OUTsight/ Forest of Leaders

Photo by Kazuend on Unsplash

Manila, 29 July 2020 — How many leaders will you grow?

In #Grow3Leaders we are about to complete our first-year cycle of monthly themes. This month we’re unpacking how leaders use a coaching style. Of course, effective leaders know how to use a range of styles, just like a good golfer knows how to use each of the clubs in the bag to produce a great round of golf with a good score.

With the conditions in our world today, and living as we are in the early part of the 21st century, leaders have no chance to become effective change-makers unless and until they discover how to use the coaching style. In the golfing metaphor, it’s definitely one club you cannot do without if you want a good score.

The Challenges We Face

So what are the conditions we’re facing in our world today? Let’s recap.

First, as scientists have been telling us for quite a while, we are using more than 1.5 times the resources that our blue planet can sustainably offer us. We are now living in a global climate crisis that has already triggered the start of alarming climate migration. More upheaval, and renewal, are on the way.

Second, we are now seeing and feeling how lives and livelihoods are hit hard by the pandemic that is spreading relentlessly around the world. The new coronavirus may well have originated in nature that has been encroached on by our ever-growing and resource-hungry cities. Probably, it will not be the last virus epidemic we will battle.

Third, with unprecedented lockdowns and social distancing measures becoming a part of the new normal, our lives have been turned upside down as we are feeling the future of work starting to claim our homes, our time, and our sense of security and belonging. We now need a proper workspace to keep working from home. Without commuting, our work hours seem to get longer all the time. And with time passing, we wonder how to keep having proper social contacts and relationships in a new normal of social distancing.

Never before in our hyper-connected world have we faced adverse impacts and major challenges on such an enormous scale, at such speed, and with such unpredictable directions. Covid-19 dwarfs the previous crises.

A Workable Approach

What are we going to do about it? For leaders, that’s a fundamental question, and the best chance we can give ourselves to come up with a satisfactory response is to collaborate on creating it. The bamboo forest in the photo of this post symbolizes what we need and can do. A workable approach. I call it a Forest of Leaders.

While we observe how some political leaders choose to create deeper divides with an us-versus-them mentality, we also witness a growing number of people around the world — including many Millennials professionals and GenZ young leaders — who choose to stand for positive changes, for sustainability, for innovation, and for collaboration. There is hope, and there is strife. Bridging the divides is a challenge.

To create a better and more sustainable future from where we are now is going to be hard work. We need all the help we can find. The question for me and you is what will we do to get there. How far will each of us go?

How Far Will You Go?

One thing is certain. To go far, we need individual courage and exceptional teamwork. Leaders working together in high-performing teams are going to make the difference. Actually, that has always been the case, as we know from Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist in the past century. Only the stakes and the opportunities are different now, and so will be the solutions be different.

A 21st-century definition of leadership describes leading as a process of influence, with Direction, Alignment, and Commitment (DAC). Explains Cynthia McCauley of the Center for Creative Leadership, “People need shared direction, alignment, and commitment to work together effectively … Each of us can bring aspects of [DAC] to the leadership process.” So how to do that, in existing teams, newly established teams, and teams you can create in the workplace?

Bringing leaders together in the workplace to influence positive changes together — with direction, alignment, and commitment — is what we have adopted as our challenge in Grow3Leaders. To make this work, we need to learn how to Collab-orate. Our teams are called Collabs. So the process and skills to form and run a Collab become essential. That’s where the coaching style comes in. It fosters collaboration and collective influencing with DAC rather than 20th-century directive command-and-control leadership.

Our Vision in Grow3Leaders

Our vision in Grow3Leaders is to make a difference in how we find solutions for today’s challenges by giving leaders in the workplace an opportunity to learn and practice new skills and effective leadership behaviors. It’s a cross-generational challenge, we’re all in it, whether you’re a Millennial, GenXer, Boomer, or from GenZ. Just like in the forest we will see young, middle-age, and senior trees grow next to each other. We are one forest.

So what are the advantages for 21st-century leaders to know how to use a coaching style? It’s about being able to solve problems by empowering others to connect and collaborate. First, you can empower anyone across hierarchies and silos using your personal power and the power of questions, rather than having to rely only on expert or position power.

Second, you can empower leaders and high performers who are stuck in a transition of some sort. And third, you can empower team members (Collabmates) to work together, innovate, and boost performance. Think of all the leaders you can grow in this way! Once you get the hang of the style and the process — and provided you have a burning desire to drive positive change with others — you can grow a forest of leaders.

To make a start, check out the earlier posts this month. Read how we reviewed Three Coaching Traps and continued our exploration with a look at Short Coaching Styles in the form of TAP Coaching. We discussed why it’s critical for you to activate a Bias to Act in your behavior at work. And we explored three reasons to Empower Your Collab (team) using a coaching style.

Community of Leaders

If you want to meet peer leaders and learn the ins and outs of using a coaching style, consider joining us in #Grow3Leaders. Our secret sauce is to add the power of collaboration to learn, act, and succeed together. We learn and practice effective leadership behaviors together and ‘out loud’ to create positive change, including in these difficult times of dealing with Covid-19 and the new normals that are emerging.

#Grow3Leaders is an international and cross-generational community of leaders. We like to compare ourselves to practitioners going to the Dojo to practice with others. You are ready to join and take on the Grow3Leaders challenge when you invite three colleagues to come with you and become influencers of positive change in your workplace together. Joining us is free of charge—not free of commitment. If you have questions, reach out to me on LinkedIn to get a quick answer or to set up a call.