Leadership Effectiveness #2

[samvara]

This week was interesting readings on authenticity and leadership with a seminar on exchanging feedback and relationship building - fun!

Readings:

On Becoming a Clear Leader by Gervase Bushe (book; required reading was the introduction) - introducing 'clear' leadership which appears to be about not making assumptions and passively undermining each other. I found this a bit simplistic since while I've seen it happen I think of it as a symptom of a work culture with low trust and that is what I would work to address.

• The Aware Self knows, moment to moment, what she is thinking, feeling, observing, and wanting. She understands the processes she uses to create her experience. She is clear how much of her experience is based on facts and how much is her sense-making.
  
• The Descriptive Self is able to help other people empathize with him. He can describe all the facets of his experience clearly. He is able to describe difficult, confrontational aspects of his experience in a way that doesn’t make others defensive but elicits a willingness to listen and understand.
  
• The Curious Self is a master at uncovering other people’s experience. She is able to observe, question, and probe until she fully understands, as much as humanly possible, what her partners are thinking, feeling and wanting.
  
• The Appreciative Self works through imagination and conversation to amplify the best in people and processes. He builds partnership and a willingness to collectively learn from experience by seeing the normal human virtues in every person and bringing those out in interaction.

Managing Authenticity by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones - discussion of how leaders need to be themselves, but be selective about what they project depending on the audience and the prevailing norms. It loses points for frequently defaulting to 'him' and 'his' when discussing leaders in general but was clearly written.

"Unless female leaders acknowledge and validate some of the prevailing organizational norms surrounding gender roles, they will find it hard to obtain acceptance from male followers." - pp93

I recognise this and struggle with it, but rather than gracefully using it to get what I want I tend to get distracted by my rage. I am currently sometimes causing friction at work because I'm unable to not express myself when social justice / feminist stuff arises and it's not to my benefit from a long term corporate relationships point of view. The way I'm framing this isn't helpful to me either since my core values are more to do with compassion and decreasing suffering - which I am not achieving when I'm angry. Plus, I don't enjoy being angry :p

Discovering Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer - discussion of the need for self knowledge and understanding one's own life story, emphasises the need for good support networks and honest feedback. Also clearly written. I enjoyed reading about David Pottruck realising he didn't so much have a wife-selection problem as a husband-behaviour problem (self-knowledge in action).

"Authentic leaders demonstrate a passion for their purpose, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads.They establish long-term, meaningful relationships and have the self-discipline to get results. They know who they are." - pp130

"Authentic leaders also keep a strong support team around them, ensuring that they live integrated, grounded lives." - pp132

This resonates heavily with me, I recognise a lot of this from times when I have felt like a good leader - especially the value of a strong community / support team.

Seminar:

Admin-type stuff:

• Debrief experience of learning journal (ass #1) - how to move away from objective to personal, how to talk less about the context and more about the links between experience and theory
• 360 degree process - invites out, waiting on feedback from unfortunate invitees (mine says 13 invites sent, 2 responses so far - excitement!)

Discussion of readings, discussion of meaning of 'authentic.'

Life as a Conversation - with self, with others, as a metaphor for your life journey.

Exercise!

We played the KnowMe Game in teams of six - it's a trust and relationship building tool. It ranged from hilarious to rather uncomfortable and overall it was good fun. We weren't playing to 'win' but you end up with a score anyway;it's based on how much you Asked and Told; mine was low because I got skipped for a turn and later passed on a challenge I wasn't willing to perform.

Write down questions you answer!

1. Tell the group what kind of people you like being around
2. Ask the group how you would handle criticism
3. Venture: Wear a blindfold for a round - chose to pass
4. Venture: change shoes - done; ask the group to express their opinion of you non verbally - hilarious
   
5. Tell the group how you feel about how they answer the questions
6. Ask the group what they think you think of them

Post game debrief What you *thought* while you were participating

1. How best to summarise this?
2. Yeah you're mostly right, I hope I've gotten better, do I want to be that way?
3. Hell no
4. Damn that was creative, pity I haven't fully explained about not touching me
   
5. I like being able to share this warmth
6. I'm interested, but it's late and I'm happy to go now - I want my shoes!

Key concepts:

The iceberg model of human behaviour: 90% is hidden  

Behaviours

Thoughts and emotions

Values and beliefs self and others

Core beliefs only two that operate all the time

Those two beliefs? 

1. I am worthy of unconditional love and have a right to be here when I... <insert relevant behaviour here> OR
2. I am worthy of unconditional love.

The Johari window, trust and with-holds

Discussion of what it is and how it works. See Org behaviour notes from 2009 however rather than viewing it as a tool for self analysis we  looked more at the relationship implications for giving and receiving feedback.

1. Think of someone I like working with - on a scale of 1-10, giving and receiving feedback. I am gong to rate the relationship I'm thinking of as a 9,9.
2. Think of someone I really don't like working with - 7,7. The feedback is there but it's horrible.

 Relationships can get 'locked' into a particular configuration - sometimes you need to, to survive. BUT are we limiting our ability to perform?

The ladder of inference

• We observe
• select data
• add meaning
• make assumptions
• draw conclusions
• adopt beliefs
• then take actions

e.g.: OMG she's playing with her PEN while I'm talking! She must be BORED, I'm BORING, I'm going to JUDGE her because she HATES me and I will steal her PEN. FML.

You get the picture...

Then we ran away!