Leadership Moments
“You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time”
Written by: Glenn Frey, Don Henley & Randy Meisner (1975). (The Eagles)
Lyrics © Cass County Music, Red Cloud Music, Nebraska Music
Have you ever had one of those weeks where each day you set your ‘To Do’ list and at the end of each day, you look at the six or seven things you needed to do and you’re lucky to have completed one or two of them? Before you know it, the week has finished and the prospect looms that Monday will see you wrestling with the same list again! Have you ever had a week, where you are powering through the proverbial ‘To Do’ list but it seems you are just moving from one thing to the next? Do you find yourself making time by borrowing from the other significant parts of life? Sure you got through the list this week with days to spare but something seemed to be missing.
What this highlights is that so often we spend our time thinking about the next meeting, the next webinar, the next Zoom or Teams meeting. In our haste to be overly conscientious, we run the risk of not paying attention to the matter at hand. To be clear, this article is not saying that deadlines are not important, they are, rather this article explores more the exercise of leadership in the present moment.
Leadership can be seen as having several different components or pillars. If your leadership pertains to a particular area or discipline, such as IT or Finance, then having the relevant qualifications and experiences in that area and as a consequence, being regarded as a leader in that particular area by your peers, is a given. Broadly speaking the classical pillars or components of leadership could be conceived as:
- Technical / Academic Leadership
- Industry Leadership
- Operations Leadership
- Organizational Leadership
- Strategic Leadership
- Human Resources Leadership
- Personal Leadership
The problem of course is that some of these components require the leader to be future focused. In the case of Strategic Leadership, that may involve thinking forward 5, perhaps even 10 years from now. Operations Leadership on the other hand often means thinking far enough ahead to make things work today, tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. Sometimes the challenge of leadership isn’t the next deadline but rather, making sure that you are grounded in the present and paying attention to the people your are called to lead. In short, if you really want your staff to be engaged, take an interest in your team and the work they are doing. Leadership is meant to be ‘other-centred’, it is meant to be a gift that is shared. In a recent post on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), the President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Beth Frates MD, made the following astute observation about being present to the people in your life, which includes work colleagues.
“Receiving the gift of attention—someone’s full attention with the phone put away—is a real gift. Listening–fully listening to someone with the goal of understanding them and helping them—is a real gift. These gifts are priceless.”
Beth Frates MD (2023) Post on ‘X’ (Formerly Twitter) 8 September 2023.
If you have ever had a conversation with a leader and you got the impression that their mind is somewhere else, you most likely came away wondering why you had bothered. Conversly, if you have ever had a conversation with a leader and you felt as though you were then most important person in the building at that time, you most likely came away feeling uplifted and empowered by it. This is the priceless gift of leading in the present moment. It takes the leader down the path of ‘leading from the heart’, a phrase coined by Mark Crowley and ensuring, what Professor Amy Edmondson refers to as Psychological Safety, is present. When a team member feels their leader listens to them, they will be more likely to feel safe enough to raise difficult issues with their leader. At the heart of leading in the present moment, is respect for self and the other person. After all, the ‘busyness’ of the day will still be there after you have finished the conversation. Mark Crowley in his excellent book ‘Lead From The Heart’ sums it up well.
“In the moment, we overlook that every day is hectic and that new goals and challenges will await us as soon as we conquer the ones in front of us. And so, we build and reinforce the habit of putting aside plans we had to coach and teach our employees under the delusion that we’ll try again soon—we’ll get to it next month.”
Crowley, Mark. C. (2022). Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century (eBook). Carlsbad. California: Hay House, Inc. p260.
To coach and to teach requires engagement with the staff member and inevitably that means spending time to talk but more importantly listening to the staff member in that moment. One of the keys to leading in the present moment, is visibility. Leading in the present moment creates multiple scenarios for people to ‘buy-in’ to the leader and what they have to offer. Visibility as a leader is critical to being able to lead in the present moment. Leaders need to be visible to their team(s) and that means moving around in a strategic manner. Former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, explains that the leader needs to be where the decisions are made.
