We worry so much about the future that we fail to manage the present. We build artificial visions of the future and then expect life to match up to them. And when they inevitably don’t, we burden ourselves with disappointment and a sense of failure. We use our heads and our gut – but not our hearts, the most formidable organ of them all.
leaders blinded by their own light
If hubris is a state of unsustainable triumphalism, then how do I keep myself open to the possibility of sustainable discovery and achievement?
The Behaviour of Ailing Corporations
How your company behaves to any one section of its stakeholders has a direct impact on its business and outcomes – because it offers the world a window into its soul: its values, priorities, limitations, aspirations and ability to reach its outcomes.
The Vulnerability of leadership
Those who have followed my work will know I believe we need to build a strong body of knowledge to enable us to understand the experience of leaders’ learning. Not what we think leaders ought to be learning – but how they actually do. And this is also the theme of my doctoral research programme.
Don’t we know enough about leaders’ learning through the hundreds of thousands of political, business and other autobiographies? Well they might give us a clue – but are these books an investigation into the authors’ learning experiences or are they a review of their successes and, hopefully, failures? Those are two very different views.
We also have hundreds of books telling us how leaders ought to learn or what makes a good leader; but these are rarely if ever based on the first hand experience of what leaders are going through now. Before you tell me what a good leader is, it might be wise to listen closely to what leaders are actually experiencing in the field.
Both my practice and my research programme have been designed to:
- understand the first hand experiences of top leaders –and their successors; both through my own practice and through the group of top leaders working with me in my research
- ensure that we build up a solid body of validated and scientifically documented evidence of these experiences
- apply this knowledge for the benefit of leaders and their constituencies, be those constituencies organizations, institutions or countries.
The Vulnerability of Leaders
What have I learned about leadership in my 40 years in corporate life – as producer, then leader and now as mentor and coach?
That leaders and leadership are immensely vulnerable. Vulnerable to the pressures and delusions that both they and we impose on them:
- to thinking that they are responsible for everything
- to thinking that they have authority for everything
- to being over protected and cut off
- to being over criticized and isolated
- to believing they should have all the answers
- to believing they do have all the answers
- to feeling they have no space to learn
- to feeling they have no need to learn
- to seeing themselves as invulnerable and all powerful
- to being seen as invulnerable and therefore ‘fair game’.
Each one of these paradigms can help turn an open democratic University President into a besieged, defensive, secretive tyrant. Or a rational, confident CEO into an indecisive ditherer.
The LeaderNet
Leadership is not a person or even a small vanguard; it is a network of relationships that is constantly in play within and around an institution or environment. Without a product, market, work force, suppliers or structure there is no organization. And without an organization there is no leader. That leader is – and must be – in constant relationship with the network that links him to his stakeholders.
And that’s – essentially- what I do: I work with top leaders and their successors to make sure that they build, balance and sustain that network – their LeaderNet: to keep them and their organizations, strong, open and successful.
If these thoughts resonate a little with you, please get in touch. Whether you think we can work together or you simply want to discuss or challenge what I say, please contact me at stephen@stephenbarden.org.
Managing fear
If wishful thinking – in the form of greed – got us into taking excessive risk, then realistic, clear , values based thinking will be needed to get us out.
Fulfilment is a participation sport
My assistant, Gemma, said a few weeks ago, apropos I have no idea what, " I don’t buy this business of waiting for the ideal job. We should just get on and do the best with what we’ve got".
My first reaction was that she was wrong; it was too pessimistic a view of the world. After all my own experience had been that when I had ‘got on and did the best with what I had’ and didn’t pursue my own creativity it drifted further and further away from me.
Then it struck me that, in the past, I hadn’t done ‘the best I could with what I had’. Because if I had, as a creative person, I would have continued to seek my creativity in whatever job/life/marriage I had. And, as someone seeking after meaning- I would have continued to do so, wherever I was.
What had I done instead? I’d told myself that
"This job is not creative; is not meaningful – is not me. I’ll take what it can give me: an opportunity for my management skills; for making good money; for turning around companies. It’s a job for my skills – not my commitment.
You could summarise it in one sentence "This job is not me"
It’s part of a conversation I’ve been having all my life; first with myself, my parents and partners. And more recently listening to my clients – and my children. It starts off with the question "What do I want to be when I grow up?; moves on to "This is my ideal job/ love/ life…" and then inevitably to "There’s something missing. There’s no joy, creativity, love in it" And finally to: This job, this relationship, this life…is not me"
And what does that mean when we say that about ourselves? That we’re holding ourselves outside our own life.
If we say ‘this is not me’, what we’re doing is refusing to commit ourselves to the present. We’ve always got one foot outside the door. And the problem with standing on the threshold is that you never fully experience (or even know) what goes on in the room; you’re forever an observer.
And creativity, joy and love are participation sports. As is fulfilment
Joy is an experience; an emotion that results not just from doing but from participating. Fully -with both feet well past the threshold. With the door shut. And a commitment that you’ll give it the best you have.
That you’ll give it all you have.
And you can’t create something by just looking at it. You’re going to have to get your hands dirty.
And love? How can you find love when you’re forever hovering?
Commitment doesn’t imprison you. It doesn’t mean you can’t walk out the door if you want to go further. It simply means that while you’re in the room you’ll give all you have. And by committing yourself, you maximise your experience (your wisdom of skills, emotions, thoughts) that equips you to make the best of the future – in the same or in other rooms.
