Episode 70 - Ten Tips for Leading Others Through the Coronavirus Pandemic

Summary

In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we explore ten tips for leading others through Coronavirus pandemic. Like any other crisis, this too shall pass. Now is the time to lead others in a way that leaves our people and organisations in a stronger position once the crisis is over. 

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 70 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore 10 tips for leading others through the coronavirus pandemic.

It is March 2020 and the world is in the grip of a global virus pandemic. Individuals, organisations, cities and even entire countries are moving towards isolation in an attempt to slow down the spread. Travel is becoming increasingly difficult. Family members are separated from each other. Relatives are unwell. Major events and sporting seasons are cancelled. Share markets are in free fall. Supply chains are impacted. Businesses are grinding to a halt. It all sounds like the start of a science fiction movie. But this is all a very real challenge for leaders.

Given all of this, even our most resilient people are likely to be experiencing uncertainty and fear. Each morning they wake up to hear yet more bad news. They’re worried about their health, their families, their friends and their jobs. While there are some similarities to the global financial crisis from a business perspective, the impact on the day-to-day lives of our people is much greater. 

At the very moment where leaders are at risk of becoming distracted and distant, they need to become more focused and present.

Here are 10 tips for leading others through the coronavirus pandemic:

1. Be informed and prepared. Do your research from reputable sources. Keep up to date with information and instructions from your local health and government services. Consider the full range of impacts for your organisation and people. Choose not to be caught up in the online and media frenzy.

2. Turn up each day. As I reflect on leading during the global financial crisis, one thing I would change is the amount of time I spent with other members of the leadership team versus how much time I spent with my own people. It’s really tempting to bunker down with your fellow leaders - after all, who better to understand the pressures you’re facing? But that’s the very point our people need us.

3. Provide as much clarity as you can. Be as open as you can with your people about the plans in place and likely eventualities.

4. Remain calm. As a leader you need to instil well-founded confidence. Emotions are infectious, whether we are face-to-face or via phone or video. People are looking to leaders to set the emotional tone. Yes, this is serious, but you can still be warm and smile. 

5. Demonstrate genuine interest in others. It’s tempting to focus a lot on ourselves, so we need to ensure we continue to ask a lot of open questions. Find out how people are doing, and any practical steps that can be taken to make their lives easier. Listen for what is said and not said. Think about the implications of your actions from their perspective.

6. Provide meaningful work. This one is particularly critical.  Beyond spikes of activity as organisations reshape their plans, people are likely to be less busy than usual. Help people to focus on meaningful work and projects that will continue their development and strengthen the organisation. 

7. Check-in regularly via video. Thanks to mobile technology we all have the potential to stay in touch through video conversations. Video calls are the next best thing to face-to-face conversations. If your organisation doesn’t have a platform for this, find one that works. Services like FaceTime, Zoom and Skype all have free options so there’s no excuse.

8. Invite others to connect. Rather than just connecting downwards, encourage people to connect across the organisation. Suggest they use messaging and team productivity platforms to see how people are going. These casual interactions are something that’s easy to take for granted when it’s business as usual, and they can make a big difference in helping people to feel connected and supported. 

9. Don’t miss the opportunities. It’s easy to focus on the threats, but there are always opportunities. Moments of crisis define you as a leader and your organisation as an employer. Use this as an opportunity to up-skill staff, to have them work on longer-term projects, and to prepare and strengthen the organisation.

10. Don’t do it alone. Find a trusted colleague with whom you can share your concerns, ideas and frustrations. Stay close to your own leader and provide as much support as you can.

Like any other crisis, this too shall pass. Now is the time to lead others in a way that leaves our people and organisations in a stronger position once the crisis is over. As always, I hope you found this podcast helpful. Look after yourselves out there! If there are any ways we can help here at Leadership Today please contact us via our website leadership.today - we’re always happy to run some ideas past you and swap some thoughts. Have a great week, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

About the Author: Andrew Beveridge (Melbourne, Australia) is a Psychologist specialising in leadership development and employee engagement. Andrew hosts the Leadership Today podcast - weekly research-based tips and advice to tackle today's biggest leadership challenges, all in under eight minutes. Go to leadership.today for more details.

Episode 69 - Five Key Leadership Challenges for 2020 and Beyond

Summary

In this week’s Leadership Today podcast we take a step back to explore five key leadership challenges for 2020 and beyond. We explore the daily practices that help us tackle these challenges head-on.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 69 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we take a step back to explore five key leadership challenges for 2020 and beyond. 

You only have to read the paper or watch the news to appreciate there are lots of challenges in the world at the moment. Whether it’s extreme climate conditions, global trade challenges, the refugee crisis, or the expanding virus pandemic, it feels like there is a lot to be worried about. 

There are always pressing challenges in the broader national and global context. Being born in the early 1970s I remember growing up with the imminent threat of nuclear war. That was followed by the devastating AIDs epidemic. Then there was a national economic recession, global terrorism, and the global financial crisis. It’s almost like we skip from one existential crisis to the next.

