Leader-Led Change

Planned organisational change may be driven by many factors. Examples include seeking efficiencies and greater productivity, addressing dysfunction and conflict, revamping inadequate processes and systems, merging with a business partner, or setting your mark on the organisation as a previous manager has departed.

Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee in their Harvard Business Review Primal Leadership article in December 2001 wrote: “A growing body of research on the human brain proves that, for better or worse, leaders’ moods affect the emotions of the people around them.” However, leaders not only set the mood and have a direct impact on the emotional worlds of their people, as the article describes, but also set the culture and behavioural tone and norms of the organisation. So, when considering change, what do you need to change about yourself and how you function for your organisation to perform better?

Deming, the quality guru, suggested that 85% of the responsibility for quality rested with management, to provide the appropriate tools, training, processes and other enablers, and after all that was provided, 15% of the responsibility rested with the workers. I believe that also applies to the mood, attitudes, behaviours and norms of the organisation as a whole.

Enormous energy is exerted in organisational restructures. Poor performance is identified and rooted out. Ineffective systems replaced. Reporting structures are adjusted. However, for all the effort a significant and often poorly addressed issue is the cultural and behavioural conserve held among the management team. While the organisation is being driven through significant and often unnecessarily painful change processes, the attitudes, behaviours, and cultural norms within the management team remain unchanged, unrecognised as contributing to the overall organisation’s performance. The decision makers are able to say “the problem is out there” and rarely take a critical look at their own contributions.

Consider:

What do you do to set the tone and culture within your organisation?

Are your words and actions aligned?

Do you demand and expect respect without extending the same to those who report to you?

Do you demonstrate the loyalty you expect of your team? Or do you excuse your choices and actions that perhaps sideline and disenfranchise individuals, while calling for everyone to engage fully and authentically, and wonder why there is a disturbance within the rank and file? Do you permit others’ to spread rumour and conjecture, or undermine the work of those in your team?

Do you provide a high performance environment? Do you cleanly delegate work, providing clear boundaries on how the work should be performed and what the measure of success are, and allow the team member to grow and develop in the role? Or are you a control freak, driven by fear, who micromanages and strangles growth potential? Do you honour the established boundaries around agreed packages of work or do you allow scope creep to erode the authority of those under you? Do you then also hold them responsible for failure to perform?

Are you professional in your behaviours and relationships? Do you excuse angry outbursts, unreasonable demands and other corrosive behaviours because you’re busy and under stress? Do you meet the commitments you make? Do you hold yourself to the same standards you expect of others? Do you walk your talk?

Is your decision-making clear, calm, fact-based and rational? Do you expect this of your team, but when faced with a decision you rely on management imperative to make a rushed “gut” decision, rationalising it is from your years of experience, flying in the face of all you claim you want practiced within your organisation? Worse, do you then change your decision when next posed with a new opinion (perhaps without informing those impacted)?

Do you provide clear direction and leadership? Have you noticed the puzzled expression, or disdain, across your team as you issue instructions? Do you lack clarity, such that you are not able to understandably express what you want? Or have you changed direction yet again? Do you respond openly to questions seeking clarification or do you expect subordinates to read your mind (perhaps even when you can’t)?

It has been my observation from a couple of decades of consulting that these and other such issues are frightfully common. Why? Because leaders are human and no one is perfect. The problem is when a leader chooses to avoid checking on their way of being. In my opinion it would be ideal for the leadership of an organisation to honestly assess their behavioural and attitudinal contribution to the performance and mood of an organisation as part of any change process. Obtaining valuable, truthful feedback takes more than demanding it. Few leaders are blessed to be surrounded by people willing to say, “You are not wearing any clothes”, so obtaining such insight requires time, a sense of safety among those asked for input, and trust that negative feedback will not jeopardise the position of the person offering the feedback.

As a leader, are you leading from the front, enabling others to follow? Have you assessed your own short-comings in relation to the direction and practices required within the organisation and established a roadmap for your own development? Or are you metaphorically barking instructions through a megaphone on what the team should do, and excusing yourself because you’re a coach, not a player.

