The "Why" of Leadership
- Antony Allen
- Jul 7, 2020
- 9 min read
Understanding Why
I remember once challenging a Board I was working with about why some of the strategic objectives weren’t being met by the senior leadership team. It was clear that the Directors knew what was required. It was in their objectives and discussed regularly in progress meetings. They were subject matter experts and very experienced, and had achieved against similar goals historically, so they also knew how to deliver. Given that they knew what to do and how they should do it, but at the time were no longer leading their divisions to meet the objectives, I believed that we needed to get beneath this and understand why they weren’t delivering. Was it a motivation issue, too many conflicting priorities, workload, procrastination, confusion, or any other number of possible reasons?
Understanding why makes a fundamental difference. It taps into the blockers and drivers for effective leadership for each individual leader. It makes it personal and grounded in reality. There aren’t just a set of rules or explanations which can be taught and which might or might not resonate with you, or may or may not help you unpick the areas where you need some help.
Understanding why gives you a call to action and makes you question rather than just follow. For example, it’s easy to understand the teaching that as leaders we need to be good listeners, so what is it that is getting in your way of doing it? We’re all different people, so why would one set of rules apply equally to all of us? If the skills associated with leadership are so easy to dissect and explain, why are there so many different leadership programmes, theories and guidelines? Of course, we need to understand the what and the how of leadership, but to really embed it as part of how we behave and who we are, we need to understand the “why” for us as an individual. If leadership is just something we do, it will show. If we can unpick what is getting in our way and understand why, both the experience and the results will be massively different for us and all of those around us.
Inspirational Leadership
I’m a big advocate of coaching and ensuring that leaders have support as well as challenge, and I also believe there is a place for leadership programmes. Focusing on the what and how of leadership also has a place, particularly for new leaders but also as a timely reminder for the rest of us. However, I don't believe that this alone is enough to deliver sustainable behavioural change.
I've been on a number of leadership programmes, most of which gave me something at the time but which were quickly forgotten when I got back to the practicalities of the real world. It often felt like it was received wisdom from the front of the room. However earlier in my career there was one leadership programme I went on that really resonated with me, and it was because it tapped into why.
The quote that best sums up the experience comes from Maya Angelou:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel”
Just for clarity, the aim of this blog isn’t to sell the programme, it’s just something I’m passionate about. We have so many talented people out there who are working ridiculously hard and sometimes just can’t see the wood for the trees. As we progress further in organisations it can get lonelier and lonelier. Feedback can get harder to come by (honest feedback anyway!), and a helping hand to unpick what is going on as well as providing some time to think can be hugely beneficial.
The difference between the Inspirational Leadership programme from other programmes I have attended was the collaborative approach and that we focused on real issues. It was very practical and interactive rather than dictated from the front, and as we shared our experiences and frustrations we realised that most of us had, to some extent, bought into a set of issues about what the company had or hadn’t done for us. It was a large, multinational company, so what difference could we make? We didn’t make the big decisions after all.
Most of us had lost sight of the impact each small difference can make, and the ripple effect we could create if all of us made the changes we could or were leading as effectively as we could. We knew what to do and how to do it, but for various reasons we weren’t quite pushing as hard as we could and had lost some of our drive, or had key developmental areas which we neglected and instead largely focused on our strengths. It was different for each of us but the course and the coaching which was integral to the programme helped us to understand why.
Because it was so personal it didn’t feel like received wisdom, it belonged to me. It made me evaluate what I was doing and see it from other angles through honest feedback. The course still had some reminders and tips to reinforce some of the how and what of leadership, but through practical application based on real life issues and with real support. I left the programme genuinely feeling I could make the changes I needed to make, and I was inspired to go back and follow through on my actions.
The actions were personal to me and based on real issues, though there was still a focus on the strategic direction of the business. It helped me to realise and reinforce why I wanted to lead, and importantly it also helped me to understand the areas where I needed more support with a considered plan on how to tackle them. I had always known what I needed to do and how I was supposed to lead, but in a couple of areas I wasn’t sure why I wasn’t being as effective as I felt I could be.
In leadership roles we can often receive very little direct feedback unless we actively seek it (or read between the lines sometimes!), so some of the reflection and practical learning also helped to reinforce what I was doing well. You can get a sense of how you’re doing or how your team perceives you and can measure results as a leader, but having the focus and time to reinforce the good things you are doing can be a welcome boost and provide some much needed reassurance that you’re on the right track.
