developing them to be their best selves. It left him feeling bad about himself and about his impact. It was behaviour he’d learnt years before as an associate working for a partner, but it wasn’t true to who he was and how he really saw himself.

Once he allowed himself to be who he was, a much more patient, interested and compassionate self emerged who enabled others to learn, who learnt to coach others from his experience of being coached, and who saw his team begin to flourish in a way that meant they took on more, leaving him the freedom to do other things that drove the business forward in new ways.

Stress retreats and productivity increases

It became clear that the kind of stress he had been seeding in others was retreating. The quality of his relationships changed, and there was evidence too of greater trust, coherence, confidence to take the initiative and productivity in his team.

The line manager often doesn’t know the remedy

In my experience the resolution to such situations, which are sadly all too common, doesn’t always benefit from the kind of insight and courage – and, importantly, coaching – that this leader had. More often the line manager remains unaware of the impact of their behaviour until a report is signed off with stress, and even then, quite often the line manager is unequipped to change their behaviour in a way that will nurture more productive and healthy working relationships with reports who may feel undervalued and unacknowledged.

A systemic coaching approach to a mental health issue

When I coach a client who is stressed by their relationship with their boss I find that taking a systemic coaching approach is resourcing for the client in ways that other approaches might not be. Coaching systemically means I see the client as part of their systems of relationships rather than just as a victim of stress, and engaging with the wellbeing agenda is just one manifestation of my ease and comfort working in the territory of mental health just as I am in any other territory the client brings.

The CEO’s role is about relationships

A CEO recently remarked to me that his role is to manage people and relationships – and he’s right. Indeed isn’t that the role of all leaders?

Photo by Andrés Nieto Porras via Compfight

Stress, relationships and business results

Line managers can unwittingly create damaging stress in the relationships they have with their reports. This can come from their modelling themselves against others whose values they don't share - and once they allow themselves to be their authentic selves their working relationships can be transformed. Systemic coaching blended with comfort working with mental health issues can resource the client in valuable ways.

Leadership in professional service firms

Leadership is particularly complex and demanding in professional service firms such as law and accountancy. In such firms not only is profit generated through each fee-earner's billable hours, but the distribution and clarity of power is less clear, more diffuse and less demarcated than in other organisations. Leadership is an ambiguous matter of high autonomy and yet often high consensus.

A Bigger Conversation

Relationships - between people, and between people and events, behaviours, beliefs, cultures and outputs - are the key to organisational health. Sometimes skilled, capable and experienced leaders don't seem fully able to occupy their authority, sometimes the same challenge seems to recur repeatedly. Such challenges may require a Bigger Conversation: a conversation that addresses not just individuals or individual issues, but which sees them as an ecosystem.

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.

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