Upon that backdrop there are always challenges for leaders. As we continue through 2020 and into a new decade, I believe there are five challenges for leaders in particular. These are based on research literature and reinforced through my own experiences.

1. Reflection deficit. The leaders I work with talk about back to back meetings, and too much work to complete in a day. They bounce from crisis to crisis with very little time to think or plan. As a result they’re reactive and struggle to be fully present. The old example of working ‘in the business’ very much applies, with few working ‘on the business’ let alone considering whether this is the right business in the first place.  

2. Flatlining trust. When it comes to organisations, the trust bank account is empty. People have seen how organisations have treated them, their friends and their relatives. Based on experiences over the past 12 years post the global financial crisis they’ve been taught that organisations can’t be trusted to look after their best interests. We feel like we’re on our own and that it’s every person for themselves.

3. Internal competition. With the backdrop of flatlining trust, many people have based their work identity and community around their team rather than the organisation. The context might change, but the comments are remarkably similar between organisations. “My team is great - we support each other to deliver great work. Unfortunately we can’t depend on other teams to do the same”. It ends up being team versus team, us versus the world, or even us versus the organisation. While that creates identity for the team, it also discourages collaboration and loyalty to the organisation. If anything it amplifies the lack of trust towards the organisation. After all, even my leader is acting as if the organisation can’t be trusted.

4. Reluctant leaders. Leadership is often seen as an onerous addition and, as such, many people don’t want to become leaders. They see it as an additional burden on top of the regular job. When I ask people in leadership roles how many hours in their week should be spent leading, very few think it is more than four. 

5. Transactional engagement. Within all of that context employees are naturally focused on what they can get in the short term. Their relationship with the organisation becomes transactional. Working for an organisation ends up looking remarkably like working within the gig economy. When I’m getting what I need I’ll stay, but I’m always watching out for the next opportunity just in case. Leaders end up focusing on trying to get a short term boost. The question is often how they can get the best out of their people this week.

In summary, there’s an overwhelmingly short term focus on daily problems. Leaders are operating in an environment that’s closer to panic than planning. 

Stepping out of these challenges can be tough. It requires a different focus on daily practices that encourage long term thinking. That’s part of the reason for calling this podcast Leadership Today - it’s what we can do today that makes the difference.

Here are six daily practices that help to address these leadership challenges:

1. Reflecting. Set aside some time each day to reflect. Think about where you get your best ideas. Think beyond your own industry. It may mean you need to trim back time-wasters such as meetings you don’t have a role in. Look for opportunities to reflect each day. 

2. Inspiring. A key contribution of a leader is meaning-making. Talk to people about what matters to them, and how their role contributes to something that matters. 

3. Developing. Focus on what people are interested in developing. Increase the capacity of the organisation and develop up that next group of leaders. 

4. Connecting. If you’ve ever played the game Jenga you recognise the importance of having blocks that can hold each other together. When you build a tower that way it’s surprisingly stable, but once we start pulling out those cross-connections things seem to fall apart. Well it’s the same with organisations - it’s really important for leaders to build connections across the organisation into other teams and other parts of the business.

5. Delegating. Most of us understand how delegating is supposed to work. We need to be clear about what’s needed, offer support, check-in from time to time, and provide feedback. But oftentimes we’re delegating the wrong things. We end up delegating tasks rather than accountability. That just makes people more dependent on us, doesn’t save a whole lot of time, and doesn’t build capability. Take something significant in your role and delegate it. 

6. Clearing. I talked about a leader’s role in removing frustrations recently. It’s really critical that we understand the world our people operate in and make an effort to remove frustrations and inefficiencies. They’re often in the best position to see the frustrations, and we’re often in the best position to clear the way.

As a leader you can check off this list each day - how did I go at reflecting, inspiring, developing, connecting, delegating and clearing? You’re probably doing two or three of these regularly without thinking. There’s a possibility that you’re undertaking another two of these practices from time to time. And there’s probably one or two practices that you rarely take the time to do. Identify the one or two that you can dial up this week, and start putting that into practice on a daily basis.

Well I hope you found this episode helpful. If you did, make sure you share it with someone else. You can always provide a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the podcast. And also take the time if you haven’t connected with me on LinkedIn as yet you can do that via the Leadership.Today website and just follow the connect links. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

About the Author: Andrew Beveridge (Melbourne, Australia) is a Psychologist specialising in leadership development and employee engagement. Andrew hosts the Leadership Today podcast - weekly research-based tips and advice to tackle today's biggest leadership challenges, all in under eight minutes. Go to leadership.today for more details.

Episode 68 - How Jargon Damages Our Ability to Lead

Summary

We all know leaders that love using jargon. This doesn’t just lead to eye-rolls - recent research demonstrates that jargon damages our ability to lead.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 68 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore how jargon damages our ability to lead.

We all know leaders that love using jargon. They’re always using acronyms and spouting the latest organisational buzz words. But, beyond the usual eye-rolls the jargon junky elicits, is there any other impact? Recent research suggests that the use of jargon hampers our ability to lead others effectively. 

