What my dog has taught me about motivation.

 3 Lessons for Leaders

 

I was asked yesterday if I had three key lessons for leaders from my own experience. I'll be honest, I hate being asked this type of question. It means I have to place my bets on 3 and not 300 options. The truth is, it varies quite considerably depending on the context; the leader themselves and what strengths they have; and  if I am completely honest, where I am myself at any one moment. 

That said I decided to try for 3 anyway. I went back in my memory (an increasingly unreliable task as I get older) to meetings, trainings, coaching conversations etc. and asked myself, “what have they most often said they need and what have I most often seen might be needed”? “Which behaviours, skills or mindset have I most often seen that need to be built or built on”?

I came up with quite a few but then I narrowed it down. I am conscious that the focus here is from my perspective and one that leans heavily on the person and the relationship. So this is what I arrived at,

1. Listen more, for longer, deeper and with both cognitive and emotional empathy. I see it as a need in myself and others and I hear it come up time and again. Leaders need to listen, to all their stakeholders, and they need to demonstrate they have listened. This means stopping what you are doing, putting everything else down and really listening, not just giving it a quick, "I hear, I understand”, “but I hear and I don't fully understand so let me see if I've got it right and then I will try to understand more fully”? It isn't easy, but virtually anyone can do this. It just means letting go of your own needs for a short while and stepping into the darkness that is another person's worldview. Darkness, because everyone else's world is like dark matter to us, not fully understood. We can, after all, only partially see our own worldview so seeing another’s is doubly difficult. But it is what strong and trusting relationships are built on, it is the work of leadership and in the majority of cases the benefit far outweighs the cost.

2. Have clear intentions in your own mind and make those intentions clear to others. Get clear in your own mind your intention with regard to yourself and those you lead. Then make it openly clear because even if you don't it is usually still written all over your face or will eventually be. If you work at hiding your intentions or pretending other intentions you begin to sacrifice trust and a genuine relationship. In other words, know where you are going, what you want for yourself, what you want from others and how you want to go about pursuing these intentions, and be willing to let people know. Sadly, in some cases, this is the exact opposite of what seems to occur; intentions are unclear, hidden, obfuscated. The very public falls from grace of too many organisations in the last twenty years demonstrate this in the extreme.

3. Provide more feedback, more skilfully. We are, humans in a social context, providing feedback all the time to one another. I call this everyday feedback, incidental feedback. When negative, these are the glances of disapproval, distaste, cynicism, frustration and irritation that we give off almost instantly when someone is in contravention of our rules.  When positive, they are expressions of curiosity, interest, warmth, understanding and compassion.  Many of these communicated signals are not in our conscious awareness.

Leaders are almost always on exhibition, the “leader” in the room is usually attracting the most glances. This means that, if you are the leader, people are looking to see if you attend to them. Because incidental feedback is often subconscious or in our blind-spot, it can be hard to change, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. We can work at increasing  awareness of how we attend to others who are in our presence, we can make it a clear intention to attend to others in a way that shows they  exist as separate human beings worthy of a place in the world as much as ourselves. We can also show people through our approach and attitude that they matter to us. We all want to think, feel, believe that we matter. We can do this only if we become a bit more mindful, less self-focused and more attuned to what is going on in the room, a hard ask I know, but think how you might behave at a funeral or some other ceremony where attention to the social need tends to outweigh self-interest.

When it comes to more direct feedback it needs to be in the interest of development, improvement or growth either for them, your relationship with them or the more general social situation. That feedback should be personal, it should be based as much as possible on observations you have made, good attentive listening (see no.1) should help here, and it should be useable.

We also need to be non-shaming with our feedback; not make them feel like they as a person are wrong or right but that this particular behaviour or action you are focusing on is according to your interpretation, either effective or not effective.

Too often feedback is generalised and critical and aimed at the whole person, often contributing to a sense of shame,  unworthiness or arrogance in relation to self “you are always…..”, “you were great……”. Sadly, arbitrary numbers as feedback on performance also fit here, they are a crude generalised form of feedback that are rarely commensurate with any specifically observed behaviour or set of behaviours.  Helpful feedback that is specific, thought through, non-shaming and makes your interpretations, feelings, expectations or needs clear, can help a person to build on their self-awareness and contribute to a realistic sense of self and the world as it responds to you. It can also, if based on a particular skill, help us to improve performance and if based on the relationship, contribute to growth and a deeper human connection. I am reminded of Brené Brown’s words here, “I define connection as the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.” Imagine if you were the kind of leader from whom people derive sustenance and strength.

So these are my three today. What are yours?