Last year I shared five of my top 10 leadership themes from 2023 – the “Top of the Pops” insights that came up most often and resonated most deeply with the leaders and teams I coach.
As promised, here’s the final countdown:
5️⃣ Courage, not confidence: I’m indebted to Dr Rebecca Newton for this insight in her book Authentic Gravitas. Leaders often bring what look like “confidence” issues to coaching: I want to have confidence to say no, to ask for something, to challenge the status quo, to present my ideas … the list goes on.
But as we explore the situation, it’s worth reminding ourselves that confidence tends to come after we’ve done something, because by then we know – we have the proof – that we can do it (and that the world didn’t collapse as a result). So, what we really need first is the courage to have a go.
4️⃣ Open questions (not advice): we love to give advice; it makes us feel valued. We even love to ask for it because of the connection it creates between us. And yet it’s often not that helpful: we offer our suggestions based on a very partial understanding of the context and get into a back-and-forth of “Yes I tried that, but…” because no one outside knows the full story or quite gets the complexity and nuance of the situation. That’s why asking open questions is a far more powerful way of helping someone think through a problem they’re facing and come up with their own solutions: “What could you try?” “What’s getting the way?” “Who could help you?” “What are you afraid of?”. I’ve seen this vividly in action this year working with many action-learning groups on complex leadership and implementation challenges. Powerful questions from peers have enabled them to make profound shifts in what they do, what they learn, and the impact they have.
3️⃣ Stories we tell ourselves: sometimes we leap from the situation in front of us to a conclusion that can look rather strange to others. We tell ourselves a story about what just happened that is out of proportion with the facts. My favourite illustration of this is Jennifer Garvey Berger’s example of, “I ask my kid to put his sneakers away every day, so when he leaves them in the hallway yet again it shows he doesn’t love, respect or care about me”. Suddenly I’m yelling (or crying) in a way that sneakers left in hallways just don’t merit. This escalation is based on a story we’ve told ourselves – sometimes in a split second. And it’s a story that we don’t have to believe. In coaching, leaders have the chance to play back in slow motion, to unpack these stories and to unhook themselves from them. Next time you have a strong reaction to something, ask yourself, “What story am I telling myself – and is it true?”.
2️⃣ Getting out of the drama: “It’s so unfair, I didn’t have the right team or resources, they set me up to fail”… or maybe it goes something more like this: “I should have acted differently, it’s my fault, I should have known that they couldn’t be trusted.” Or even, “Well, I just had to step in and sort it all out. It was a total mess and only I could fix it.” Victim. Villain. Hero. A drama in which everyone is pointing fingers at others – or themselves – blaming, shaming, rescuing. If you hear yourself or others using this kind of language – language that may sound more like Hollywood cliche or a children’s book – then you know you may have been sucked into the drama. So how can we avoid the triggers that trip us into this Bermuda triangle where we lose our sense of ourselves, our curiosity and our compassion? Just naming it as a drama can help us step out of it and allow us to see the situation with a fresh, more grounded perspective. Breathe deeply and reset. There may still be conflict, but you’ll be the grown up.
🥇Immunity to change: have you ever tried to change something about yourself and found that you keep failing to make the shift you say you’re committed to? You can see all the reasons why the change matters, and you know what steps you could take to make it happen, and yet you just don’t do it. This is our immunity to change in action; when our hidden commitments, assumptions and beliefs stop us making changes we say we want. So, I might have a fierce desire for more balance between my work and home life and yet consistently take on additional work and break the boundary rules I set for myself (meetings in the evening, checking emails at the weekend). Underneath it all is a hidden belief that if I don’t prioritise work I won’t feel valued and respected – a powerful assumption that, just like my immune system, kicks in automatically whenever it detects a threat. Coaching to discover these commitments – and then working through them with real-life exercises to prove to yourself that those assumptions aren’t necessarily true – unlocks the potential to make the change you really want.
If this has resonated and you\’re interested in coaching for you or your team, do get in touch. You can also sign up for news and updates from me here.