If you want to create positive change, be part of the change process, not separate from it. Ensure that your capacity as a leader and manager is maturing and developing, and that you have made some conscious, positive changes to your style, that you’re not as you were ten years ago. If you are not emulating the behaviours you expect your team to portray, get real with yourself and stop excusing your own poor performance.

Options available to you include coaching and mentoring, personal and professional development, primarily targeted at the long-overused patterns of behaviour and attitudes that hold you and your team back from truly excelling.

The Relationship Dance

With each new relationship formed, whether personal or professional, you must learn a new dance. Professional relationships do function within a more restricted space and are focused on specific purposes (usually) so the steps required to form and maintain them are somewhat more routine than personal relationships, but in all cases there are some specifics that need be addressed for a successful relationship to develop.

Ensure the purpose and vision of the relationship is aligned. When there is a lack of alignment one or both of the parties may experience disappointment, frustration, and resentment. They recognise there is a mismatch between where they are placing their energy and focus and that of the other party. Without resolving this, sooner rather than later, a lot of energy can be expended and the relationship may be unnecessarily damaged.

In a business environment, a customer may be clear about the project they are pursuing, and seek the involvement of a supplier. If the supplier either does not fully understand the project, fails to appreciate the significance of the effort required, or leaves unexplored any number of other matters then a mismatch is likely to arise that leaves one or both wondering about the motivation and intent of the other.

When two people come together in a personal relationship, understanding the purpose and intent of each other is useful, but this may also be under continuous change. Picture two people, one interested in romance, the other in friendship. Their approach to the relationship is likely to be quite different. If that difference is not dealt with all sorts of misunderstandings are likely to arise, and those may lead to what many would call a natural breakdown in the connection. This is true with any mismatch, even when both parties want the relationship to work.

Establish mutual trust. Trust is something we offer others, and is based on our assessment of the intent and behaviour of the other. It usually takes a relatively long time to develop, and can be lost in an instant through a single action. Generally trust is offered a little at a time. Each increment offered allows greater closeness/intimacy with the other party, involves self-disclosure, and leaves us more exposed and vulnerable in the process.

Remove barriers to connection. Vulnerability naturally leads to fears arising, based on our experience, that act as barriers to a thriving relationship, and they may even place us into flight mode, with us fleeing what is a perfectly good situation. Our fears often arise from what we have encountered in past relationships, and may have little to do with the current one. Working through and resolving those issues can free us to be fully present to what is available and on offer to us in the current relationship. That is one major reason relationships are often considered as healing, because as we stay present to the current relationship, own the issues that arise for us, and resolve them, we are healing in situ.

The problem is you may have experienced in the past situations where you have opened up, and the other party, whether in a business or personal setting, has manipulated or taken advantage of you. As you seek to work through your issues, you often have to learn to trust yourself again, as much as you learn to trust the other. Working through your issues with the other party, being clear about concerns you face, and their source, can aid the development of the current relationship, and deepen the connection.

Also, it is worth observing and noting any behaviours you exhibit that cut the budding connection. For example, I have noticed with myself that with new connections, if I strike fear I tend to break eye contact abruptly and the connection is severed or strongly impaired. The fear arises from within me, may be barely visible to me, but the reaction happens, and that relationship is marred. With some consciousness of that mechanism I am now better able to monitor myself and stay present to what exists between me and the other person. I have found this to be of particular significance in working with groups in a facilitation role which is all about relationships formed and strengthened in the moment.

Authentically Offer More Of Yourself. The more you offer of yourself the more the other party is likely to reciprocate. This is not suggesting you become a doormat to be walked on. Use your intuition and be aware of what is happening between the two of you. In a relationship there are three entities: the two parties and the conduit between through which value is exchanged. Offer more of yourself, and you’ll soon know the quality and nature of what the other party is offering. The exchange will blossom in a beautiful fashion when both parties are truly present, available and engaged with each other in an open and authentic manner.

