ESSENTIALS OF SAFETY BLOG 13/14
Leadership can be taught. Leadership is not about copying someone else’s style. We want people to be themselves only more so, setting context, and by being authentic, helping their peers and teams be the best they can be.
This is the thirteenth of a dozen or so blogs covering the Essentials of Safety that I talked about in the first blog of this series. We have covered an introduction – which we called Essentials of Safety, Understands their ‘Why’, Chooses and displays their attitude, Adopts a growth mindset – including a learning mindset, Has a high level of understanding and curiosity about how work is actually done, Understands their own and others’ expectations, Understands the Limitations and use of Situational Awareness, Listens Generously, Plans work using risk intelligence, Controls Risk, Applies a Non-Directive Coaching Style to Interactions and Has a resilient performance approach to systems development.
The other blog in the series are:
- Bonus – The oscillations of safety in modern, complex workplaces.
Adopts an Authentic Leadership Approach When Leading Others
I, along with many of you I am sure, worked out long ago that the best and most effective leadership style by a long way is authentic leadership. Authentic leadership is best described as leaders leading from who they really are. A firm and unalterable goal should be that your leaders are truly authentic. Authentic leaders know who they are and why they do what they do. They act according to their values and principles. They care for their people. They have good relation- ships with peers and those they lead. They are real and come across as genuine. They have a growth mindset – admitting their mistakes. They recognise that leadership is an improvisational art, know that leadership is not about power, persuasion, and personality, and they truly believe it is all about helping others be the best they can be. They are on the balcony and on the dance floor, as and when needed. They adapt. They all know that leadership starts with them. And that adopting the leadership styles of others just does not cut the mustard. At the same time, they know that they can learn from others, and then work out what that means for themselves. We need to always bear in mind, of course, that these are aspirational goals, and in reality, we have leaders who sit all over the spectrum of these ideals.
A concept/idea well worth exploring in relation to authentic leadership is that of intent-based leadership. Here we are talking about giving control to those who have the information – giving the decision-making authority to those with the expertise. Intent-based leadership is about people setting the context and intent of the work and allowing those doing the work to tell you how they intend to do the task. It is an extremely powerful way of building trust. The idea is that if people have the competencies to do the job and have the clarity of what is needed, then we should let them be in control of how the work is to be done. This fits in with the framework and critical sections of procedures and freedom within a framework concept nicely. Of course, you can simply teach other people how to undertake intent-based leadership, but the Holy Grail is when you practice intent-based leadership yourself. ‘Do as I do’, not ‘do as I say’. An essential mode of operation for any leader in using any leadership style is allowing, encouraging, and fostering time for their people to not only do but also think about leadership and what their roles and tasks are all about. Once again, it is all about getting the balance right. Marquet talks about the difference between ‘doing’ time and ‘thinking’ time as ‘red work’, or getting things done, and ‘blue work’, thinking about stuff. Thinking about stuff includes thinking about what the next piece of red work is all about. Great leadership is all about getting the balance right as I have said numerous times before. Maybe we should call the balance ‘purple’ work. Maybe not.
It is also well worth remembering that each individual is just that, an individual. And each leader is also an individual. You need to make sure that as you help your leaders develop, your expectations regarding leadership and leader- ship style suit the leader’s individual characteristics. Do not try to create a set of leadership clones. That is a recipe for disaster. Having said that, there are some basics that I believe should be covered in any leadership development programme.
As I have just mentioned, to aid in people’s leadership journey, a leadership development programme should be capable of being adapted to suit the needs and wants of the individual leader. A common underlying skill is that of maintaining our focus on our presence – how we come across. We should aim to be authentically calm, confident, communicative, consultative, controlled, curious, comfortable, clear, and caring.
In addition to this, any leadership development programme you have can, and in my opinion should, explore the following topics:
- Inquisitive mindset.
- Generous listening.
- Acceptance of being proven wrong as well as being proven right.
- Chronic unease.
- Decision-making.
- Intent-based leadership.
- Focus on achieving excellence compared to preventing failure.
- Deference to expertise.
- Seeing failure as learning.
- Asking compared to telling.
- Coaching, including as a leadership style.
- Providing soon, certain and positive feedback.
- Adaptive problem solving.
- The Essentials of Safety.
There is a lot of things in that list, and in many ways they are all pulling on our leaders all the time. It, again, needs to be a balance (Figure 1)
We need to always remember that leadership is something we do with our people, not to our people. We should encourage our leaders to discover for themselves what leadership characteristics they need to apply. There is no one-size-fits-all – no simple leadership formula that can be applied to all and sundry. We must not require our leaders to read exemplars of great leaders and then attempt to emulate them. We need to teach them to understand who they really are so that they can exhibit their own brand of authentic leadership. One thing we can do is to remind them strongly about being consistent and doing what they say they are going to do – i.e. having integrity. They can also be encouraged to talk about what they do well, and what they do not do so well.
I acknowledge that although it takes effort, extensive practice, and engagement, leadership can be taught. And we should try to help people learn how to explore their own leadership. Leadership is all about relationship. Relationship with the concept of leadership; the relationships that we develop as we lead; our relationship with mindset (growth or fixed); the relationship with our coach (you need at least one); and the relationship with our confidence, or overconfidence.
Although it is easier for our leaders to assume that those who report to them have the right level of leadership competence, we need to verify this through conversation and consultation.
In a nutshell, we should encourage, promote, and coach our leaders to be authentically themselves, only more so.
Key Takeaway: Leadership can be taught. Leadership is not about copying someone else’s style. We want people to be themselves only more so, setting context, and by being authentic, helping their peers and teams be the best they can be.