The Perfect Storm: Navigating Modern Leadership Challenges | #2

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership.

We hope to bring you grounded wisdom, stories from real leaders, and leave you feeling inspired.

Let's dive in.

So welcome to episode two of Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others.

This is part of the Unscripted Leadership series, and today we're going to talk about navigating modern leadership challenges.

My guest on this podcast is Rich Horton.

Hello, Rich.

Hi there.

So let's talk about the context for modern leadership.

Let's talk about what we call the perfect storm, the perfect storm of economic uncertainty, changing social values, and the rise of technology in our lives.

How does that really impact leadership?

Rich?

Leadership's always been hard, isn't it?

But I think we're probably operating in a context now where the challenges are super difficult.

Yeah, I mean, the acronym VUCA has been around for a long time now, and vuca, for anybody who doesn't know what it means, stands for volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and ambiguity.

And I think that does sum up actually what the modern world is like for a lot of leaders.

We don't know all the answers.

There's a lot of things we can't predict.

Things seem to change constantly and maybe in sort of directions we're not actually expecting them to change in.

So I think there's definitely truth in that, and that does create a real pressure on leaders.

Yeah, I think ever since the Industrial Revolution, society tended to be fairly stable and not a lot would change, relatively speaking, in our contemporary era.

Now, if you think about the economic situation just of the last decade, well, even the last five years, there's a huge amount of uncertainty that's been driven by the pandemic, political, international unrest.

So that adds huge uncertainty for businesses and leaders in terms of how they plan and how they track a way through that uncertainty.

I think couple that with the massive changes in IT as we talked about in the first podcast.

The huge amount of changes, the amount of data and information that we use to drive decision making, adds a huge amount of complexity, I think.

Yeah.

And I think the third part of this perfect storm, and this is very clear to me as a father of two girls growing up, the change in social attitudes that's happened, particularly in the last five to 10 years, we have to constantly check what we think we know and Update our understanding of things.

And that's really important for leaders.

We can't just operate the way we've always operated.

That's not going to awash for the future.

So I think you're right.

I think those three things coming together makes leadership particularly challenging.

Yeah.

And I think as human beings, I think we tend to crave or want certainty, and we're very uncomfortable with ambiguity.

I mean, that's just human nature is the way we're wired.

But actually, what you want are leaders able to tolerate that ambiguity and uncertainty and to track a way through that.

One of the mistakes leaders make is they believe they can only make decisions when they have certainty on all different aspects of the issue they're trying to address.

And actually, you can't have answers to everything when you're making decisions in a large, complex, or even a small complex organization.

So the ability to manage yourself in the context of uncertainty and ambiguity is an important trait.

But actually we can work at being more tolerant to that uncertainty and complexity and ambiguity.

I think you're right.

And I think it's also helpful.

You know, human beings like mental models.

They make sense of the world by forming mental models.

And we'll talk about the connected leadership model in a minute because that's our mental model for understanding how leadership works.

But I think another useful mental model to have is how you think about your workplace, because it's not like a machine where you can press a button here and a predictable outcome comes out over here.

I think we have to think about the.

The world we operate in, and particularly our organizations as ecosystems, where actually there's a lot of interconnectedness, a lot of interdependence, but actually it's not predictable.

Sometimes when I do this, this is going to happen over here.

But what we do want to do is when we send ripples into that ecosystem, we want to send positive ripples rather than negative ripples.

And that's the essence of good leadership for me.

Yeah, when we talk about the connected leadership model, we talk about the ability to operate from what we call the connected cent.

And the connected center is what will ground us in the context of all that uncertainty and ambiguity.

So let's dive in a little bit to the model and help people understand what we mean by connected leadership.

So first and foremost, why did we create this?

Now, we've talked about this perfect storm.

We've talked about the variety of challenges that leaders are dealing with.

Why should somebody want to become a connected leader?

There's lots of good leadership theory and leadership modellers out there.

When we started to talk about what good leadership looks like, we couldn't find one theory or one model that seemed to encompass all the various nuances of what good leadership looks like in one model.

