Reimagining Leadership Part Two

This week I hosted the following two conversations as the next step from Part One in Reimagining Leadership.

What would you add to the many gems that flowed from these conversations?

Kind regards

Ian

Reimagining Leadership Part One

 With members of Wise Leaders Community we've been reimagining leadership.

Here's where we're at so far.

Below is an overview of each aspect:

Wise Conversations

Wise conversations take place when participants are willing to change, modify, or nuance beliefs or ideologies and ways of being and doing.

Wise conversations illuminate possibility and underpin turning possibility into reality.

Leadership is the art of inspiring people to bring everything they are as human beings to everything they do.

Management is continuous process/system innovation to ensure leadership is uncomplicated.

Self-leadership

Self-leadership is taking responsibility for our intentions, feelings, thoughts, actions and behaviours,

And the impact of these actions and behaviours. Context is always ‘in the service of others’.

Clarity

Crystal clear clarity of what’s possible.

Crucial to unearth clarity about direction/goal/aim/objective, roles, and value behaviours.

Decisions

Decision/s about what’s next following an agreed process.

Strategy

Strategy is a compass and can be expressed in a sentence like mine:

Giving full attention to relationships and allowing results to be a natural consequence.

Partnerships

Possibility partnerships enable personal joy and professional success. They are based on a willingness to be vulnerable and to collaborate to achieve shared objectives based on a shared execution map.

Who will you become?

What will you do next?

Kind regards

Ian

 I loved having this conversation with People and Culture Leader Leanne Perryman this week.

We explore how people and culture leaders can gain and sustain a seat at the executive table, employee well-being programs, and much more.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

PS More videos like this here.

Beginning a conversation about the paradigmatic shift needed in leadership

I’m channelling three of my colleagues in this piece, Dr. Jason Fox, Ed Brenegar, and Richard Merrick. plus Henry Mintzberg and a Google Search!

Below is from Dr. Jason Fox

“A paradigmatic shift is a fundamental change in the way that something is understood or approached. It is not simply an incremental change, but rather a change in the underlying assumptions or theories that form the basis of a particular field or discipline. Paradigmatic shifts can have far-reaching implications, not only within a particular field, but also in related fields and society as a whole.”

Read more from Jason on this here.

I see a paradigmatic shift happening in leadership. 

Perhaps even that leadership itself is redundant. 

Here’s just three examples from a plethora of challenges where modern leadership is failing.

1) Catastrophic failure of political, religious, government, business and society leaders to arrest climate change

2) Obvious failure to keep pace ethically and morally with the technological changes that threaten our existence as human beings. 

3) Continued slowness in bringing about equal rights for women and minorities.

Henry Mintzberg suggests communityship is more important than leadership. Find out more about this compelling concept here.

Henry says “Sure we need leadership, especially to establish communityship in new organizations and help sustain it in established organizations. What we don’t need is an obsession with leadership—of some individual singled out from the rest, as if he or she is the be-all and end-all of organizing (and is paid accordingly). So here’s to just enough leadership, embedded in communityship.”

For me at the heart of the paradigmatic shift in leadership is reimagining integrity, accountability and authority,

Below is a great paraphrase from Ed Brenegar.

"Maybe, to paraphrase a biblical reference, through the advancement of technology, we have gained the world and lost our humanity.

The question of our time is, then, "For what purpose, and to what end does our technological advancement lead us?”

Our humanity in my view is a key to our integrity. If we are not putting people and planet ahead of profits we have no integrity. Your feelings and thoughts?

Below is an insightful piece from Richard Merrick about authority. 

“From Middle English; “power derived from good reputation; power to convince people, capacity for inspiring trust."

We seem to have mislaid this version of authority and replaced it with a version based on role title, resources and other forms of hard power.

Increasingly, in politics, in sport, and in business those in power have little real authority.

Money is a temporary, fragile, source of power. Authority is something altogether more difficult to earn and retain, but infinitely more capable of changing what matters.

Nobody can give us authority.”

I like Richard’s insight. You?

Below is from a Google search

"Responsibility is task-oriented. Every person on a team may be responsible for a given task that is required to complete a massive project. Accountability is what happens after a situation has occurred. It is how you respond and take ownership over the results."

I like this insight into accountability. You?

I suggest a conversation in your team/cohort/family this week about integrity, accountability and authority. It just might be the beginning of you making your own paradigmatic shift in your leadership.

I suggest beginning your conversation with Seth Godin’s great blog post about looking in the mirror. Here it is.

Have folk read it well before your conversation and begin with reflections about it.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

Conversation About Conversations With Allan Parker Part Fifteen

Allan Parker and myself pick up where we left off last year with this conversation about why sharing feelings and thoughts lead to wiser actions than conversations based on opinions only (there's a place for that elsewhere).

We also explore noise in general including propaganda, fake news and just plain BS.

We also touch on the Ideology, Ignorance, Arrogance Challenge and how being trapped in any clouds our judgement and decision making.