One definition of jargon is “special words or expressions that are used by a profession or group that are difficult for others to understand”. Jargon helps those in the know to feel more part of an exclusive group. But that exclusiveness comes, by definition, at the exclusion of others. Jargon can easily create a barrier that reinforces insiders and outsiders.

As a management consultant, I came across a lot of jargon. I learnt quickly to ask what jargon words meant, knowing I had to work them into a report at some point. Once you let the jargon word pass the first time, it just became more difficult to find out what the word meant later.

Sometimes we are so immersed in our environment that we don’t even recognise the jargon we’re using. It’s often highly specific to our group or organisation. Recently I saw a presentation which included 14 acronyms on one PowerPoint slide. While the mostly insider audience nodded along, I was mystified. That’s not a big deal in that case as I was just an observer, but I wonder how it felt for those in the audience who were new to the organisation and were potentially reluctant to ask what the sea of TLAs (or Three Letter Acronyms) meant.

And jargon happens across cultures too. On my first business trip to the USA I naively thought it would be pretty similar to Australia given our shared language and cultural heritage. I quickly figured out that a slide deck was code for a PowerPoint presentation - a term that has now made its way around the world. At the local department store it took me a little while longer to work out that the “men’s personal furnishings” area was where the underpants were sold, and not a department specialising in replacing pants with credenzas. But then a colleague described a service offering as being “from soup to nuts”. Given the context, I correctly assumed this meant from start to finish, but I couldn’t picture a meal that started with soup and ended with nuts. When I asked him about the phrase he had no idea where it came from either. It turns out “soup to nuts” is a uniquely United States expression that is rarely used in other parts of the world. In fact it refers to a fairly typical 1800s multiple course meal which did indeed start with soup and end with port and nuts. On a side note, the phrase originally goes back to a similar Latin phrase meaning “from eggs to apples”. But the use of the term made me feel like an outsider in a strange land. Saying the service covered everything from start to finish would have been easier on us both. But then again I come from a country that calls traffic cones “witch’s hats”, so I’m not really one to pass cultural judgement.

In leadership there’s always a risk of information being lost in translation and people being made to feel excluded. Using jargon just makes the situation worse.

Research published just last month reconfirms that jargon reduces the ability for people to process information. It’s as if jargon makes information harder to hear. That’s not overly surprising and replicates previous studies. What’s interesting is their finding that the impact on processing information persists even if definitions of terms are included. So even if I explain what the jargon means, I’m still losing my audience in the process.

The research shows that using jargon has three main impacts:

1. People understand less

2. People identify with the message and messenger less

3. People are less interested in finding out more about the topic

I’ve talked before about the importance of building connections with others through warmth and competence (episode 14 if you want to listen again). People who use jargon in an attempt to demonstrate competence might reduce their ability to build connection.

Leaders play a significant role in helping others to feel like they belong. This research demonstrates that if you want them to belong faster, cut down the jargon.

So how do we reduce the use of jargon in the workplace? One technique I’ve seen is a jargon jar. You may have come across swear jars in the past, where people add a small amount of money each time they swear. It’s a light hearted way of making them more aware of their behaviour. Well, you can do the same for jargon. As a leader, model it yourself and get those coins ready - you may need them.

Okay - I think we’ve covered the subject of jargon from soup to nuts, or indeed from eggs to apples. Now you just need to figure out what jargon is being used in your workplace and make an effort to reduce it.

A big shout out to those who have provided a rating of the podcast over the past few weeks. That always pushes up the podcast charts and helps new people to find us. Have a great week.

Reference

Hillary C. Shulman, Graham N. Dixon, Olivia M. Bullock, Daniel Colón Amill. The Effects of Jargon on Processing Fluency, Self-Perceptions, and Scientific Engagement. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 2020; 0261927X2090217 DOI: 10.1177/0261927X20902177

About the Author: Andrew Beveridge (Melbourne, Australia) is a Psychologist specialising in leadership development and employee engagement. Andrew hosts the Leadership Today podcast - weekly research-based tips and advice to tackle today's biggest leadership challenges, all in under eight minutes. Go to leadership.today for more details.

Episode 67 - Self-Control - Four Techniques that beat Will Power

Summary

Self-control is a core part of being an effective leader. And when it comes to self-control, planning beats will power.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 67 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at planning for self-control versus using will power in the moment. 

We are all faced with situations that require self-control. It might be that new diet, avoiding distractions while focusing on some detailed work, or that colleague that drives you crazy. We often find ourselves needing to fight those impulses that take us away from our goals. This management of our emotions and responses is a crucial part of emotional intelligence, allowing us to be individually productive, and also to form effective working relationships with others.

When it comes to self-control we often leave it up to our will power in the moment. With this “in the moment” approach we’re hoping that we will demonstrate restraint and control our impulses, but don’t really have a strategy to achieve this.

Williamson and Wilkowski from the University of Wyoming recently undertook some research to see if there was a better way. They found that planning ahead for self-control is markedly better than techniques focused on self-control in the moment. We can effectively plan ahead to reduce the will power we need to exert in the moment, leaving our responses less to chance.