Agreed.

So what we tried to do is to come up with a model that takes account of some of those nuances.

Okay, so let's dive into the model a little bit more then.

So let's start with this connected center.

What you're effectively talking about here is how flexible and adaptable are we in our mindset?

That's fundamentally what you're talking about here.

Yeah.

Let me just paint a bit of a picture or use an analogy to help people understand our model.

So imagine that connected center is the fulcrum of a compass.

Yep.

Imagine that compass with four cardinal points.

You've got the north or the south, and you've got the west and the east.

And that connected center is the fulcrum, if you like, from where leaders operate from.

It's what we call self leadership.

Good leadership is the ability to balance all the different challenges of the situation that you're in, to understand your context, and then to flex your mindset and your behaviors to meet the particular challenges of the moment.

So that might be, for example, mean you know, you're engaging with a particular person and we flex our communication style to meet that person where they're at, as opposed to just imposing our style on them.

Yeah.

And I think you talked in the introductory episode about the importance of emotional intelligence.

So for me, this connected center is about how emotionally intelligent are we?

Are we self aware?

And do we build that self awareness to develop better self management?

Do we also become more socially aware of what's going on around us?

And do we read the environment that we're in and do we use that knowledge to manage relationships better?

And I think which is the essence of what emotional intelligence is.

Yes.

That connected center is where we really tap into that stuff and use it effectively.

We'll come to this in the next podcast where we do talk in more detail around the connected center.

But imagine the connected center a bit like a wobble board.

You know those wobble boards at the gym?

Yeah, at the gym that you stand on kind of challenging those things.

Yeah, it's quite challenging.

Yeah.

And a good leader is able to.

To balance and to flex and adapt to the different situations that they're in.

So that's what we mean when we talk about the connected centre.

And you talked about four cardinal points.

So let's just talk about what those are?

So in a compass you have a north.

In our model, what is the north?

If I talk about the north and the south together, I think.

Because if you think about the north and the south as a continuum.

Yeah.

That starts at the north, goes through the connected centre and goes to the south.

That continuum is what we call the power continuum.

All good leaders need to understand how power works and how to use and engage with power in an organization in an ethical, healthy, effective way.

Why do you think that doesn't happen as often as it should?

So the power continuum has two ends, the north and the south.

And I think traditionally leadership is focused on what we call the north, the north pole.

In our connected leadership model, we call the north the big picture.

So focused on the big picture, navigating the way forward, telling people, directing people where we're going to go, what we're going to do in the context of all the ambiguity and uncertainty that's really needed in leadership.

Yeah.

And I guess that's where the traditional autocratic styles of leadership came from.

Yes.

We call it taking and managing power.

Yeah.

It's important at times to tell people this is what we're doing, this is the direction in which we're going in.

But if you do just that and then you have a very one sided approach to leadership.

Well, I also think we have a generation of people now coming into the workplace that don't want to be told what to do again.

Social attitudes are changing.

Yes.

So if we just adopt autocratic leadership and don't flex from that, we're going to struggle to keep some people that we really want in our businesses.

I think.

Aren't we not just the younger people?

Actually, I mean myself, I know that would probably be something that I wouldn't want to be subjected to as well.

Well, people tend not to like to be told what to do.

No, they don't.

That's true.

And I've tried it with you plenty of times.

You have, and it hasn't worked well for you.

I admire your continuing belief that it might.

Yes.

Let's go back to the power continuum.

So the north pole is about being directive.

The south pole.

So imagine it as a continuum is the opposite.

So it's still engaging with power, but it's engaging with power in a very different way.

And the south pole is what we call the need for leaders to empower others or to give and share power.

In other words, you give the power away, you create autonomy and you allow people to enact the vision that you've created.

And you give them the power to do that.

So practically give listeners a couple of ideas how you might do that.

It's about coaching people, right?

Because often leaders make the mistake, particularly if they're experienced and they're managing people in a functional area where they have expertise, they often think they have the answer and they would default to telling people what the answer is and what to do.