So Why Lead?
For each of us the why will be different. Anyone reading this is likely to want to be the best leader they can be, and we will all have a view about what leadership means for us and our teams, and how we are supposed to lead. So why do we want to be leaders? Maybe you’re already a great leader and there’s very little you can learn, but do you get that feedback and have the time and space to celebrate how well you’re doing?
For the rest of us, even if we’re doing really well, why don’t we feel we are being as effective as we can be, and what is stopping us? Do we even realise there are areas where we need some support to improve or understand why we aren’t being quite as effective as we could be? If we deal with why then our potential to make an even bigger difference can be so much greater.
Given that we know how vital leaders are, what a difference we would see if we invest the time and effort to support them to understand why, to help them identify and then remove the obstacles in their way.
Afterword – The Inspirational Leadership Programme
I haven’t plugged any of my work to date in my series of blogs, and I’ve deliberately left
this until the end as I want the main context of this to be around the learning and why it is so important to deal with the issues that get in our way as leaders. There are numerous ways to do this, and I would recommend getting support as leaders through internal mentors where you don’t have the skills, through Coaching where you have the skills but need some support to find your way forward, through your support network, or through a programme like Inspirational Leadership.
For those of you who would like to know more about the programme I’ve been speaking about, it was a version of the Inspirational Leadership Programme I once attended and am now lucky enough to run in association with Starfish Group. The programme is tailored to each company and their individual needs and issues in order to base it in reality. The aim is always to use internal trainers and pass the knowledge and training capability across so that they can lead it themselves, and we take pride in knowing this allows us to reach an even wider audience and make a bigger difference.
There were a number of reasons why this programme in particular really resonated with me, and still does:
Learning environment - The programme is run in partnership with the business and with a mix of external consultants and internal trainers, allowing a huge amount of personal interaction. The trainers actively participate and share their own experiences and stories (often where they got it wrong!) and are therefore able to create a level of safety and openness, meaning they are part of the experience rather than distant experts reciting theory. It is also a prerequisite that the programme has Board level backing to really support the push to make sustainable change.
Dealing with real issues – the facilitated learning process is in small groups and focuses on practical application of dealing with real work and life issues. This means everyone is able to really internalise the learning and understand why they have had issues and how to move forward. The result is that when they return to the workplace and their home lives they have a well thought out action plan that is personal to them, and our experience and research shows that the vast majority therefore follow this through.
Participants feel emotion – This is a challenging programme where everyone receives honest feedback and deals with what this means for us. It is also grounded in real issues for the business as well as us personally. However, it is such a supportive and intimate environment that it allows us to open up and experience emotion. Often as leaders we shy away from this, despite all the current focus on mental or emotional health, but often our emotions relate to issues that have held us back in the past. Managing this emotion helps to unlock the barriers that might be getting in the way of why we aren’t able to do some of the what and the how, and this makes the programme a genuinely memorable experience that stays with you.
Hopelessness to optimism – I mentioned at the start of this blog that there is often a stigma with leadership courses. Many participants arrive on programmes weighed down by the real world, feeling they don’t have the time for another course, and drained by the rigours of their work and possibly home lives. Most seem to struggle with getting balance. However, the programme is designed so they get the rare luxury of time to focus on themselves, surrounded by people in similar situations. The initial cynicism is soon broken down as the programme is challenging and practical, and they discover that they are not alone in their struggles. It gives them the focus, support, challenge and time in order that they are able to leave with a clear plan and are motivated to go back and make a real difference.
A case study was conducted a few years ago in one of the multinational companies that Starfish supports, and the results of the programmes and associated initiatives were clear:
Individual business improvement plans were in place and followed through for all attendees;
Recognisable increase in leadership capability supported by the 360º data;
The division of the business had a clear sense of itself and how it fit in within the company culture;
Individual leaders had a clear sense of their roles and abilities.
So why is a programme like Inspirational Leadership worth the investment for a business? It shows a commitment to making a change and supporting the right behaviours, and it reflects an investment in its leaders. There is a wealth of research available about what a leader should be and how critical good leadership is to any business, but much less available about how they can remove the obstacles in their way. The pace of change increases ever more rapidly and our businesses and leaders are constantly having do adapt our ways of working to support our teams and clients as we go through crises such as Covid. We need our leaders to be the best they can be, and we need to support them to help them understand why.
If you’d like to find out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or have a look at the link below for a brief overview of the programme. Thanks for reading.
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