Their research looked at five self-control strategies in total - four that involved planning in advance, and one that involved self-control in the moment. They were able to measure the effectiveness of each strategy.

Here are the four techniques that worked well:

1. Situation selection: This is effectively an avoidance strategy. For example, if you’re wanting to focus on some work but know you’ll be constantly tempted towards distraction working at your desk, then avoid trying to do that focused work at your desk.

2. Situation modification: This involves changing the situation slightly to reduce the amount of will power needed for self-control. If you find yourself checking your phone constantly while carrying it around, leave it in your desk drawer instead. On the technology side there are also settings and apps that can help to reduce the constant pinging for our attention that is built into most applications we use.

3. Distraction: As the name suggests, this involves taking our attention away from the thing that requires self-control. For example, if someone’s behaviour in a meeting drives you to distraction, you might instead focus on taking really good notes and asking questions.

4. Reappraisal: This involves thinking about the temptation in a different way. I recall really struggling with a work colleague who had quite different values to me. I found myself really caught up on this difference and found it hard to work constructively with them. I made the mental shift to acknowledge the difference in values and their right to have those values, and this made the working relationship far more positive.

Each of these four techniques reduces our reliance on demonstrating will-power in the moment. As the researchers noted, "People can, indeed, proactively initiate self-control. And those who do so are better able to make progress toward their long-term goals." 

This week I encourage you to not just think about planning for your own self-control, but also to share these approaches with others. Why not use an individual or team meeting to discuss how to apply this research. And, while you’re at it, suggest they subscribe to the podcast. Have a great week.

Reference

Laverl Z. Williamson, Benjamin M. Wilkowski. Nipping Temptation in the Bud: Examining Strategic Self-Control in Daily Life. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2019; 014616721988360 DOI: 10.1177/0146167219883606

Episode 66 - A Leader’s Role in Removing Frustrations

Summary

Aaarrgghhh! This week we look at the leader’s role in removing frustrations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we look at a leader’s role in removing frustrations. 

When you think about the role of a leader, it’s easy to focus primarily on their ability to manage upside potential. That upside potential might include providing meaning and purpose, clarifying roles and expectations, and providing development opportunities. We tend to first focus on the leader’s ability to tap into the motivation of their people. Each of these areas are really important, however an equally important and often overlooked part of leadership is reducing the things that get in the way of performance. That includes removing frustrations and other barriers to success for individuals and teams. 

Let’s take IT as an example. As I work with a broad range of organisations it always amazes me the variety of IT setups people end up using ranging from cutting edge through to museum-grade antiques. Even when things look brilliant to me as an outsider, few people rave about their IT systems. However I’ve heard plenty of complaints about long boot up times, tricky remote login processes, slow response times, clunky data entry, and systems that don’t speak to one another. As the technology we use at home continues to leap forward, people have increasingly high expectations of the technology they interact with at work. And if the technology gets in the way of delivering work, it quickly impacts job satisfaction. In fact a study released just this month shows that workplace IT satisfaction accounts for 38 percent of the variance in job satisfaction. If IT is getting in the way for your people, there’s a high chance that it’s impacting the way they experience their job and the organisation.

Broader research on frustrations at work beyond just IT demonstrates a clear link to the risk of burnout. This is particularly the case when people see their frustrations impacting clients and customers. Recently I made a simple purchase of one item and watched as a great employee who had been really helpful wrestled with the point of sale system. While they remained professional, the frustration for them was real. What should have taken less than a minute stretched on for several minutes as more customers joined the queue. It’s easy to see how working with that system day after day would impact an otherwise motivated and engaged employee, particularly when that person cared about providing a great experience for customers.

And it’s not just about that employee - research also shows a link between frustrations and negative work behaviours such as aggression towards coworkers. What frustrates the individual ripples through the organisation. If people aren’t being civil to each other in your organisation, I can almost guarantee there are unresolved frustrations.

Research suggests there are three conditions that magnify the impact of frustrations: 

1. When they don’t feel heard about the frustrations and their impacts

2. When they don’t feel a sense of control over the frustrations

3. When they feel isolated - like they’re the only ones having a problem

Leaders are the ones best positioned to help with these three conditions.

Here are a few tips when seeking to reduce and remove frustrations for your people:

• Accept that frustrations are normal - there’s no such thing as a completely frustration-free work environment.

• Recognise that frustrations can get in the way of both personal and organisational goals - while the frustration may be primarily impacting the person, it’s likely to be flowing through to team and organisational performance. 

• All frustrations can be reduced - you may not be able to completely remove a frustration, but there are always creative ways of reducing the impact.

• Provide an opportunity for people to discuss frustrations and be heard - start with your own people and simply ask them “What frustrations are getting in the way of you doing your job well?”

• Allow people to connect with others - as you seek to remove frustrations it’s helpful to see how others are dealing with and working around the frustrations.

• Equip people to continuously improve - give people the authority to make changes and improvements that will reduce frustrations for themselves and customers. 

Hopefully you found this episode helpful - if you did, remember to share it with others. I’ve listed the three references used in the show notes. Remember to head to the Leadership.Today website for other episodes, to connect via our monthly newsletter, and there’s even a link to follow me on the social media equivalent of a sensible family car - LinkedIn. Have a great week.