“Corporate leaders will of course have different answers to the “Where on the battlefield?” question than military leaders or Secretaries of State. But for each of them the answer has to be “at the point of decision.” The point of decision can be many places. Because it is important for followers to see and hear from their leader, corporate executives should often visit the factory floor to see what is going on. But then get out of the way so workers, foremen, and line leaders can get on with their jobs. Get back upstairs and work to make sure the guys downstairs get what they need to do the job. That’s what you’re being paid for!”
Powell, Colin., Koltz, Tony. (2012). It Worked For Me: In Life And Leadership (eBook). New York. New York: Harper Collins. p55.
The trick that Powell highlights well, to be leading in the present moment and being visible, is to strike the balance in knowing when you need to be visible and when being invisible, might be your super power. There is a very fine line between being around, supportive and encouraging the troops and micro-managing them. If the battalion commander loses sight of the entire battle field, are they still in command or blinded in their focus of one section of the organization at the expense of others. Being aloof versus being too involved is the fine line that well grounded, very capable leaders walk on a daily basis.
It is not just important for leaders to be visible, the team members must have visibility to the leader also. The captain of a sporting team, will not utilize the full array of talents on the team, if they have forgotten that some of their most talented pitchers are fielding in the outfield. To know the team means that the leader must not just be visible to the team, they must be visible to the leader. If not, how does the leader collect enough information to ensure that the work is meaningful, yet challenging? How do they know who might have ability as a future leader and who needs further opportunities to develop? Whether you are leading a team of 6 people in a store or leading a large government agency, these principles should hold. It is the execution of these principles that will need attention. In this post COVID lockdown era, technology is an obvious ‘go-to’ for leaders of large organizations, recognizing that an ‘in-person’ visit can bring a lot of energy that a Zoom or Teams meeting most likely won’t deliver.
At the heart of leading in the present moment, is respect for self and the other person.
For a team member and even for a leader, visibility begins by accepting an invitation to something. Consider this scenario. Jo, has been with the company for 5 years and seems to pay attention to the detail of their work, meeting deadlines and their engagement with stakeholders has received positive feedback recently. Their leader has suggested that Jo be given a calendar invite to a committee that will require significant interactions with other functional areas of the organization, including Finance and HR. The project lasts for 6 months and brings about a new, more streamlined way of doing something that was previously laborious and unnecessarily time-consuming. The insights that Jo was able to share has drawn positive comments from the leaders of these other areas within the organization. Early the following year, Jo receives a calendar invite from the head of operations, to be part of a ‘working party’ project that will take the company forward in achieving the goals in its strategic plan. As Jo becomes better known, the more Jo is trusted to be an active member of these high-level strategic committees, even making presentations to the Board on some of these projects, the more visible Jo becomes to the Leadership Group. As Jo becomes visible to the leaders, the leaders become more visible to Jo. It started by Jo’s leader putting her forward for that initial calendar invite. That said, the invitation required a response, a yes or a no and if yes, some commitment to it. This scenario serves as a wonderful reminder that a good leader creates good leaders.
This notion of visibility requiring an invitation, a response and upon confirmation that their work was valued, a further invitation to ‘do it again’, was highlighted in a must read article in Harvard Business Review: Ascend. Written by Nicole D. Smith and Angela Cheng-Cimini, their article ‘How to Become More Visible at Work’ brings interesting insights for staff members and leaders alike. They put forward interesting ideas to the question: ‘What does becoming visible look like in practice?’
What does becoming visible look like in practice?
- Make a move. Being a visible employee requires purpose and intention. It takes action – start speaking up or follow-up…If you’re a manager, share your team’s successes.
- Deliver quality work. Be visible for the right reasons. Do good work. Earn the reputation as a reliable, trustworthy, and valued, needed member of the team.
- Know what’s top of mind for key stakeholders. Be able to help and add value to the work of the decision-makers in your organization. Ultimately, you want them to want you on their team.