So next time you find your job is not ‘giving’ you enough authority/ creativity/ joy/ scope to use your real skills (and whatever else you feel is missing) ask yourself how much of those aspects of yourself are you giving it? And what would happen if, as Gemma said, you gave it the best of you?
Beware of coaches bearing assumptions
Coaching is about change. You get coached (whether in sport, work or elsewhere) to change performance, perception, or relationships. And, in my experience, the most effective change occurs as a result of the client’s self discovery; self-discovering her need for change, identifying her goals and developing the strengths and skills to achieve those goals.
And what is the greatest danger to self discovered change? Judgements. Assumptions. First you’ll get the judgements of the client about himself and about the coaching process. This could vary from ‘I’m just not a good manager’ to ‘I’m being coached as punishment; they’re telling me I’m not good enough’.
Then you’ll get the judgements and assumptions of the coach. These could range from: ‘ this guy’s not a good manager’ to ‘ my psychology training tells me that he’s depressed; until I know better I’m going to have to assume that’s the case’.
And the trouble with assumptions and judgements is that they are a mechanism to stop change – not enable it. We make assumptions as a short cut. An assumption is a tool which says ‘as a result of my experience, I am concluding (without further enquiry) that this person is Label A or is acting according to Label B’. We conclude that this person is a snap shot of our past experience.
In assuming judgement we are saying(at best) " you’re likely to behave in this way" or (more likely) "you should behave in a way that I think you should".
When we judge in this way we’re actually making the following statements: "a) I know what you should be doing, you do not; b) I therefore know you better than you know yourself; c) Until you do what I ‘suggest’ you will be ‘in deficit’; d) Because I know what to do and you do not, and because I know you better than you know yourself, we should also assume that I have a better idea of how to do it than you do".
And, until the client does what the coach thinks, they will be in conflict; consciously or not. If, on the other hand, the client does follow the coach’s ‘advice’ she may be acting entirely at odds with the way she sees the world and therefore with the way she manages the world.
My only role as coach is to help you to a) understand your relationship with your world; b) find out how you want to manage or change that relationship and c) uncover and hone your own skills and strengths to achieve that change. If I do anything to inhibit you, as my client, from achieving those ends, I’m not doing my job. And making assumptions about you is a sure fire way to do just that; because it’s my relationship with my world that I’m ‘helping you understand’ – not yours.
Does that mean that coaches should not take any (moral, ethical) position? Of course we should. But we should be taking an ethical stand when we decide whether or not we work with(or continue to work with) a particular client. The job of a coach is to enable not convert. If it’s morally abhorrent to you as a coach to enable a client’s self discovery, then it’s time to end that relationship.
Now, so far, you’ll probably find most coaches agreeing with me in a "so what" kind of way. The problem is that we’re not always aware that we’re working according to an assumption.
I was a CEO for a decade before I became a coach. The other day I found myself saying to a client "Your experience may be different to mine, but I found -when I was a CEO – it was a good idea to act in this way…"
Despite the caveat, the message my client may have received was: "This guy was a CEO for a long time – I haven’t even got there yet – if he says it’s a good idea, then odds are, it is". What did I do that made him think that?After all I used all the right language, didn’t I? I assumed that my experience was’ superior’ to his; that he was less capable than I of finding a solution – and, like it or not, I told him so. In short: with the best will in the world, I judged that my way of seeing the world was ‘better’ than his.
It gets even more insidious than that. A coach can make assumptions and judgements based on her values. And I don’t mean only ‘moral values’ but values in the sense of priorities and world view. That means that if that coach was trained as a psychotherapist, unless she is very, very aware she could well approach each coaching session with the assumption that she is there to enable therapy: a cure; a restoration to health. That, then presupposes another assumption: that there is something wrong with the client; that the coach/therapist is there to cure with her superior knowledge. Can there be anything more inhibiting to your growth and development than an assumption that you’re ill?
Similarly, my training and experience as a professional manager came from directive, hierarchical media organisations steeped in the newsroom/production floor ethos that the editor’s word is final. Sure, there may be discussion before hand but the final vision is held by the boss. So, with that ethos in mind, I need to guard against falling back into the old rhythm of gathering all the ideas and thoughts and packaging them into an action plan for the client. But what’s wrong with that if I do it ‘with the client’s permission’? It’s a pretty democratic and even creative way of managing, isn’t it? It may be a creative way of managing but it isn’t a creative way of coaching. Instead of enabling my client to make the linkages to her own experience (so that she can learn and carry on learning), I’ve – once again – imposed my experience.
Are there any prompts that can help alert both coach and client to the danger of an assumption lurking in the room?
The most obvious one is: ‘What’s your assumption here?’ Otherwise known as ‘Where did that question come from?"
Both coach and client’s antennae could start quivering when the coach uses words like ‘I suggest’, ‘in my experience’, ‘why don’t you?’ ‘you need to’or even ‘did you not think it would be better if you…?" Statements like ‘in my experience’ are not necessarily loaded with assumption, although ‘In my experience, when I was a CEO" are.
Intuitively (as coach or client) if you sense this relationship is simply not feeling equal , then the chances are one person is imposing an assumption on the other; somebody is being inhibited or shut down. And if you feel that, say so clearly. And keep on saying it until all the assumptions are crystal clear.