References

Lewandowski C. (2003) Organizational Factors Contributing to Worker Frustration: The Precursor to Burnout. 30 J. Soc. & Soc. Welfare 175 

Suzy Fox  Paul E. Spector (1999) A model of work frustration–aggression. Journal of Organizational Behaviour Volume 20, Issue 6

Wei Wang, Yi Wang, Yi Zhang, Jing Ma (2020) Spillover of workplace IT satisfaction onto job satisfaction: The roles of job fit and professional fit. International Journal of Information Management Volume 50, February 2020, Pages 341-352 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026840121831257X

Episode 65 - The Four Core Skills of Leading in a Crisis

Summary

How effective are you in a crisis? This week we outline the four core skills of leading in a crisis to build the resilience of our people and our organisations.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 65 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the four key skills of leading in a crisis. 

As we read the news it seems like there is a new crisis every week - fires, floods, earthquakes, financial mismanagement, international tensions. We are often quick to judge leaders solely on what we see them doing publicly. We are very quick to categorise those attempting to lead during a crisis as either a hero or a villain. They either demonstrated and instilled confidence in those they lead, or potentially made the crisis even worse through a lack of leadership 

A crisis by its nature is something you don’t see coming until you’re in the middle of it. The intensity and challenge are often underestimated at the onset of a crisis. Once the crisis is over it’s often easy to look back and spot missed opportunities at the point when the crisis wasn’t a crisis. 

Crisis leadership is obvious on a national stage, particularly when politicians are involved. We can all recall stories of leaders who stepped up during a national crisis. Equally, we remember those who were holidaying, dining, playing golf or getting their hair done while a crisis began to play out. What do we expect from our leaders? Do we want them on the front line fighting the fires, rescuing people, saving the environment from disaster? It’s a natural instinct that when people suffer, we look for leaders to hold responsible. Whose fault was this disaster? Who rose to the challenge?

By definition, a crisis is unpredictable, its scale broad, the speed fast, and the threat great. What does this mean for me as a leader? We all have crises that we face. Maybe it’s just once a year, or perhaps it’s only a few times in our career. But these situations make and break leaders. More importantly, they make and break the lives of those we lead and our organisations.

It could be a series of redundancies and restructures following an economic downturn, or hacking of an IT system, or the impact of a natural disaster or accident. There will be a point when you recognise that this situation isn’t business as usual, but rather a crisis that needs to be managed carefully and at speed. Back in the days of paper and pencil psychometric tests, the instructions we would read to candidates included advice to work “quickly and accurately”. The same competing principles apply in a crisis.

But what is a crisis for one person may not be a crisis for another. Take paramedics for example. They spend most of their day in situations where people are in crisis. But it’s not a crisis for the paramedic. You don’t see paramedics running around screaming and panicking. Instead, you will see them walk towards the people in crisis, bringing with them a calm efficiency that instils confidence in others. Paramedics are able to lead others through crisis situations through their extensive training and experience. What might be a crisis for me is entirely expected and routine for the paramedic. Just like paramedics, we can train and prepare ourselves for crises. 

Research into crisis management suggests there are four core skills that effective leaders demonstrate - identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing. As we work through each of the four skills I want you to think about your own crisis leadership. Think about a challenging situation when you were the leader and consider how you demonstrated each of these four skills. 

1. Skill one - Identifying. Effective leaders identify a crisis early. While others might be continuing as if its business-as-usual, the effective leader recognises that there is a crisis to be managed. They help people to build a shared understanding of the nature of the crisis, including the likely scope and impacts. Organisations can help prepare for a crisis by building their capacity to monitor for opportunities and threats. You then need experienced people and the ability for them to be heard as the crisis emerges.

2. Skill two - Acting. The effective leader in a crisis quickly establishes a framework for making critical decisions. They need to set things up so they can make strategic decisions while not getting caught up in operational issues. A truly effective leader in a crisis doesn’t necessarily have all the answers. Instead, they are clear about the kinds of decisions they need to make, and what needs to be passed down to others. The effective leader quickly connects with others in the organisation, and potentially across organisations. They monitor cooperation between these various groups and get involved only where this cooperation breaks down. They quickly isolate the issue from the rest of the organisation’s operations - a process called decoupling. This means only the relevant parts of the organisation focus on the crisis, while the remainder can continue operations as normally as possible.

3. Skill three - Communicating. A key role of a leader during a crisis is meaning making - providing people with a way of making sense of what is happening. Researchers describe this as creating “authentic hope and confidence”. It’s not false optimism - it helps people to interpret the crisis, and provides confidence about how the leader intends to lead through it. The effective leader recognises that communication in a crisis is different in terms of pace and context. People need to understand the crisis, the likely consequences, what’s being done, and what, if anything, they need to do.