The dance of relationship involves so much more that evolves over time, but miss any of these steps, and getting started in a meaningful manner is nigh on impossible.

Dealing with the Shakes of Life

Have you ever felt fragile, as if your internal world is unstable and likely to crack and fall? Have you experienced the growing dust cloud that arises at such times as bits of your world crack and fall from the structures you have constructed that provide you with a sense of safety, your clarity lost amid a sense of anxiety, sadness, hurt, fury, agitation or a host of other emotions?

Earthquakes are highly topical with the two recent Christchurch earthquakes followed by the enormous Japanese quake and tsunami. A similar process, even if the mechanics are different, occurs within us. When the way we perceive the world collides with our experience, we have the internal equivalent of an earthquake. The impact may be imperceptible. Or it may be a gentle rocking that leaves us shaken, checking for cracks and areas that need strengthening. Sometimes, less frequently, we can feel totally ripped apart, as if all we held dear, rely on, consider secure, is ripped from us, and little remains that we have trusted or relied on for safety and stability. At those moments we start on major reconstruction projects of our inner world. These major shocks may arise from our health failing; from the loss of loved ones, whether through relationship breakdowns, illness or death; from the loss of our jobs; or threat to things on which we base our identity. The triggers for big shakes are different for everyone, but life does seem to serve up these big ones from time to time.

I remember a conversation with a dear friend where she shared something that totally rocked my world. I was confronted with a new view of her that left me feeling very afraid and unsure of myself, and plunged me into several weeks of major trauma that had me nearly end the friendship. It was an amazingly strong confrontation of some beliefs, perceptions and expectations I held which were potently called into question. Major reconstruction was necessary within my world. In reality I heard and misinterpreted what she said, but that misunderstanding led to an enormous upheaval within me.

I now look at that experience with years of hindsight, and smile, knowing there was nothing untoward in what my friend shared. However it did not fit with the structures, rules and protections I held. At the time I felt devastated; I had crashed into a massive wall. That experience led to me making major changes in my life. I reviewed my belief system and values, and shifted from lifeless and buried by my own protections to a more free, open, authentic and present way of being. The process involved tremendous anxiety and much pain as the change process shifted me into a brand new way of being, requiring me to step into previously unknown states with less internal structure and support. There were many aftershocks and some other significant new quakes. The process still continues. While I don’t usually enjoy the shocks when they occur, I do appreciate the role of such moments within my life for my ongoing development as a more authentic person. I also notice when I feel fragile and vulnerable. Such moments signal a shake has occurred, or is starting, even if I don’t know what has triggered it, and things are being opened up for more internal change. I now endeavour to be more fully with myself in such moments, be with whatever sense of chaos arises, and drop any resistance that I may hold. That enables a stepping into and embracing of the new.

Authentic Relationship

I find myself mulling over Authenticate, one of the elements of personal power, meaning that in relationship with another we ensure that we are authentic in how we present ourselves, and that we overtly expect authenticity of others. In other words, I will do my best to be authentic, and I will call you on those moments when you are not being authentic with me. Easier said than done! I often hit my own protective patterns of seeking to please others, hiding myself so I do not anger, annoy or otherwise cause a negative outcome with another person, and a host of other disingenuous protective behaviours. While I would prefer and do aspire to be authentic in every moment, I don’t manage it. I recognise the same inability to be authentic exists for others too.

One positive outcome of authenticity is the eradication of power struggles and game playing. With authenticity every word, thought or action is as we mean it, and fully aligned with our being. There are no idle threats or inflammatory statements to hurt and push others away. In a truly authentic exchange honesty about how we feel, what we think, and the outcome we want is a given. This is especially important in a moment of conflict.
I find myself sitting with a statement made recently to me by someone I care about, that they did not believe the future held much likelihood of us being friends; our relationship was thus ended. I could spend my time thrashing around, wondering if this was meant as stated, or if it was made from a place of hurt. I could stew about it and wonder what to do. I could stew about what led to this point and question and second guess everything that happened, and what could be done to resolve the situation. Or I could accept it as being an authentic statement and take it at face value, that the relationship has concluded.