- Love to learn. Look for, ask about, and volunteer for learning opportunities that will expand your skills. Does your manager need an extra hand for a time-sensitive project?
- Be kind. People want to collaborate with kind, thoughtful, good people. See being kind as an opportunity to hone your soft skills, like empathy, compassion, resilience and adaptability — traits that allow others to see you as approachable, collaborative, inclusive and as a valuable employee and emerging leader.
- Make a connection. Don’t be shy about linking up with other visible superstars at work. Do this not for a selfish intent but instead to connect and build relationships with those you admire with the intention of understanding how they earned their visibility.
Smith, Nicole.D., Cheng-Cimini, Angela. (2023). How to Become More Visible at Work in Harvard Business Review: Ascend (August 18, 2023). Brighton, MA: Harvard Business Publishing.
Visibility of leaders of course is not a new concept. The notion of leaders managing by wandering around (MBWA) and getting involved, has been extensively covered and discussed by Tom Peters, in the wide range of books and articles that he is authored over the last 40 years or more.
“MBWA, as it seems half the world knows today, is Managing by Wandering Around. And it meant Managing by Wandering Around. The real meaning was that you can’t lead from your office/cubicle. You lead on the shop floor or, for that matter, in the customer’s or vendor’s place of business. You lead, damn it, by staying in direct touch with the action that matters. And it gets harder and harder and harder as the company gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Peters, Tom. (2018) The Excellence Dividend: Principles for Prospering in Turbulent Times from a Lifetime in Pursuit of Excellence (eBook). London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. p627.
A key point to be made here and one that is consistent with the MBWA approach advocated by Tom Peters, is the connection of Visible Leadership and Adaptive Leadership. A critical component of Adaptivde Leadership is Inner-Work. Simply put, it takes a leader with some degree of confidence in themselves and in their leadership, to engage with their teams as they move around the organization. A leader who engages in Inner-Work is more likely to to be comfortable within themselves and are often able to exude this calmness and warmth to others, as a manifestation of their ‘Outer-Work’. In terms of Technical Skills / Competence, the leader probably has this, as that is most likely what moved them into leadership in the first instance. This Inner-Work, really allows the leader to spend time, dwelling in the present moment. It is also a skill that lends itself to the leader being a reflective leader and decision maker. Irma Tyler-Wood from Ki Thoughtbridge, explained this connection in her presentation at Harvard Graduate School of Education in June 2014. Based on the research that her organization had undertaken regarding Adaptive Leadership, Inner-Work was a critical feature in the ‘Integrated Model of Leadership’.
“Inner-Work enables the leader to read their external environment with greater accuracy. Self-awareness precedes and encourages well-differentiated leaders with clear boundaries and mastery over their emotional states. It allows them to deal with the emotionality of others in a system without losing who they are or taking on a problem that doesn’t belong to them. Inner-Work is critical and foundational to the acuity in which the leader applies their technical and adaptive skills in the service of accomplishing outer work.”
Ki Thoughtbridge (2023) The Integrated Model of Leadership. Indianapolis, IN.
cf: Tyler-Wood, Irma. (June 22, 2014). ‘Essentials for Effective Leadership: Inner Work and Adaptive Skill’, presented at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge MA.
Whichever way you bounce it up, leading in the present moment, making people you encounter believe that they are the only person in the organization, gives legitimacy and authenticity to leadership. Skimping on time, as the opening quote suggests, rarely ever works. For the leader, the other skill to learn is the ability to listen, which is different to thinking about your next statement as the person keeps talking to you. Asking clarifying questions and using the principles of Active Listening can be extremely useful in these leadership moments. All of this doesn’t mean losing sight of the bigger strategic plan. This absolutely has its place too but not at the expense of the people you are leading, the same people you are going to call on to bring the strategic vision into reality.
“The present moment, if you think about it, is the only time there is.
No matter what time it is, it is always now.”
Marianne Williamson (2020). ‘The Time That Matters Most’
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