4. Skill four - Reviewing. Once the crisis is over, a leader needs to explain what was done leading up to and during the crisis. This includes what went well and what didn’t work. Often times leaders, particularly political leaders, are keen to avoid the “what went wrong” discussion. Rather than apportioning blame, it’s more about preparing the organisation and its people for any future crisis. Every crisis is unique, so leaders need to be comfortable trying new things out and learning on the run. Afterwards it’s important to be able to reflect and learn from the experience and lessons. The effective leader uses a review to enhance resilience in themselves, their people, and the organisation.

A crisis is anything but business as usual. But each of us can develop the four core skills of identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing. This helps build strength, agility and resilience in our organisations.

If you want to dive into this topic further, I highly recommend the reference I’ve provided in the show notes. It picks apart leadership in times of crisis from a public administration perspective.

Thanks for listening to the podcast. It would be great if you could take the time to rate or write a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening to this, and also recommend it to a friend or work colleague. The podcast is continuing to grow and I always make time to read every review. See you next week.

Reference

Boin A, Kuipers S, Overdijk W (2013) Leadership in Times of Crisis: A Framework for Assessment. International Review of Public Administration.

Episode 64 - Two Keys to Making and Breaking Habits

Summary

Habits can either help or hinder our leadership. In this episode we explore the two keys to making and breaking habits. 

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 64 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the key to making and breaking habits. 

This is our first new episode coming out at the start of February. If you’re anything like me and most other people, the goals you set a month ago may be starting to fade. Our great intentions may have run into everyday challenges and circumstances. Or maybe this year was different, and the intentions you started with are beginning to stick. They might even have become part of your everyday routine. What likely made the difference are habits. 

A habit is something we do regularly without much conscious thought - something that persists, and that can be difficult to change or give up. A habit is neither good or bad, but it can be helpful or harmful in the context of goals we set for ourselves. Perhaps my habit of laying out exercise gear in the evening is helping me to achieve my goal of getting to the gym in the morning. Maybe my habit of ordering a burger and fries each time I eat out is getting in the way of my goal to lose weight. And it’s the same at work. My habit of greeting my colleagues in the morning might be helping to build relationships. But my habit of speaking first and listening second might be getting in the way of truly listening to others.

So what are the keys to making or breaking a habit? To answer this we need to go to the movies.

I want you to picture yourself at a cinema with a bucket of popcorn. Just as the movie starts, you reach in, grab some popcorn and put it in your mouth. Now, this popcorn unfortunately isn’t as fresh as you might hope. In fact, it has been made a full week earlier and left out to go stale. Still edible, but not great tasting. Do you keep eating the popcorn? Do you eat as much of the stale popcorn as you would if it was fresh?

Researchers set up exactly this scenario to study the strength of habits. They took a group of people and asked them to watch and rate a series of movie trailers in a cinema, while also providing them with popcorn to eat. They varied the freshness of the popcorn - the fresh popcorn was made an hour earlier, while the stale popcorn was a week old. 

After the movie trailers, they asked people to rate the popcorn, and also measured how much popcorn each person ate. As you would expect, people rated the stale popcorn below the fresh popcorn. But it turns out that not all popcorn eaters are equal. Some people have strong associations between going to the cinema and eating popcorn, whereas for others the link is less strong. Those who had a weaker link between going to the cinema and eating popcorn not surprisingly ate less of the stale popcorn. After all, why would you eat stale popcorn? Well, those with a stronger link between going to the cinema and eating popcorn ate about the same amount of stale and fresh popcorn. That’s right - they ate as much of the stale popcorn as they did of the fresh popcorn, even though they rated the stale popcorn lower on taste. The habit of eating popcorn meant they didn’t seem to care about the freshness of the popcorn - they just stuck with their habit.

So if eating popcorn at the cinema is a habit for you, you’re likely to go on eating popcorn independent of its freshness. But what if I want to change this habit? The research found two interesting ways to break the cinema popcorn eating habit, if only in the moment. The first habit breaker was to change the context. When they moved the experiment out of a cinema and into a meeting room, the habitual popcorn eaters ate less of the stale popcorn than the fresh. The change in context seemed to break the habit. The second habit breaker was to make people eat the popcorn with their non-dominant hand while in the cinema. In this second scenario the context is exactly the same, but the eating process requires a little more conscious thought and effort. Once again, in this version the habitual popcorn eaters ate less of the stale popcorn than the fresh.

As leaders, that gives us two ways to think about making and breaking habits for ourselves and others - context and consciousness.

If we’re looking to break a habit, we want to change the context and make the behaviour more conscious. It’s the equivalent of getting people out of the cinema while also making them use their non-dominant hand. 

f we’re looking to make a habit the opposite is true. Over time we want to keep the context consistent and we want to reduce the amount of conscious effort required to undertake the behaviour. That’s the equivalent of offering fresh popcorn in the cinema and allowing people to use their dominant hand. Over time we will be able to build up a group of habitual popcorn eaters. 