One thing about authenticity is that if I fail to be authentic, it becomes my responsibility to deal with any damage my actions create.

Of course, a counter to this philosophy is to recognise that compassion may suggest a softer approach. Forgiving the other person even if they have not asked for forgiveness serves to free us of the pain we experienced from the others’ actions and may enable a bridge to be built for healing to occur. Ultimately each of us do have to take responsibility for our actions, but we may require some loving support to get there. In an Authentic Relationship there is commitment to be with the other person through such moments.

Few of us are willing or even able to take responsibility in those moments where we lash out from a place of hurt. We are reacting from fear and pain, not able at that time to be in our power. In such moments we erect protections to keep us safe. Owning what we said or did requires us to counter our protective instincts and dismantle our protections, become vulnerable. Pain and fear have a nasty impact on us, with primal patterns of fight and flight coming to the fore. In such moments longer term impacts are outside our consideration. Do we write off a person or a relationship because in and following such a moment the other person failed to be authentic?

Additionally, our own lack of compassion is a fear-based reaction that compounds the cycle of hurt. “They did that so I am right to do this.” Or “They have not taken responsibility for that so there is nothing for me to do.” Of course, the other person then says, “Well they did this so I am justified to do that.” The cycle has to be interrupted for a positive outcome to be possible.

Authentic Relationship occurs when each person remains in relationship through such disintegrations. Each recognises their own negative warm up in the situation, where they are reacting from a place of pain and fear. They remain willing to and do actively work with their partner to change their joint warm up, and interrupt the cycle of pain, enabling an adequate outcome to be achieved.

Intimacy (Pronounced “In To Me See”)

Most of us seek closeness with others, desiring to have some one or more special people who we comfortable with, who we allow to see more of us than we permit most to see. To be trusted and permitted into another person’s inner world is a gift of great worth. When with someone we trust, who we open up to and allow them to see our inner world, we have a chance to experience acceptance and being seen for who we are, which can do much in encouraging us to be ourselves more fully in this world.

Our individual ability to choose and allow others to see us is dependent on a great many factors. Examples include the degree to which past intimate experiences were the source of hurt or joy, the degree of safety we feel, how accepting we are of ourselves, and the trust we hold for the other person. I don’t believe there are any surprises there. The surprise is that any two people actually manage to come together, reveal themselves to the other, and do so in such a manner that the initial thin thread of interest grows and develops into a robust connection. There is so much that can get in the way of such a bond forming, remaining intact, and strengthening.

In many respects I have been on a quest to consciously develop greater intimacy in relationships for more than a decade. In the late 1990s I developed a dream statement that spoke my soul’s desire, and which I have subsequently sought to realise in whatever ways I can:

My dream is a loving and accepting world where everyone is comfortable sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings openly.

I would love to be in a world where my dream was fully realised. The dream has made me more alert to those factors within myself and others that interfere with realising the dream. Interestingly, only a brief time before developing my dream, a matter of a year or two, I had been practically shut down to anyone and everyone, a social isolate, with little idea of how to create meaningful relationships.

I was blessed with a special friend, Catherine, who at that stage defied any concept I had of myself and relationships by remaining a solid friend regardless of what I did to dissuade her. I was torn between wanting her as my friend, and not wanting her to see me in all my ugliness. Previous blog entries have discussed shame. Shame ruled me back then, and I could not understand why anyone would associate with me. But she did. She persisted through some very rough periods. I learned I could trust her. Then I discovered the importance of loving and accepting myself, and began to open up. Then things got REALLY ROUGH. My protections against being hurt were strong, but as I started to open they worked overtime to counter the changes that would lead to new situations and uncertainty in relationships. Not having close relationships was much safer because, as painful as my existence was not having relationships limited my exposure to more pain, supposedly. My experiences in growing up could be summarised as learning that those I love and trust, except my mother, hurt and abandon me. Trusting others was not safe, but without trust I could not have close or meaningful relationships.

