The Two Questions We Need to Answer If We Want to Lift Our Leadership Development Game

I have been thinking about this for a long time now. In fact, I even started writing this blog 3 years ago!

“How can we dynamically improve the way we develop leaders?  What do we need to do in order to make this happen?”   

And by “we” I mean myself and those of us who are involved in leadership development activities - whether it be running leadership programmes, designing leadership programmes, or coaching at the executive/team level.  "We" also includes leaders themselves who are vested in developing other leaders.

Have we been getting it wrong all along?

For many reasons, the way we have been developing leaders is very challenged.  There are numerous reports out there about how the dollars spent in organisations are generally not returning any significant investment. But a few things are clear…

1. Organisations are facing tremendous challenges and are struggling to engage their people - let alone develop them.  
2. Dysfunctional rituals of management abound, and the evidence of bad leadership fills our news feeds daily.  These challenges are currently accentuated during pandemic times. 

During the past five or so years, I’ve been doing some soul searching on this matter - given I've been involved in running leadership development programmes for many years now. I’ve been reading research, newly released books, listening to the opinions of many, following the feeds of solid leaders, engaging respected thinkers in conversation and “playing” with a few different approaches, mental models and tools - particularly as I go about my own work in the leadership space.  The silver lining from COVID times, is that it afforded me some time and space to have a semi-sabbatical (while not traveling around everywhere).  

Are we practising what we are preaching?

I was having one of these moments the other day during the wrap-up of my peer learning group (of team coaches).  Our last few sessions had been uncomfortable ones, as they became messy and deeply human while we applied our team coaching approaches and learnings to our own learning as a “team”.  

What had got us to this place were a few interactions in prior learning group sessions that really impacted a few members.  One member had come in an emotionally shaky state given some events that had impacted them prior to our session (understandably).  When sharing our “check-in”, this member shared a little of all of this.  While some members remained silent, two members with wonderful intentions and perhaps lacking in sensitivity, hopped into some advice giving.  This didn’t go down well and the emotionally shaky member suddenly exited the Zoom meeting leaving everyone stunned and concerned.   Emotions were everywhere, some more present than others. Other emotions emerged over time after the meeting.  Quiet concern for the welfare of the whole learning group silently lay in the air though not articulated.  

In many ways, these sorts of things happen in meetings all the time, though not always exactly like this.  Interactions can be blunt in workplaces, and/or everyone can be overly nice by patching things with “no-one meant harm”, “he’ll be okay”, “next time we won’t say anything but just smile caringly”, for example.  And then the next meeting is as if nothing has happened - though everyone is perhaps a little more guarded.  

Holding to our team coaching principles, our learning group spent two sessions unpacking what had happened, hearing everyone’s experience during the upset, listening to members share how certain actions by others found resonance in past experiences, reflecting on what may have held a member back from acting appropriately in the middle of the events, while searching for better ways to robustly and empathically support each other, collectively learn and identify what we, as a group, needed to do better today. 

Yes, coaches need to look in the mirror and address these issues too! 

And yes, coaches are deeply human too.  

Our group has grown stronger because of this, but it took significant effort and discomfort.  

Subsequently, we were discussing how important it was that we did this hard work.  Within a few minutes, we were quickly engaged in a robust conversation about all this as we all reflected on our various leadership and team coaching experiences.  (More on those reflections later…)

I was reminded of a session five years back that Duke Corporate Education hosted with its Founder, Blair Sheppard.  The topic of the evening was “Leadership in a VUCA World” and I remember the conversation ending up being quite feisty as everyone chipped in with their views.  At one stage, it became a deeply intellectual discussion.  I’m left imagining what the conversation would have been in today's context, but that’s not for this blog.  

Leadership in its own right

When I started my pre-coaching career, we didn’t talk about leadership.  We didn’t talk about innovation either.  Now our physical and digital bookshelves are full of books about these topics.  

Without going into a literature review about the topic of leadership and how it has evolved to now, what became clear in that discussion at Duke Corporate Education was the sense that many are still trying to develop leaders using the results of research and methods, which by definition are based on historical data and experience. While I am a great proponent of robust research, leadership development programs do seem very reliant on older research and leadership models that may not be working as well these days.  What does seem to be clear is that leaders are having to go places in their leadership journey where they have never gone before, and each context is new and unique.  

These leaders are using models that are from yesteryear while operating with less certainty and predictably.  

Sophisticated leadership capabilities are needed to cope with less reliable information/knowledge (Bleak & O’Driscoll, 2013), the paradoxes facing leaders (Sheppard, 2013), and leading organisations while having to manage for today’s business while creating the future (Anthony et al, 2017).  These leaders need to navigate the megatrends facing society and businesses (Hill-Landolt, 2018) and the serious technological and digital disruptions (Jenkins, 2021).  

And yet...

...much is still the same. 

Leaders still need to work with people, engage people, inspire people, be intentional and understand the business fundamentals along with its operating context.    

Back to leadership basics

As I reflect on my own experiences in many coaching sessions I’ve held over the decades, I have been finding that the focus of development, often, gravitates to "the basics" i.e. listening, connecting, describing, clarity of intentionality, giving and receiving perspectives, being curious and asking good questions, to name but a few. 