When I’m coaching leaders to change, it’s much easier to work with them outside their normal context. That’s why running a leadership program offsite typically allows people to be more open. They’ve already had to alter some patterns of behaviour, which makes them more open to varying their views and habits around leadership. If the context is largely similar, like running the leadership development at their office in a familiar meeting room, it’s much harder to encourage people to change. Getting people into a new context and just outside of their comfort zone really makes a difference when breaking an old habit and considering a new habit. Perhaps you find sitting at your desk trying to write a report really tedious and often find yourself getting writer’s block. Why not vary the context by changing where you write? Maybe you find yourself constantly checking your phone during meetings. Why not leave your phone at your desk instead?

Once we’ve set up a new behaviour, we then want to make the new habit easy to continue. If my new habit is to meet with each of my team members once a month to discuss their performance and development, it’s likely to work best if we schedule all the meetings in for the year, and set them on a day and time that is less prone to interruptions. That way the context is the same - same time of the week, same meeting room, same people and same structure. I don’t have to decide each week whether to meet, where to meet and when to meet because that has all been locked in at the start of the year.

When it comes to making and breaking habits, remember the two keys are context and consciousness.

Check out the show notes for a link to the popcorn research from David Neal and the team from the University of California. And you might want to go all the way back to episode one of this podcast to explore leadership habits further. 

So what are your leadership habits, both helpful and harmful? 

Reference

David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, Mengju Wu, and David Kurlander. (2011) The Pull of the Past: When Do Habits Persist Despite Conflict With Motives? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 37(11) 1428–1437 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9fbd/0b88b802dc55833796b50f27887b57f74e8f.pdf

Episode 63 - The Power of Gratitude at Work

Summary

Being grateful has a host of benefits for individuals and teams. In this episode we explore three practical ways to build gratitude at work.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 63 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore the power of gratitude for ourselves and for those we lead.

As human beings we have a natural tendency to become caught up with the negatives and challenges in life. Researchers Gilovich and Davidai describe this as the headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry - what they characterise as a tendency to focus far more on barriers than on blessings. This can lead to a sense of unfairness - a perception that we have it harder than most other people. It also leads us to underestimate the benefits we have received that have contributed to positive outcomes in our lives. This tendency runs counter to a sense of gratitude. It’s very difficult to feel grateful at the same time as feeling like you’ve had it tougher than most people. But that’s exactly why gratitude can be so helpful - we can use gratitude to rebalance the asymmetry.

But first, what is gratitude? It’s a commonly used word, but can be hard to define. Researchers categorise gratitude as both a trait and an emotion or state. We all experience the emotion of gratitude at different points during our day, but fewer of us have an ongoing grateful outlook on life as a trait. There is even an ongoing debate as to whether gratitude should be considered a personality trait.

What we do know is that gratitude has both a genetic and environmental component - it appears to be wired into us and emerges quite early in our lives. And research also demonstrates that we can increase our gratitude, both in our daily mood, and also ongoing.

For the individual the benefits of gratitude range from improved physical and mental health, elevated mood and happiness, increased life satisfaction, and reduced burnout. By way of example, patients recovering from heart failure who completed a gratitude journal had reduced signs of inflammation after an 8 week period. Other research showed people reported better and longer sleep, and better overall physical health by increasing their practice of gratitude.

For groups and organisations, research has demonstrated that gratitude can increase generosity and kindness, while helping to build stronger relationships and improving work climate. Gratitude is like the glue for society that binds people together. If someone does something nice for you, you’re likely to feel grateful and, in turn, do something nice back.

Here are three ways to increase gratitude at work:

1. Gratitude journal. A common version of this involves writing down three new things each day for which you’re grateful. One experiment showed those asked to journal 5 things to be grateful for on a weekly basis for 10 weeks exercised significantly more and had fewer physical complaints than another group assigned to journal 5 hassles per week over the same time frame. Interestingly, similar studies over 2 week periods didn’t demonstrate significant differences between the two groups. So the research suggests journalling needs to be sustained. You could build this practice of gratitude into individual and team meetings by taking some time for people to share what they are grateful for.

2. Gratitude letters. This typically involves writing letters of appreciation to people you haven’t properly thanked. At work though it could be as simple as expressing gratitude to your people, and encouraging others to do the same.

3. Demonstrating genuine kindness. Why not commit to undertaking one additional kind act per day. It might be helping someone with their work, or grabbing an extra coffee for a colleague back at the office, or even being the person that empties the dishwasher.

Importantly, each of these three ideas need to be genuine. One study found writing a gratitude journal once a week was more effective than three times a week - the theory being that people put more effort into it and it was more genuine when done just once a week. Similarly other research showed the positive impacts are much greater for genuine kindness than what the researchers called “strategic kindness” (or doing something nice in order to gain a personal benefit).

Hopefully that’s prompted you to boost your gratitude, particularly at this busy time of the year. I have provided a link to a comprehensive review of the research on gratitude from Summer Allen at the University of California Berkeley, where the bulk of the research cited in this podcast was drawn. There’s also a link to Davidai and Gilovich’s research on headwinds and tailwinds, and a further article about the science of kindness.

And given today’s topic, I want to express my gratitude to those who have so wonderfully supported the podcast over the last year. Thanks for helping to get the word out and for sending through encouraging messages about how the content has helped in developing your leadership. Your ratings and reviews have also been extremely helpful - I read every review and appreciate the time people take to promote the podcast in that way.