I now have a great many intimate friendships. I now have a great appreciation for the dance of coming together in a trusting relationship with someone else. Some attraction exists between each person that provides motivation to draw closer and explore. Preliminary good experiences are typically required for the dance to continue otherwise one or other chooses to exit the dance. Inevitably there comes challenge to the relationship, perhaps a point of difference or misunderstanding that triggers one or both into fear, shame, anger, hurt or other strong emotion. It is the manner in which those moments are worked through that defines the resilience and quality of the relationship. A recent experience in my own life saw me seriously triggered by a person I was forming a relationship with. I experienced significant shame, still a place of great learning for me. I knew she did not want to shame me, that it was all my stuff, but the reaction I experienced was significant. I took some time out to address the underlying issues before re-engaging. Now my experience of that relationship is vastly different with significantly more trust between us because while the shame stuff was mine, “we” have worked together to come through it together, strongly and cleanly.

There is nothing quite like a relationship for creating fog in our lives, and it is at those moments we really need to appreciate the fog, get better acquainted with ourselves rather than reacting to what may feel like an overwhelming and frightening situation, and allow clarity to emerge. This is true whether the relationship is with a friend, a lover, a work colleague, or any other situation where two or more people choose to engage with each other.

Shame on Me

I have spent the past decade clear that I don’t need to carry the shame I collected as I grew up. I have worked hard to clear it, to not listen to the incessant criticism from within myself, and to move through life with a sense of my worthiness and wholeness. I certainly do better than I use to. Recently, however, I realised at a new level that this was not working. For all the work I have done there is a strong part of me that really does care that I don’t measure up. This ‘caring’ part of me continues to hear criticism from others, or reads upset and anger as criticism, then takes it on board, magnifies it into condemnation, and cripples me with the sense that I am not good enough, am unacceptable, and that it is my fault that other people are unhappy with me. Words like “pathetic”, “repulsive”, “worthless” are strongly part of the vocabulary. The logical and more adult part of me knows this is false, but recognising that there really is something within me that does care and does still carry immense shame has been a freeing process; painful but freeing.

I have spent some time getting to know this shame-carrying part. It is young. It feeds off the emotion of situations that played out when I was a child, and it does not respond to the adult wisdom. It hurts. It is a child that needs tenderness. Now as I see it more fully, recognise its struggle, my struggle in that child part of me, I am discovering a great companionship with myself, and freeing of myself from shame-filled tendencies. Gone? Not at all. But lighter, and diminishing, definitely.

Simultaneously I am very familiar with the role in me I refer to as my Hanging Judge, that sounds in a strong, unrelenting, dispassionate, deeply critical and unforgiving voice. He is a voice patterned from my experiences in growing up, and he dumps buckets of effluent over anything I am doing that does not fit his concept of right.

The beauty of this process is I have also recognised the vital and expanding, life-filled and engaging part of me that carries no shame, my Vital and Courageous Pathfinder. I realise that at key moments throughout my life this aspect has asserted itself and taken me on a course divergent to the Judges strict directives. Sometimes from a place of rebellion, and other times in a quiet and gently assertive manner, steering me into new territory, and a new way of being.

These all contribute to my way of relating to others. At present I am more comfortable charting my own course, less interested in being subservient to the will of others (and they were not necessarily seeking that), and feel greater comfort and ease in my own skin, regardless of the direct or indirect feedback from others. Suddenly I have increased clarity. Where I was shrouded in a clinging dampness that suffocated the life out of me, I now feel lighter, and am more willing to step out, try new things, and engage with life. I have begun a direct dialogue with my “voice of shame” [the Judge], and I am promoting my Pathfinder so it has a stronger presence and role within me. This is freeing me to make easier choices and assert within myself what is right for me, rather than kowtow to the voice from my childhood indoctrination. I like where this is taking me, and while there is plenty to work with that is unsettling, the path feels rich and potent. I am more my own person. The fog is clearing a little more.