Tag: collaborator

How to Build Leadership Agility

Ginny Whitelaw maintains that there are four energy patterns that leaders can adopt that enable them to achieve organisational change and influence outcomes.  She explains that the four patterns operate not just at a behavioural level but are reflected in thoughts, emotions, movement and the nervous system.  While the patterns identified reflect the four key factors in other forms of psychometric assessment, what is different in this approach is a whole-body orientation that acknowledges the mind-body connection and moves beyond self-awareness to self-regulation.  Ginny has jointly developed an instrument, the FEBI (Focus Energy Balance Indicator), which enables a leader to assess their preferred pattern of behaviour.  She offers a free mini-FEBI survey on her website as well as in her book.

The four energy patterns

The four energy patterns described in her book The Zen Leader are identified as Driver, Organizer, Collaborator and Visionary.  The Driver is characterised by intensity and an unerring focus on outcomes; the Organizer is contained, orderly and disciplined; the Collaborator emphasises connection, fun and free movement; and the Visionary is the big picture person who readily sees patterns and takes quantum leaps in imagination.  Ginny provides a detailed explanation of each pattern in her book and gives examples of how they operate in practice for a leader.

Ginny maintains that we each have a preferred energy pattern that reflects our personality and that represents our comfort zone, an energy pattern in which we have acquired a level of unconscious competence.  Therein lies the problem – much of this patterned thinking, feeling, movement and behaviour operate at a sub-conscious level.  Our strengths can become our “derailers” in times of stress or new role demands.  Ginny maintains that to achieve leadership effectiveness and to lead fearlessly, we need to develop agility in our capacity to choose an energy pattern that is appropriate to the situation, e.g. in a CEO role we need to be able to adopt the energy pattern of the visionary.

How to build leadership agility

Ginny argues in her book that as a leader you need to flip “from playing to your strengths to strengthening your play”.  She uses the analogy of a team to represent the agility involved and suggests that you need to “build your bench” – have the full range of skill sets at your disposal so that you can lead effectively in any situation.  This means progressively developing energy patterns that are different to your preferred pattern.  She provides a simple exercise to help you identify your strengths as well as “one thing that you often wish you were better at” – a potential starting point for building a new energy pattern beyond your preferred mode (p.110).

In a previous post we discussed the importance of leadership agility on one dimension, namely emotional agility.  Ginny’s whole-body approach, reflected in the four energy patterns and measured by the FEBI instrument, offers a multi-faceted way to develop leadership agility.  In her book (pp.122-123), she offers many examples of three key areas that can be worked on to develop any of the four energy patterns:

  1. Work Behaviours – recognises that energy patterns are manifested in workplace behaviours; examples for developing a particular energy pattern include identify top 3 priorities (Driver); set aside time for planning (Organizer); build your network (Collaborator); make time for reflection (Visionary).
  2. Physical Activities – the four energy patterns also have physical manifestations that can be cultivated as a way to develop patterns other than your preferred pattern, e.g. using the pushing motion and focus of “hard and fast” bicycling (Driver); adopting the movement of shaping and structuring through organizing a space (Organizer); using the rhythmic movement of ballroom dancing (Collaborator); engaging the expansive movement of Tai Chi (Visionary).  Ginny contends that different physical behaviours can lead to “different patterns of energy” and she illustrates this in her video explanation of the FEBI assessment.
  3. Sensory Support – the energy patterns find expression in the things that we value, that create a positive feeling in us and that build our energy; examples of ways to develop a particular pattern using sensory support can involve office design – stark and sparse (Driver); neat and tidy (Organizer); fun and colourful (Collaborator); harmonious with nature (Visionary).  It is relatively easy to conceive how pictures or images could help to develop sensory support for an energy pattern that you are attempting to develop to increase your leadership agility. 

Ginny also suggests that another way to reinforce the development of a new energy pattern is to use a symbol that could be placed on your desk.  For example, she used a playdoh figure to remind her to move beyond her preferred Driver orientation to the playful energy of the Collaborator.  Others have used crystals, pictures, sculptures or a poem to serve as a reminder of a focus for personal development.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can increase our self-awareness by understanding our preferred energy pattern and its many manifestations in our daily life. We can also adopt Ginny’s suggestions re self-regulation through the development of new energy patterns.

I completed the min-FEBI survey in her book and found that my dominant energy pattern was “Visionary” which was supported by three less-developed (but relatively equal) patterns of Driver, Organizer and Collaborator.  This result aligned with my personal knowledge and experience.  I have frequently chosen leadership roles requiring visionary energy over other roles.  I have also been able to partially develop the other three energy patterns through the variety of roles, physical activities and workplace behaviours I have undertaken over the many years of my working life.

On reflection, I realised too that I am developing my Driver energy pattern by maintaining my focus when writing and by setting myself the task of completing three or four blog posts per week.  However, I have come to realise that pursuing this relentlessly to a set time deadline (a Driver pattern) has limited my time for other physical activities that build alternative energy patterns (Tai Chi for my visionary energy; meditation and walking for my Organizer energy).  The key seems to be to find the right balance between these energy patterns as well as to be able to use the right pattern at the right time (or to adjust if a pattern is not working in a leadership situation).