It is as if the lack of strength in these basics are letting leaders down.  They strive for the more sophisticated leadership capabilities they feel they need - given the ever changing and complex environments they are operating in.  But they are being let down by leadership basics!  

This would be analogous to an elite athlete being let down by not having been to the gym to build core muscular strength - how could they expect to run a race if they haven’t considered the foundational training?!   

And more than often, these leaders have been to leadership development programs where these basics or core skills have been addressed, but then considered “done”, tick!  But we all know that athletes consistently return to the gym and work on their core strength - and if they don’t, deterioration happens quite quickly.  I suspect leaders do not exercise these basics diligently (nor do they know how to), as these issues constantly come up in coaching sessions, more often with more senior leaders - sadly.  

The deeply human side of leadership

Taking this further, we move into very deeply human issues - the “inner game” (versus “the outer game”) as some may refer to this - though what is bundled into the “inner game” varies from researcher to author to practitioner.  In this bucket would be issues around values, culture, generational influences, grief, hurt, fears, habitual actions and reactions, preferences and aspirations (while not claiming this to be a complete list).  All of these issues impact how we are at work, how we interact with others and how we see the world around us and respond to it.  

Behind all this is our reptilian brain which needs to be safe (i.e. survival) and limbic system (i.e. emotions; looking for connection).  These both need to be satisfied before we can operate in our neocortex (and be open to change and logic).  Understanding this is fundamental to good leadership.   Exercising the leadership basics help significantly here.    

As detailed in his book, Michael Jenkins (2021) would add that in the face of significant disruptions facing the world and organisations, that more human workplaces (and leaders) are needed more than ever.  He proposes a more human and effective way of living, working and being - namely by adopting deeper capabilities in the areas of altruism, compassion and empathy.  On all these points, I wholeheartedly concur.

The impact of leadership happens between people

And the last point I’d like to raise is that traditional leadership programmes take leaders away from their workplace relationships and their intact team(s).  It is easy to work on one’s leadership in isolation, but when back in amongst the work relationships, things can get messy quickly.  The shiny strategies and high pumped atmosphere of a conference or an offsite can often differ greatly from the reality of the everyday workplace (particularly over the past 18 months).

We have seen the emergence of team coaching (not hub-and-spoke team facilitation nor team building), which takes a more systemic approach to a team, the interconnectedness of its members and the systems the team exists within.   These systems also are complex and adaptive.   The days of the coach working with a leader on an isolated problem are long gone.  We now need to help them understand the context and systems they exist within.   

And this brings me back to where my musing was recently triggered again.  

Today’s question at hand

At the end of yet another uncomfortable and yet rich peer team-coaching learning group session, we all reflected that we believe we have to do this hard work together so we can in turn help the teams and leaders we support.  There’s really no getting away from this fundamental point.

As we were all re-examining our role, as well as the capacity we need to conduct it effectively, I was reminded again of a question I asked Blair Sheppard at the end of the Duke Corporate Education discussion five years ago.  I had to dig out my old diary to find my notes.

I asked - "Given the need to help leaders today, what does this demand of us, the developers and coaches of these leaders?”   Blair acknowledged that this was an important question on which he had pondered.  And after a moment, he answered with the following thoughts:

"Those that develop leaders today need:

1. An intellectual curiosity
2. To model what we are asking of today's leaders
3. A broader repertory of methods 
4. An understanding of "Why am I here" and be true to it
5.  A moral compass 
6. A sense of deep care with the people we work with."

While this was five years ago, the question still is very relevant. Personally, I have some perspectives around what he said and will elaborate further in a future post.  Meanwhile, I would be very curious to know what you, the reader, think is important here in this discussion - today?  

There are some great initiatives happening in the realm of leadership development.  IMD have some very sophisticated and yet grounded approaches, as do some colleagues of mine who conduct leadership journeys (literal walking journeys in nature over multiple days for intact teams).  

However, if we, as leadership developers, coaches, team coaches or even leaders vested in developing other leaders, are serious about what we do, it begs that we examine two important questions carefully:

1. How can we dramatically improve the way we develop the leaders (and their teams) we need for today and tomorrow?

And…

1. What is required of us in the process, and how do we need to grow and develop in order to ensure we bring the qualities needed to best support and serve these leaders (and their teams) in their growth?  

Let’s talk about this.  I would love to hear your thoughts, questions, musings and comments.  

References:

Bleak, J. and O’Driscoll, T. (2013), “CEO perspectives on the changing leadership context”, Dialogue, Duke Corporate Education, Sept/Nov 2013.

Hill-Landolt, J. (2018), “Societal megatrends and business: Operating, innovating, and growing in a turbulent world”, World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), 9 April 2018.

Jenkins, M. (2021), “Expert Humans: Critical Leadership Skills For A Disrupted World”, Emerald Publishing, London.

Ramanathan, R. (2020), “Beyond Systemic Thinking in Coaching and Team Coaching”, Coacharya, 26th August, 2020.

Shepherd, B. (2018), “Six Paradoxes of Leadership”, LinkedIn, published January 12, 2018.