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September 2012 2.1
Greetings!
Welcome to a new year of the Unfolding Leadership Newsletter. I hope you had a great summer! This issue of the Unfolding Leadership Newsletter focuses on congruence. You'll find:
- Reflective Leadership Practice -- On Congruence
- Leadership Links -- stimulating articles from across the web
- Leadership Edge -- links to articles from the Unfolding Leadership weblog
- Leadership Conversations -- Q & A with author and coach, Lyn Boyer
- Leadership Odds and Ends -- More links to foster reflective learning
If you would like to review earlier issues, you can find them in the archive. As always, I appreciate your feedback and suggestions.
Wishing you the best for your reflective practice!
REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP PRACTICE
On Congruence
One of the toughest issues leaders face is congruence -- acting in ways that are genuinely consistent with their values and their statements. Why? Because their audience is tuned to find every discrepancy. That's right -- a cultural norm in business and politics is to locate each time someone in a leadership role displays inconsistency. When discrepancies are found, all too often this becomes living proof that stereotypes about the untrustworthiness of those with power are true.
Many years ago I wrote a paper about the importance of leaders asking for feedback. When I shared it with one of my clients -- where there had been tensions about my role -- I soon found myself in the middle of exactly that dilemma. I seemed to be advocating something that I myself had not done. Boy, was that a lesson. I felt quite embarrassed and for quite some time after that was very careful where I shared the paper!
But, of course, it was a very important learning. No one is immune. I learned that the best thing I could do was open up the discrepancy, to find out exactly how others saw me, especially around those times and places when I didn't seem to be walking my talk. A few years later I found myself presenting to a challenging crowd. When I shared with them that I was open to feedback on exactly the issue of congruence, I saw instantly how the mood could change. Somebody actually said, "Oh, I wasn't expecting that." I realized, then, I was more or less being constantly asked to prove that the values I espoused were real for me, here and now; that I was, in a word, authentic, and that authentic did not mean perfect.
But there's also another emerging lesson, too, which is that it is not just individuals who suffer the pain of inconsistency, but whole systems, as well. Networks get squeezed unmanageably into older hierarchical structures. Prior strategic goals get subverted by rapidly changing, confusing conditions. Markets and products shift at alarming rates. In the midst of broad challenges, organizations messily try to transition and in doing so face many phases of incongruence as living, organic creations. As a consequence, leaders not only must be open about their personal consistency, but also serve as interpreters and guides to the sea-changes and ambiguity everybody experiences -- and not try to hide it under a rug, pretend it's all rational or even suggest every discrepancy can make sense. Organizations aren't perfect either.
The magic in both cases, personal and organizational, is that discrepancies themselves aren't the problem -- only the pretense they don't exist and the unwillingness to make them discussable as opportunities for personal and organizational learning.
LEADERSHIP LINKS
Readings & Tools to Help You Lead
* Viewing Through Another Lens. Systems capability consultant John Wenger lays out the territory for organizations and people moving "from one state to another" in this thoughtful, powerful essay, "In Transition."
* Why the Loss Happens. Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, explores "How Leaders Lose Their Way" in this telling Harvard Business Review Blog Network critique of incongruent leadership. (May require free registration).
* And Then There's Trust. Why is congruence so important, personally and organizationally? Well, for one thing, it is often a cornerstone of trust, and trust is more vital than ever. Thinker Harold Jarche explains its role and offers great mental models in "Trust is an emergent property of effective networks." Are you ready to live and lead in this new world?
LEADERSHIP EDGE
Personal Essays from the Unfolding Leadership Weblog
"The Tyranny of Being Right" It's such an easy thing to fall into: the desire, the need to be right. It creates huge divides between us, drives us to say and do things that cause others to disengage or retaliate. Later, we may console ourselves with the satisfaction of winning but it's pretty much a cold dinner left on a table that's been deserted by friends... Read More...
"When Will I Be Seen?" For many years I've been interested in "conditioning," the process by which a person adopts beliefs, values, and patterns of thought. Conditioning represents automatic and unconscious learning that enables a child to fit with his or her family and community. Conditioning has its downsides. We pick up views of others and especially of ourselves that we may have to unlearn as life goes on because the patterns are incongruent with deeper instincts about who we are... Read More...
"Things I Might Have Said" We all do it. Those after-the-conversation fantasies about what we could have said or should have said during the exchange. For some reason, one of those times has come up for me lately, one that involved a presentation I did years ago for a CEO peer learning team, a small group of top executives who were getting together regularly with a facilitator to share their experiences... Read more...
"Water and Stone" How much of our life is the product of water and stone? If you think of water, say, as consciousness, you can notice then how it flows against the stone of old ideas and beliefs. You can try to hold onto that stone, that solid rock, but the stone gradually will be smoothed and worn by the constancy of experience, of seeing and knowing. You don't have to admit it to anybody else, but you know it is going on. In the end, though the stone is hard, it is impossible to hold onto much of anything you once considered absolute... Read more...
Leadership Conversation
Lyn Boyer Helps Leaders Find Their True Presence
 Lyn Boyer, Ed.D is a leadership coach, facilitator and online learning guide. She is author of Connect: Affective Leadership for Effective Results and founder of her firm, Leadership Options, LLC. Before creating her practice, she was a high school principal and school district administrator with a deep interest in education and how best to support students and teachers alike. Her most recent project, the Women's Learning Studio, goes live in 2013. To find out more about Lyn and her work, including a link to the book, her blog posts, and contact information, please access Lyn's website.
(Please note, the term "Affective Leadership" is a designated Service Mark.)
Lyn, where does the term "Affective Leadership" come from, and what does it mean?