That limits people's learning and development.

So if you coach people and empower them and help them come to the answer for themselves, that's much more likely to drive deeper learning, deeper development, and to build the capability of your organization in a deeper way.

So thinking of the practical barriers to that, because I totally agree with everything you said there, that is the way that we should be helping people grow and develop.

But you know as well as I do, what we'll often get told is I don't have the time to coach my people.

That's the biggest barrier probably that we ever hear.

What's your answer to that?

I don't have the time to coach and develop people.

Yeah, well, in some situations that might be true.

If there's urgent stuff to get done, genuinely urgent stuff to get done, or there's a health and safety issue, you can just tell people what to do because that's important.

But actually it's quite short sighted just to take the approach that, oh, it's going to be quicker if I just do it, either do it myself.

So in other words, you don't delegate or you just give people the answer.

And actually, over time, you're operating with people with less capability and potential than they actually have.

You're hugely limiting the value that they can bring into the organization.

So it might take time to develop people's capability, but when you develop their capability, it's going to free up your time.

Simon Sinek calls it the infinite game.

You have to think long term as opposed to short term.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's the north, south axis on the compass.

Let's talk about east, west.

So what does that look like?

And again, it's not either or.

It's a case of it's a continuum.

It's about flexing and it's about finding balance.

So talk about the east, west axis.

It's worth people just listening back.

At least a part of the first podcast we did.

We both talked about the understanding and the recognition that when we were leaders, one of the things we tried to do is to build relationships and to connect with people and to collaborate.

And I think you're right.

The success or not you get in those roles is fundamentally linked to how well you collaborate and how well you engage other people.

Yeah, yeah.

The west axis is what we call the people focused cardinal point.

Being people focused is crucially important where you create an environment where people feel supported, they feel connected with, they feel that you have their back and they feel trusted and they have a voice.

They'Ve got, they have value to add.

And they have a voice and they have a value to add.

The word that's used regularly inside organizations is psychological safety.

Yeah.

When we talk about the people cardinal point, what we're talking about is creating an environment of support, environment of trust, where people feel psychologically safe.

So again, that's where coaching comes in, isn't it?

Yes.

Actually that's a big part of this is to use your curiosity to help people find answers for themselves, develop their skill set, develop their knowledge, deepen their experience so they can have more value.

And people will recognize in themselves that we all have preferences and our preferences drive our focus and the emphasis that we place on certain things.

And some people, as we talk about this connected leadership model will recognize they have preferences for certain of these cardinal points.

So you might have a preference, for example, for being very people focused.

You're naturally quite people focused.

Maybe you're quite naturally empathetic.

The danger with just going with our preferences is again, we can create very one sided leadership.

Yeah.

So if we're just to be empathetic and people focused, the danger inside an organization is it just becomes a little bit soft and fluffy.

Yeah.

And people can get away with whatever they want to get away with.

So that needs to be balanced.

On the east side, the opposite cardinal point is on, on getting people to perform.

Yeah.

So being task focused, holding people to account and driving performance.

I think accountability is a big issue in a lot of businesses.

We hear that, both of us, time and time again about we're struggling to get accountability.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what the connected leadership model does, it balances the need to create autonomy, but the autonomy is earned.

I like to talk about earned autonomy.

In other words, you hold people to account and when they perform and when they deliver, that builds trust with the leaders and the managers, which then enable them then to want to give them more autonomy.

So it becomes a virtuous circle.

Yeah, I think that's important.

Okay.

So that's sort of in essence the high level explanation of what we mean by connected leadership.

So let's talk about how you balance big picture thinking and day to day execution.

So you've talked about the North Star being about the big picture.

Let's break that down a little bit more.

What do we mean by the big picture?

I'm assuming you're talking here now about giving people direction.

So in businesses they talk about having a vision, they talk about having the why.

Simon Sinek talks about what's your why.

And your why is really important.

So practically, how do we do that bit?

Well, there are a number of different sort of facets that are at play here.

