opinion

Themes and messages

Themes and messages from a variety of sources often coalesce for me into a ‘message of the moment’: frequent issues that clients bring to coaching – consciously or unconsciously – underlying core motivations or blockers, incidentals that colleagues have noticed and that come up in our conversations or our peer group meetings…

Giving away authority

One theme in my world at the moment is leaders giving away their authority by prioritising other people’s agendas and interests over their own – often indiscriminately and usually unconsciously. It may be that the leader is rushed off her feet with not a moment to look up or look round, or that she has unquestioningly taken on someone else’s priorities. Life for her is a frantic hamster-wheel, but the leader has forgotten to review why she’s doing what she’s doing, whether it really is her who needs to implement all the tasks she’s busy with – and in the process she hands over her authority and power to others.

Or the leader may find it hard to push back, even when this simply means stating that he doesn’t have the capacity for yet another project at the moment, for fear (and on the assumption that) doing so makes him appear weak or vulnerable, and even when taking on one more project means that his own wellbeing is stretched and the quality of his work, his interactions and his relationships suffer, sometimes with ultimately serious consequences.

What maintains the loyalty?

What is it that maintains this blind loyalty to an assumption that questioning or challenging someone’s else’s agenda isn’t an OK thing to do? Sometimes it’s just habit, sometimes it’s the belief (usually an illusion) that creating the time and space to prioritise – even when 5 minutes is all that would be needed – will mean that the current task won’t get done.

Sometimes it’s loyalty to the leader’s outdated or misplaced assumption that they have to do everything themselves if things are to get done to the necessary standard. And sometimes it’s a reluctance to inhabit the authority that is theirs. In the process they unthinkingly (and inappropriately) leave it with a line manager.

Thinking – or lack of thought

Implicit in this process may be a thinking habit or indeed a lack of thought: the thinking habit may be an assumption that (from the most admirable of motives – to further the business agenda, or to ‘help out’, for instance) the leader’s own needs must be sacrificed to the needs of the organisation. And the lack of thought may reflect the leader’s belief that he or she needs to be busy at all costs, and/or that he or she is too busy to stop.

Consequences

We’ve all seen the overworked leader. The consequences of that overwork can impact the quality of their thinking, their decision-making and their judgments. They may unintentionally disempower and demotivate their reports by damaging engagement, and in the process adversely impact the return on investment that they’re getting from their people. Interestingly, they may also feel resentful – because of the choices they themselves have made. Equally they may be damaging their own prospects or reputation. Most seriously, they may damage their own mental and physical health.

Solutions

So what are the leader’s options? Starting down the path to solutions may be simpler and shorter than they may assume. If they can only remember to be aware of the moment when a situation is drawing them in, they can give themselves space to think, even if only for five minutes. In that space and time they can ask themselves four key questions:

first, if the choices they’re making serve their own wellbeing
second, whether they’re actually fulfilling the role of leadership that they occupy
third, when they’ve agreed to a task (or indeed volunteered to do it) what or who are they actually living out a loyalty to – and is that loyalty appropriate, and
fourth, what in fact might be a more useful guiding principle?

The key is learning to become aware of the moment of seduction that leads to an unthinking saying ‘yes’. And then conscious choice becomes possible.

Photo by Neil H via Compfight

Whose life is it anyway? Loyalties and agendas

Leaders may give away their authority by prioritising other people’s agendas and interests over their own – often indiscriminately and usually unconsciously. This blind loyalty to an assumption that questioning or challenging someone’s else’s agenda isn’t possible can, in turn, be down to another loyalty. This underlying loyalty can be to the leader’s outdated or misplaced belief that they have to do everything themselves if things are to get done to the necessary standard. This thinking habit or indeed a lack of thought - and the consequences - can be damaging to their leadership, career prospects, reputation, effectiveness, relationships, judgements and decisions. Leaders need to remember to be aware of the moment when a situation is drawing them in, and to give themselves space to think and options for alternative action.

Compassion: a business issue

Paul Gilbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Derby, defines compassion as "a sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it" – and he notes that the core of compassion is courage. Far from being a soft issue, his scientific perspective is directly relevant to how organisations can boost their effectiveness. Compassion can do much to restore trust, confidence and a sense of safety in the individual and in the system – and it’s partly about both presence and acceptance, with a close link to mindfulness. Leaders and their reports can take practical steps to boosting both their self-compassion and their compassion towards others.

Building resilience in a tougher world

We all - and particularly leaders - seem to be experiencing more and more pressure in our modern world. The need to build and maintain resilience seems more pressing than ever. By ‘resilience’ I mean not so much the ability to simply cope, but more the capacity to consistently adapt to changing circumstances, to learn from adversity, and to manage intense emotions and uncomfortable thinking in oneself and others. We need to learn to flex in our responses to adversity.

'Just being': my article in Coaching at Work

Transactional coaching objectives are irrelevant to some of my clients. 'Doing’ keeps them out of trouble but offers no fulfilment or satisfaction, whereas - ironically - 'being' and objective-free coaching offers them the time and space that are essential for them to profoundly engage with their coaching objectives

Honesty, wellbeing and mental health

Mental ill-health in organisations may be a taboo subject and may carry a stigma. Sufferers may suffer in silence until their condition worsens to the point of crisis. When crisis does strike, in addition to individuals’ difficulties, the organisational upheaval and cost can be significant, as can the damage to working relationships. However, in an open culture people are more likely to feel engaged and to give of their best, and evidence shows that business results are much better than in cultures where the issue is not faced. It is the coach's responsibility to work with whatever shows up - but not to aim to heal or cure.

A sense of belonging

The deepest human need is to belong. A strong sense of belonging and connectedness is positively associated with wellbeing, happiness and mental health. Feelings of belonging are understood to influence an individual’s identity and the extent to which they feel accepted, respected, valued for who they are - and these feelings in turn, by strengthening relationships, impact on engagement, effectiveness and productivity

Confidence, effectiveness and systems

Confidence that is depleted – which often results from an individual interpreting an external event or behaviour, and believing (albeit unconsciously) the message that they construct from it – leads very easily to effectiveness that is depleted. Looking outwards from the individual into their environment and the systems of relationships they are part of is often a more elegant and rapid process, offering more sustained and richer outcomes for rebuilding and re-resourcing, than cognitive approaches.

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.

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