Actually, the term came from a conversation with a colleague who was discussing some of my work with me. In the course of conversation, he used the term, which we agreed described the process perfectly. Affective Leadership refers to the skills leaders need in order to genuinely connect with others. These skills are based on the tie between mind, body, emotion and language. As a framework for thinking about leadership, Affective Leadership has roots in what is known as "ontological coaching," a personal coaching philosophy developed by Julio Olalla at the Newfield Network. My book, Connect, is the first work to comprehensively apply this coaching approach to leadership.
How do you illustrate this tie between mind, body, language, and emotion?
Here's an example from workshops I do. I ask people to stand and choose a partner. Then, I ask them to get into the "body of sadness." You can imagine -- hunched shoulders, frowning, looking down -- but then I ask them to talk about something very happy like a vacation or a party. Then I reverse the exercise and ask people to get into the "body of happiness," heads up, shoulders back, arms outstretched and with a smile, but talk about something very sad. Often, people are simply unable to complete the exercise - I couldn't the first time I tried it for myself - and that leads to a lot of learning about the connections between body, language and emotion. The first reaction is often to laugh with discomfort. Workshop participants laugh at their own lack of congruence. The exercise makes the clear point that our physical bodies are deeply tied to how we feel and what we say.
What are some of the leadership lessons people come away with?
One very important lesson is seeing how the body, emotions and language must be congruent for the message to come across as desired-for connection with others to take place. As a leader I may need to say something important, but if I don't have a powerful physical presence, I won't be believable. In other circumstances, I may need the bodies I refer to as flexibility or stability. If the messages are incongruent, others lose trust in me and my influence drops accordingly. When I was a high school principal in a school with 2,300 kids, I never really thought about physical presence. Some people are lucky to have the physical presence naturally, but others must work at it. The good news is that you can practice and get better. As you do so, you increase your credibility and the trust people have in you. This hasn't been taught nearly as well as it could have been, and that's where my work fills a need.
Are you saying that by adopting a certain posture, for example, that this stimulates you to change your language or your emotions?
To a degree, yes. If there's a medical problem or something like chronic depression going on, that's a different story. But for many, if we pay attention to the body and to the voice, yes, the other components, our thoughts and emotions, can change, too. For example, I think of a client who wants to take on a powerful role, such as school principal, but has trouble coming across in a powerful way. The more that client practices the body and voice coming together, the more she actually feels that power and is able to display it. She also gets a different reaction from those around her.
You wrote a helpful, non-political blog post last January,
describing how Affective Leadership skills could apply to the current presidential race. It's a great example of how to put these skills into action. I found it especially useful, Lyn, because you include video links of the specific behaviors you call out in the post...and so I must ask, have you heard from Mitt?
I'm afraid not - I think he is a little busy with other things. I was a bit concerned people would see the post as a statement about my politics, but it is not that at all. It's just an example of how a person might apply Affective Leadership skills in charged public settings - a good place to observe the presence or absence of these skills.
So how and why do people come to you for this kind of coaching work?
I think it is like many things. If you learn about it and it strikes a chord, you want to know more. Any time someone runs into conflict or dissatisfaction or has a sense that things are not going as well as they might, that person is in a position to reach out to others. It's always valuable to have someone nearby as a confidante. I was recently reading Howard Schultz's book, Onward, about his life at Starbucks. He talked about a few people he has confided in, but he mentioned one man he really used as a coach. The coach was the one who could listen and think more objectively in the middle of difficult situations. That's what I try to do.
It's clear to me, by the way, that focus on these ideas is not for everyone. There are those for whom this work doesn't make sense, who may not value leadership presence or emotional intelligence. They may be hijacked by how they feel but have a difficult time seeing that and possibly are threatened by that. But for those who are open, there is so much to learn. And I am very much still on that path myself.
What would you say has been one of your challenges in your own ongoing learning?
It's ironic to say this, but at one point as I was training to be a coach, I realized that one of my own enemies of learning was the fact that I had been an educator. We think of educators as being learners, but I was so focused on having the answers as a teacher and then as an administrator that I actually lost some of my curiosity. So many of us in leadership roles, whether as a manager, a teacher, or a parent believe we are supposed to know more than those we supposedly help. This whole experience of transitioning in my own life from school administrator to leadership coach has made me more sensitive to the things I want to learn and those areas where I see where I have stopped learning.
And your new project, The Women's Learning Studio, sounds like it fits well with the goal of ongoing learning, both for yourself and those who participate in the studio. What would you like to say about it at this point?
Yes, I'm very excited about this effort. I'm working with two colleagues to create an online opportunity for women (and a few brave men) to support their career and life transitions. The goal is to help people learn what they want and need to learn to achieve their goals and dreams. There are incredible free and paid resources on the net and we will be helping via collaborative social platforms and technologies. We will serve as resources and coaches in that learning. This is building a learning community, discovering resources together, and developing portfolios of activities that can serve as springboards to each person's path.
All of the Studio's work, of course, is at the crossover point of what's professional and what's personal. Leadership, after all, is a lot more about who you are than what you do. The Studio will be a place where all the things I talk about in my book -- trust, lightness, emotional intelligence, posture, thinking, making connections so that others want to follow -- can come genuinely alive for those who choose to join in.
LEADERSHIP ODDS & ENDS
More Links to Foster Reflective Learning
* Real Reflection, Real Connection. Euan Semple used to be in a senior role with BBC and now helps introduce social media tools to large, successful organizations. A long-time blogger, Euan's insights and self-disclosures model the possibilities for a truly human technology. See this recent post, "Blogging and the Heart of Darkness" for a sample of his exceptional work. (A great example of reflective leadership).
* The Importance of Water for the Journey. Among consultant/trainer Kate Nasser's many wonderful posts, this one moved me -- in part because we still seem to need to 'get' this critical point: "Leaders, What's So Hot About Humility Anyway?"
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