But when we're talking about big picture focus, what we're doing is the ability to see the bigger picture, to think strategically, to see the connections, to think creatively as opposed to getting lost in the detail of the operations of the organization.

It's really important that leaders create the space for them to think strategically so they create a clarity of vision for their people.

So how do we create the space?

I think practically that's the essence of this.

You're dead right.

We have to create space to think strategically, not just as a senior leader, but probably people lower down inside still need to think about that as well, particularly senior leaders.

How do we create that space?

Well, it goes back to the point we were talking about earlier is to empower the people to build their capability.

And if you build their capability, you create owned autonomy and people push the boundaries and you unleash their capability and their potential.

That's going to free up space for you to do the big picture thinking as opposed to you getting drawn into the day to day operational stuff.

So this comes back to why we call this podcast, unleash your impact, Unlock others.

Because actually what we need to do is unleash the impact of the leaders at all levels in our businesses.

Yes.

So that they're operating at the right level, they're not operating at the level below because they're not delegating, they're not empowering their people and then therefore they're not going to be as productive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

So one of the ways in which we can do that, I guess, is to build in reflection time to our day to make sure that we are actually building that thinking time in.

Yeah, I know you're a great believer and you certainly influenced me in terms of the power of permanent reflection.

You know, daily, weekly practices.

The research is very clear.

If you want to develop your personal emotional intelligence.

Yeah.

One of the key ways to do that is critical reflective practice.

Yeah.

If your leadership style is to go from meeting to meeting from day to day with no time to think about what you've done well, what you could do differently, how you could engage with people in a different way, and you're just in reactive mode.

Nothing is going to change.

I'm guessing you won't let go of stuff as well that you need to.

Let go of and you won't get let go of stuff.

And you won't bring into your awareness changes in attitudes and behaviors and thinking practices that's going to make you a better leader.

So how many minutes a day do you engage in this reflective learning?

I'm thinking we don't have to spend a lot of time doing this.

I use bullet journaling as one of the disciplines.

You can Google bullet journaling.

That's one of the disciplines I use just to give me a little bit of quiet time and reflective time.

And that can take just as little as 5, 10 minutes.

I also personally do engage in meditation, spiritual practices, and that helps as well.

But you know, that's not for everyone.

But there's lots of things you can do to build reflective time into your day.

Let's also talk about.

We talked about the need to build relationships with people, effective, productive relationships.

But we've also talked about the need to hold people accountable to deliver.

So that's a combination of supporting them, but also challenging them.

How do we get that balance between support and challenge?

Right.

Because that is a really key part.

Part of being a good leader.

Yeah, I mean, there's no one size fits all to this.

I think, you know, at the heart of connected leadership is that connected center.

Yeah, somebody operates from the connected center.

They're bringing self awareness to the situation and they're flexing to the situation.

So I think there's no simple answer to say, well, you need this level of support and this level of challenge.

Actually, it's being aware in a particular situation.

Do I need to be more empathetic, listen more deeply in this situation?

Do I need to challenge people, hold people to account, park my own fears and insecurities around doing that?

Just genuinely balance those two aspects consciously all the time.

Yeah, I guess we're not always going to get that balance right.

No, we're not.

So hence the reason why reflection is so important, because we might reflect on our day and thought.

Thinking in that one meeting, I actually got that balance absolutely right.

But maybe in the second scenario of the day I really didn't get that right.

And that's okay.

We all make mistakes.

The mistakes are an opportunity to learn.

Actually, what am I going to do differently next time to make sure I do get that balance right.

So this is not about being perfect, is it?

This is about being aware and it's.

About being aware of how our preferences may drive us to one cardinal point over another.

So I'm a person I think probably is naturally empathetic and probably quite people focused.

So as a result, I sometimes can be fearful of what other people think of me.

And so that fear could then mean that I step away from challenging and holding people to account when I need to.

You've got to be really careful that your preference doesn't drive you to one, one end of the, you know, the continuum to the other.

I get where I guess with me, I am also very people focused.