Allan introduces the wonderful insight of Premature Extrapolated Conclusions.

Here's some Allan's great flip charts:

We will be exploring these last two in future conversations.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

The Wise Conversations Manifesto

My focus this year is on 'The Art of Wise Conversations'.

I'm hosting a group.

I'm providing mentoring.

I'm writing a book on the topic with a goal of publishing in early 2024.

Over the break I began reviewing, keeping and discarding my research into human being centred conversations since they became the main focus of my work in 2012.

Ten key themes emerged.

I have placed them in the following manifesto:

Wise Conversations Manifesto

• Human being centred.
• Unearthing and unleashing our best humanness.
• Maintaining high value and mutually rewarding relationships.
• Accentuating joy.
• Nurturing our insights, inspirations, ideas and far-sight.
• Being our best one moment at a time.
• Enhancing our essence (our unique gifts/talents/skills/attitudes)
• Innovating every day, i.e. shifting away from the status quo when sameness is no longer serving us.
• Naming it when we temporarily lose shared-view in our relationships, and stopping to regain it. 
• Gratitude is our foundation and having “an attitude of gratitude" our key behaviour.

Today I began exploring these themes privately with my bespoke mentoring clients and also in the public programs where I’m hosting two groups every first Wednesday at 10 AM Melbourne time or 8.30 AM London time. 

This second group is full. There are some vacancies for the 10 AM group. The topic for March is Trust. You can learn more here or contact me on +61 418 807 898. I will catch you up privately after your registration on the first topic of Respect.

The program examines what I have come to call the The Nine Essential Seats of a Wise Conversation Circle. 

Each of the nine leads us deeper in the themes of the manifesto, and how we can apply them in our own best way.

The Art of Wise Conversations Programs also feature my proven methodology as follows:

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

Three gifts to help you to ensure that 2023 is your best year yet

You can download them here. 

Gifts include this book rap from Geoff McDonald.

My 27 best ways to focus conversations.

and a complimentary 20 minute mentoring session to explore one of the 27 that you feel is right for you right now.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

'Unhurried Conversations' with Johnnie Moore

I loved having this conversation with Johnnie Moore:

There's links to Johnnie's work underneath the video on YouTube.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

More videos like this one here.

My best 27 conversation focusing tools

I've invested a lot of time and energy in the past year reviewing over 100 models that I have developed and used successfully in the past 30 years.

The following 27 made the final cut.

You can download them with my compliments here.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

Be More. Do Less. Improve Results.

This is my first of what will be two articles per month on substack.

I encourage you to subscribe. Soon all of my article publishing will be on substack.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian

The Super Nine of Business Success

I love Tom Peters. Here's is his explanation of the famous Staff 7-S model of which he is the co-creator.

The 7-S model, Tom himself and his other works, have greatly influenced my own work.

The 7-S model - strategy, systems, structure, skills, style, and staff—all united by shared values.

In my model below I include shared values in my Shared-view and I have added Status quo assessment and relevance and reliability and Small yet significant shifts and aggregation of marginal gains.

Shared-view

Learn more about shared-view in my complimentary online course here. Without shared-view nothing else can work at optimum levels.

Staff

In all thriving organisations I've observed staff/employees are first. In such organisations people feel valued, live values and exchange and deliver value. Learn more about these three here.

Structure

The best organisational structures are based on a supplier-customer value exchange and delivery chain. At the simplest level this means your board is serving your executives, who are serving your employees, who are serving your customers and other stakeholders.

If you are a shareholder driven organisation then you will never maximise your potential because your structure will be designed around shareholders.

Value exchange and delivery structure creation is unique to every organisation. Please contact me on +61 418 807 898 to explore further.

Systems

Systems follow structure. A systems thinking approach is essential. More about this here where I'm in conversation with Glenn Capelli and Allan Parker.

Strategy in a sentence

I updated my insights into this concept recently.

Status quo assessment and relevance and reliability

"No one sees reality.

It’s worth repeating: No one accurately sees the world as it is."

says Seth Godin in his first post for 2023. Read full post here.

I prefer therefore to assess normal (status quo) and to be in constant conversation with others about the relevance and reliability of my actions.

Skills

In Australia right now we have massive skill shortages in nurses and doctors as well as tourism and hospitality. From what I can tell the powers that be waited far too long to do anything about it and now we have a massive crisis.

Wise Leaders are always assessing skills needed now and at least a decade into the future.

Style

I don't believe in the traditional leadership styles. Because each of us is a one-of-a-kind human being we lead according to who we are and our preferences. Style for me therefore is being fully who we are. I created the five faces of a fully alive human being with this in mind. Learn more about the five faces here where there is a link to the podcast version.

Small yet significant shifts and aggregation of marginal gains

Two of my favourite concepts are quantum leaps and the aggregation of marginal gains. Combining them is super tactic for ensuring success. Learn all about this here.

Become the wise leader you want to be.

Ian