I have also realised that my lack of Organizer energy is reflected in my untidy and messy office.  While this office “design” (many stacks of paper making it difficult to find things) manifests my Visionary energy orientation, it makes it difficult for me to function efficiently.  So, this is an area that I must work on for this year (it will take that long to get organised!!).  I will also need to seriously adopt the Bullet Diary Method (of course, I have the resources for this already). I can console myself that I am building towards increased Organizer energy by listening to Mozart while I write this blog (as it helps me to organise my thoughts and writing).  P.S.  I have not been able to readily see my reminder symbol, a symmetrical crystal, because of my messy office – there is a lesson here!

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Image by mediamonk from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Gratitude – a Reflection

In my last post I wrote about simple gratitude exercises.  There was one in particular that resonated with me – reflecting on your day.  As a result, I reflected on a specific event that occurred the day before.  It was a cafe meeting I had with two of my colleagues.  Reflecting on this event brought home to me how much I take for granted in my life.  I will share my reflections about my gratitude for this interaction in the following post.

Gratitude for colleague 1 – occasional colleague

I last worked with this colleague about six months ago.  Despite this elapsed time, I found we virtually took up the conversation “where we left off”.  I often marvel at how this occurs – when you are with real friends, you seem to be able to resume “where you left off” even after 6 months, a year or even many years – it’s almost as if you communicate in the ether over time, even when you are going your separate ways.

Underlying this ease of conversation, is a common value system and belief about the inherent goodness of people.  In our case, it also relates to an approach to organisational consulting which sets a lot of value on respecting people and seeking to create positive, productive and mentally healthy organisations.  It is a rich source of support when you have a colleague, however occasional, that you can relate to so easily and share a common paradigm about people and organisations.  I am very grateful for this rich relationship, developed more than three years ago, which has provided me with such professional support.

Gratitude for colleague 2 – weekly collaborator

Over more than a decade now, I have worked weekly with a colleague with whom I collaborate on manager/executive development and organisational reviews and development.  While we may not be working specifically with a manager or organisation all the time, we are regularly sharing resources, planning workshops or interventions, reflecting on our activities and following up with clients.

We have in common a shared set of values which among other things encompasses working continuously to develop mentally healthy organisations.  We do this through the Confident People Management Program (CPM), a longitudinal, action learning program we conduct with managers and executives in Government agencies throughout the State.  In all, we have worked with over 2,000 managers in the past decade or so.

Additionally, we have undertaken organisational interventions at the request of clients who want to increase leadership effectiveness, undertake collaborative strategic planning, develop a positive and productive culture, heal divisions or act on aspects of organisational life identified by managers and/or staff as unsatisfactory.

My colleague has the contacts, the persistence and energy to generate this work – and I regularly express appreciation for this collaborative work and the rich experience and learning that this provides (not to mention the revenue involved also).

I appreciate her courageous commitment to her values and willingness to challenge others when their words and actions do not align with their stated values.  Associated with this is the readiness to question her own words and actions through ongoing reflection.   This personal commitment to continuous improvement in herself and others is foundational to the success we experience in engaging managers and organisations.  It is underpinned by her absolute commitment to meet the needs of our clients, whether they are individuals, groups or organisations as a whole.

There is also an underlying courage and willingness to “have a go” and try something different which is both refreshing and encouraging and has taken us into consulting realms and activities that I thought would not eventuate.  This is the inherent developmental aspect of our professional relationship, as we stretch our boundaries to meet the needs of our clients – managers and organisations.

I appreciate too that my colleague does not have “ego” investment in any of the processes we plan for our manager development or organisational intervention activities.  This makes it so much easier to plan, explore alternative options, experiment and change course mid-action.   It also facilitates the ability for collaborative reflection on action as well as in-action.

I am grateful that our relationship has been built on complementary skills – with my colleague contributing a unique depth of understanding of our public sector clients and their history as well as endless contacts.  My contribution focuses on process design and our collaboration has developed my process design skills and provided the support/opportunity to explore new processes and embed different processes into our manager development activities and organisational interventions.  We also share a common understanding of group and organisational dynamics and a commitment to action learning and the values that underpin this approach to manager and organisational development.

Underlying all this however, is a common set of values around respecting and valuing people and seeking to facilitate the development of mentally healthy organisations where executives, managers and staff can develop themselves and their organisations.  We often describe our work as “enabling organisational participants/groups to have the conversations they should be having”- whether that is managing upwards, sharing values, planning together, resolving conflicts or building each other’s capacity and capability.

I have worked with many colleagues over more than forty years of educating and consulting, and it is rare indeed to have a colleague who brings so much to a professional relationship, who values the relationship above self-interest and is willing to collaborate in the very real sense of the word.  My reflection on this cafe meeting brought home to me how much I value this ongoing professional relationship and all that it has enabled me to undertake and achieve.   For this, I am very grateful, but I realise how much of this richness I take for granted.  Reflecting on various professional experiences with my colleague is a catalyst for this expression of gratitude.

As we grow in mindfulness, we learn to take less for granted and grow in appreciation for the many people and things that enrich our lives.  Reflection really aids the development of this sense of gratitude.  Through reflection we come to see what others have contributed to our wellness, growth, mental health, sense of accomplishment and happiness.   In relationships we can become who we are capable of being.  Ongoing reflection helps relationships, professional and otherwise, to develop and grow richer.  There is so much about reflection that underpins gratitude.  Being mindful helps us to reflect, just as reflection contributes to our development of mindfulness and the associated internal and external awareness.

 

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of johnhain on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.