I like to achieve things with and through people.

But I'm probably not as naturally empathetic as you.

No, definitely not.

Don't rub it in.

But actually, because, you know, I could then drive towards the goals and results a bit harder than you would and actually miss some of the nuances of actually I'm not taking my people with me or actually I haven't picked up on some stuff that I really need to pay attention to.

Exactly, yeah.

Conversely, actually, if you think inside our business, the fact that we've got those two different ways of leading brings a balance to the leadership team inside our organisation.

So that's another way to use the lens of connected leadership.

Okay, so we've talked about most things now.

One last thing to talk about today is in terms of how we do this and to realize the vision of being a connected leader, we need to develop some habits.

Apart from journaling, which we've talked about, is there any other habits you think that are fundamentally important?

To start to get this right, Very simply, goal setting.

Do you set goals for yourself?

Do you set goals for your team?

Do you regularly review those and are they clear?

I guess you also need to align those to the needs of the organization.

Absolutely.

So you need to understand the organizational goals.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if we go the people focused side, what things are you putting in place to look after the well being of your team?

So for example, in your team meetings, you could have a habit of having a check in emotionally.

You know, how are the team.

Yeah, you know, ask them how they're doing, connect with them.

So your team meetings are not just task focused?

Well, I think one of the things we do is we have a segue at the beginning of our monthly, sorry, our weekly meeting where we just connect in with some personal stories and understand what's going on for each other outside of the work.

Environment, I think I always find that really interesting.

Except when you talk about your synthesizers, but apart from that.

We could talk about those now if you like.

No, no, it's okay.

But I think that segue into what matters to.

To other people in your team, even if it's not something you're interested in, it doesn't matter.

It's about actually connecting on a human level.

I think that has real power.

Yeah.

Okay.

So on the performance cardinal point, distractions are the bane of a leader's life.

So I think creating distraction free time zones in your day where you're taking time to think and to plan.

Maybe it's first thing in the morning and you set aside 10 minutes to think.

Right.

What are the key things I'm going to get done today?

What's my priorities for today?

So you're bringing conscious awareness and choice to where you focus and your energies in the day and finally around the empowering others to think about what self improvement habits do you have in place.

So what you're doing to develop the people in your team.

Yeah.

Okay.

So having regular conversations around that and actually thinking about what are the things you doing to develop yourself.

Yeah.

Taking time to do that and not seeing that as a luxury.

I think that's the important bit, isn't it?

This is not a nice to do.

This is a need to do.

It's a need to do.

Exactly.

And I think.

But this comes back to the whole about the connected center.

Probably to be the best leader that we can be, we may need to adjust how we think about being a leader.

Our mindset that we bring to this is so fundamentally important.

So that's probably a good place to leave it today.

Let's think of a takeaway tip or two that we can leave people with.

So my takeaway tip I think from today is the power of journaling.

Since I've been working with you, I've probably done much more of that than I did beforehand.

And I think what that gives me, the five minutes in the morning or the five minutes in the evening is just a little bit of time to decompress to get some perspective on the day.

If it's been a great day, it might be some really good stuff.

I'm reflecting off it's been a really challenging day.

It might be just actually processing some emotion, but actually just making sure that I recognize it.

I critically reflect on it and I decide what I'm going to do differently tomorrow for me is a great tip.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

For you.

Yes.

So my tip from this is if you imagine a typical leader's diary is chunked up into various things they're going to do in the day.

And usually their diary is chocked full of end to end meetings, very little space in the day.

And I think at least those chunks of time in your calendar is best you can to create some time to think and prepare, even if it's just a couple of seconds.

So you're actively taking your best self into that meeting, into that one to one.

So you're preparing yourself to flex, to be the best you can be for that particular person, but that particular situation.

Situation.

Okay.

So thanks, Rich.

That's it for today.

We hope that's going to help you unleash your impact and unlock others.

And next time we'll be talking in a lot more depth about what we mean by the connected center.

So until then, Rich.

Yeah, goodbye.

Goodbye.