“What’s the most significant shift you’ve observed in effective leaders recently?”, she asked me.
Context:
Let me give you some background of where the question was sourced.
We were in the middle of a reflective exercise on an offsite with an extended leadership group of 17 on Tuesday.
Not any old leadership group.
This is a thriving organisation. It grew throughout the tech slowdown. It has consistently ranked towards the top in Glassdoor’s Best Place to Work.
This year hasn’t been plain-sailing. Growth comes with challenges, as we all know.
I was asked to work with this group in a 2-hour slot on their 2-day offsite.
I normally decline such invitations. That’s more ‘keynote’ territory than ‘coaching for impact’.
But I know the business well. I had worked with some of the people in the room before. This was a rare opportunity for this extended EMEA leadership group (17!) to work together in-person, without distraction.
The brief was clear. Connection and alignment.
Connection:
This is a curious, intelligent, vibrant, high-performing leadership group.
Coming into the day, they respected and valued each other, without all of them knowing each other that well before Tuesday’s session. Some did, but not all.
They completed some pre-work and we had an energising, impactful, fun and insightful opening hour whereby they all got to know and understand a lot more about each other – the human beings around the room.
After an hour connecting at a deeper level than the normal Business As Usual, that respect morphed into care and empathy.
Alignment:
With the care and empathy comes more space to be honest and courageous.
When you then hear and see others, who you previously felt were impenetrable and bullet proof, speak of challenges and worries the same as yours…you feel like you belong there.
When you feel like you belong there, you think and behave differently. Your problems and burdens are shared.
You don’t feel the need to ‘be right’, you’re freed up to wonder how to ‘get it right’ together.
Your defences drop, you become more open.
Question:
Back to the question: “What’s the most significant shift you’ve observed in effective leaders recently?”
The answer was ‘live’ in the room. Her question was part of the answer.
The exercise they were in the middle of was about understanding ‘what got us here?’. With that came ideas as to what they needed to stop, start and continue.
They had to prune to grow.
What got us here, might keep us here if we’re not careful.
Great leaders today focus on getting it right, not being right.