It’s no longer how you lead, but how your systems lead
The difficulty we face in this time of uncertainty and complexity is not in developing new ideas, but releasing the old, no longer useful ideas, from our lives. Defaulting to old ideas can also reflect deep habits, formed because they have provided a source of validation or reward in the past. There is a cue, for example, a need for short term success, that has us engaging in that habit again, without reflecting the changed circumstances we find ourselves in.
“My earliest leadership memory in my working life was at a meeting, we all sat down and in walked this manager who had an edge to them, was intelligent and had an abundance of knowledge, commanded the meeting and was very decisive. I had never seen such a leader before and almost instantly decided that this is the model of a leader I would aspire to. I became that person and it worked for me until I became an executive Manager and the world around me changed.”
Our brain creates scripts that are used as shorthand to respond to certain situations; once the situation or context changes we often have scripts that no longer serve us and become error scripts.
Often in our own development, our brain holds on to these error scripts, that then become blockers to our own success because these scripts become a form of limitation. This often happens subconsciously as these scripts are stored in our amygdala, triggering reflexive actions. We often find ourselves after the event wondering why we behaved a certain way. To create true change, we must first look to ourselves and make these changes to our own scripts, as this rewrites society’s scripts on leadership.
“I recall a meeting with one of Australia’s most senior Bankers in the late 1990s, revered for his intelligence, technical knowledge, composure and insightfulness. We were talking about the organisation’s culture of excellence, but also hierarchy and the role leaders play in setting the benchmark for performance. He said ‘one should not ask the question to which one does not already know the answer’. For me, this was emblematic of how the leadership space has changed in the last several decades. Posing the question and collaborating with others to find the best pathway forward requires a completely different mindset and orientation – a capacity to listen deeply and then be open to being influenced by the talent around you.”
As Executive Mangers we are responsible for a system, like Finance, Production, Operations HR, Procurement, Marketing, and the like. The focus is not just on themselves and their team, but the whole of the system. If we as Executive Managers don’t have an effective Executive Practice, the system has no clear direction and authority to act and the we become the bottleneck of progress – in other words, we are not building future capability for the system to work on higher order tasks. An effective Executive Practice will include an enabling learning and reflective practice - a clear leadership practice and a decision-making practice that the Executive Manager subscribes to, can ensure that there is trust in the system to make the best decisions at that point of time. At Paul Mills Consulting Pty Ltd, we develop leaders to be systems leaders, understanding their eco-system, what works and what doesn’t, towards better leadership and decision making practice.
These are the fundamental ingredients of leadership that drives transformational change, especially where there is a high level of uncertainty in the future state of the Business model and the underlying logic that drives the key assumptions made by key executives.
Venkat Venkatraman
Venkat Venkatraman, in his book the Digital Matrix, describes the organisational transformation uncertainty facing industrial incumbents. Executive Practice reflects the underlying basis of physical and digital transformations currently underway, particularly in legacy organisations. We see this as a combination of reflective/learning practice, leadership practice and decision making practice.
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So what does Leadership look like in the age of complexity
There are 4 distinct states in the future of leadership …
Self
We often fall into the trap of wanting to solve problems and making them static. Making a problem state static gives us a sense of control making it tangible and delegating tasks not behaviours. This is at the core of working in the unknown. We need to develop a sense of how we deliver momentum without having any of the answers. This is the time to be vulnerable with one self and others to gain insight into how I am thinking about this. Traditionally we have seen this space as deeply reflective and we have not realised that this is the time to engage in critical thinking to develop real thought leadership. The difference here is not to lead others in your thinking but lead others in their thinking. Always ask yourself am I doing this in the service of myself or the service of the system?
Understand the System
Leading others in their thinking helps you to understand at a deeper level what all the variables are that need to be considered. You won’t have the answers - often the system will find the answers by experimenting. The question is; will you be listening correctly, not to the content as that is highly variable at this stage, but to their feelings and behaviours of those in the system. This form of deep listening reflects what they need in order to solve that dynamic problem you have entrusted them with. It’s not about static things like resources, but what is inside of them, like fear, confusion, dysfunctional relationships, feeling incompetent and not understanding the logic of what they are trying to achieve. We call this listening for intent.
Lead the System
Here the leader does not get involved in the task but how the team is working on the task. This is difficult for a leader as they have always worked on the task and they may think they have the solution but must wait until the team develops their own solutions. One model we use to help illustrate the change in perspective was researched by MIT in 2012, using digital sensor badge technology on teams that were low through to high performing. The data when analysed, showed that high performing teams exhibited energy, engagement and exploration as three key ingredients. Energy is the observable energy shown by individual team members, engagement is that energy directed between team members, and exploration is when team members periodically break out to gain new information and bring this back to the team.
As leaders, we can easily engage in tasks, however our role is to foster an environment where team members can excel and bring their full discretionary effort to work. This means we must work ‘on’ the team, not ‘in’ the team. Our focus needs to be on behaviours not getting involved in task completion.
Leverage the System
All of the above is useless if we don’t learn and develop from our interactions and the work we have just done. Our roll as leaders is to make our teams and system future ready, learning and reflecting on what we have just done and the anchoring the breakthrough behaviours that lead to success.
Increasingly, we know that one breakthrough behaviour is that or collaboration. Often, and as part of navigating a hierarchy, leaders have learned strong competitive behaviours in the last. This has been the cornerstone of progression – being able to achieve at a high level personally to warrant that promotion or project opportunity. We also learn to compete at School for grades, or in sport. Learning capabilities associated with collaboration is a journey for many, but a vital component of modern workforce effectiveness.
“Future-focused leadership requires you to focus on your system, to understand the behaviours you are seeing play out, what is working and what is not. We often talk about trust as being the most important ingredient to success. With the latest Harvard Business Review thinking being that the trust has moved from consistency (reliability) to relationship as the most important element, we need to challenge ourselves to de-program those old scripts and start to embrace brand new ones built for future success.”
“Like every discipline, leadership requires ongoing learning and change, not consolidation but rather a recalibration of what is required now to be effective. Letting go of old habits has long been a key ingredient of leadership transition, but in today’s more complex and accelerated world, we need to get much more comfortable with the psychological process of letting go, especially of the strengths that have defined our journey to this point.”
Matthew Byrne is a Senior Associate of Paul Mills Consulting Pty Ltd and leads the AGSM General Managers Program at the University of NSW. Paul Mills is Director of Paul Mills Consulting Pty Ltd, and is also Adjunct Faculty of the AGSM and Associate Program Director at Melbourne Business School.