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.

Developing Gratitude through Meditation

Diana Winston recently conducted a meditation podcast on the theme of Gratitude, prompted by the imminent celebration of Thanksgiving in the USA.  Diana, Director of Mindfulness Education at MARC, observed that as people grow in mindfulness, they become more appreciative of different aspects of their life and work.  Often, we operate on autopilot and as a result so much of our life passes us by – we are not conscious of what is happening for us or how we got to where we arrived.  There is so much of our life that we take for granted, especially the simplest things like being able to breathe, walk, listen and converse.  Through meditation we can become more focused on, and appreciative of, the present moment.

The benefits of gratitude

The benefits of gratitude are so great that it is well worthwhile consciously building appreciation as an integral part of your life.  Research in this area consistently shows that gratitude contributes substantially to the development of positive emotions such as happiness, resilience, and joy as well as the displacement of negative or “toxic emotions” such as resentment and anger that can gradually erode your sense of equanimity and contentment. 

Developing gratitude through a personal reminder

It Is usually when we lose something that we begin to really appreciate what we have.  For instance, one of the discs in my back collapsed in 1997, so for 18 months I was in extreme pain from sciatica – having difficulty standing and walking (and being unable to play my favourite sport of tennis).  Now when I am playing social tennis, I try to appreciate the fact that I can run, hit the ball and participate in rallies.  I am trying to make each mistake that I make a prompt or reminder to appreciate what I can do, rather than focus on what I did wrong when attempting to hit the ball.  Developing a relevant, personal reminder (based on your life experience) is one way to build gratitude and appreciation into your daily life.

Developing gratitude through meditation

Another way to consciously develop gratitude is to practice a gratitude meditation.  Diana offers one way to approach this in her meditation podcast.  The steps involved are:

  • Grounding yourself in your body through being conscious of your posture (the pressure of your body on the chair and your feet on the floor), and undertaking a body scan exploring points of tightness and releasing any tension that exists in places like your shoulders, jaw or arms.  The grounding can be strengthened by closing your eyes or looking down and/or touching your fingers together and feeling the sensation of your bodily energy flow.
  • Establishing an anchor for your meditation – this can be the experience of your natural breathing process wherever it is readily felt by you (in your chest or abdomen or through your nose), listening to sounds in your room or focusing on a particular body sensation (such as your fingers touching or your feet on the ground).
  • Appreciating the present moment – Diana introduces a 15-minute period of stillness and silence in this next stage of the meditation.  The basic approach is to focus on your anchor, appreciate that you can experience the positive benefits of your personal anchor (breathing, listening or feeling) and naming any distraction (e.g. “thinking”, “avoiding”, “wandering”, “complaining”) before restoring your focus to your anchor. Instead of beating up on yourself for being distracted (a normal part of the human condition), you can appreciate your capacity to be aware that you have lost your focus, that you have developed an anchor to return to, that you have the capacity to restore your focus and that, in the process, you are building your awareness muscle.  [I began to appreciate my capacity to focus on an anchor after I conducted a mindfulness session in my manager development course. One of the course participants commented that the meditation component did nothing for her because her mind was so agitated that she could not still her mind at all.  This person suffered from severe anxiety as a result of post-traumatic stress.  Fortunately, in line with the guidelines for trauma-sensitive mindfulness, I had offered everyone the choice of not participating in the exercise if they did not want to or were unable to for whatever reason.]
  • Free association – Diana suggests that you let your mind focus on something or someone that you appreciate in the present moment.  If you are in an intimate relationship, you could appreciate, or be grateful for, the opportunities to share your successes or failures, the times of quietness spent comfortably together, the chance to go walking  together in a pleasant environment, being able to enjoy a movie or a special location with each other, the pleasant feelings of friendship, sharing ideas and plans or the sense of support and unconditional love. 

Reflection

There are so many things to appreciate in our lives and to be truly grateful for – many of which we take for granted.  For instance, we can savour friendship, our achievements and rewards, the development of our children or, counterintuitively, savour being alone or experiencing boredom.  As we grow in mindfulness through daily personal reminders or formal gratitude meditations, we can develop an ever-present sense of appreciation and accrue the desirable benefits of being grateful.

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Image by Susan Cipriano 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.