There are several ways to stay up to date with the podcast. The best way is to subscribe to the podcast wherever you’re listening to it now. You can also connect via the leadership.today website to be notified about new podcasts, receive our monthly email newsletter, and to connect with me on LinkedIn or via our Facebook group page.

As it is heading into summer holidays in the lower half of our amazing planet, over the next seven weeks we will be featuring replays of some of our most popular episodes from 2018 and early 2019. I will be back with brand new episodes in February 2020. I look forward to speaking with you again then.

References

Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2016). The headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry: An availability bias in assessments of barriers and blessings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(6), 835–851. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000066

Summer Allen. 2018. The Science of Gratitude. Whitepaper. Greater Good Science Center at US Berkeley.

https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/GGSC-JTF_White_Paper-Gratitude-FINAL.pdf

The chemistry and psychology of kindness. ABC Life / By Sophie Kesteven

https://www.abc.net.au/life/the-science-behind-the-warm-glow-of-kindness/11749268

Episode 62 - Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Summary

Our workplaces can easily move towards what researchers call incivility. So what are the benefits of being nice to one another, and what can we do as leaders to get there?

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 62 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we explore why being nice to one another is so important for business performance.

I was working with a client recently and discussing their culture. He said “as a psychologist you have the opportunity to work with lots of different organisations - I bet you walk in and get a pretty quick sense of the mood and culture”. It’s true - I find it easy to gain a quick read on the mood and culture of an organisation. Compare these two workplaces I recently visited. In one organisation I noticed people frowning, staring at screens, no conversation or laughter, and lots of sighs. In another the atmosphere was bordering on joyful - people warmly greeting one other, big smiles, people saying “hello” to me as I walked past even though they had no idea who I was. It was hard in the first organisation not to be dragged down, and it was equally hard in the second organisation not to be lifted up.

But it’s not like being able to read the mood and culture of a workplace is some special power granted only to psychologists and consultants. It’s a special power we all have that comes with being human. We all read a room quickly at a subconscious level. However we become familiar and used to the rooms where we spend the most time. The cultural quirks that hit us on day one at a new organisation fade by month three. We rapidly soak up the standards we see around us. We quickly understand what’s tolerated and what isn’t. If the culture is great, then that’s fantastic - we absorb it and maybe even become a better person. But if the culture is toxic, even the best of us will either lower our standards to fit in, or exit stage right to another organisation.

In some workplaces people aren’t very nice to each other. It might be that most people are 5 to 10 minutes late to meetings, setup their laptops and just continue their work. They interrupt others, they talk to the person next to them while someone else is presenting. They make demands of their colleagues in other departments. They gossip and spread rumours. Before you know it, the place quickly becomes toxic. This is so common that some researchers specialise in looking at what they call incivility. Perhaps the best known researcher in the field is Christine Porath. Her TED talk “Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business” has racked up over 2.5 million views. As people rightly note in the comments below her video, do we really need a TED talk to convince people to be nice to each other? Apparently we do.

Her research demonstrates that incivility lead to 66% of people cutting back their efforts, 80% of people being distracted from their work, and 12% of people leaving their job. In a laboratory study where people witnessed a fellow participant, who was actually setup, being berated for being late, there was a 25% reduction in performance, and 45% fewer ideas generated by the group. Christine argues that incivility is like a virus that we can catch and transmit. As a result people operate out of fear and try to remain invisible. Innovation plummets - after all, why would you risk sharing a new idea when people aren’t being nice to each other?

So why do people end up being mean, unthoughtful, rude, aggressive or passive aggressive towards each other? Here are some reasons that I’ve observed:

1. It works - taking on an aggressive, belittling style may, in the short term, help people to get things done, particularly where there is a lack of clarity and standards.

2. Feedback free environment - people may not actually recognise what they’re doing, or at least the impact that it is having on others.

3. Excessive stress - people are unlikely to be on their best behaviour where they are experiencing high levels of stress.

4. Role models - in some organisations, taking on an aggressive style is modelled and rewarded by more senior leaders.

We can change this. An example Christine shares is a health organisation where they introduced what they called the 10-5 way. The guidance they gave to staff was to make eye contact and smile when they were within 10 feet of another person, and to say ‘hello’ when they were within 5 feet of another person. That sounds incredibly prescriptive and it’s hard to believe it worked, but they saw both patient satisfaction and referrals increase. As we raise our kindness towards others, we’re more likely to be seen as leaders, and we’re more likely to produce better results. This aligns with a wealth of research that shows people are much more effective when they’re in a positive mood, versus being neutral or negative in their mood.

As a leader I suggest the following:

1. Role model being nice towards others. Civility is contagious. You see it when a positive team member enters the room - they lift the mood, people start smiling and laughing, there’s a sense of energy. It really doesn’t take many people to change the culture, and leaders are the ones people look towards to set the emotional tone.

2. Connect with others. Take the time to understand the day to day work and experiences of those within your organisation. You might be surprised at some of the frustrations and obstacles they face, and how easy it may be for you in a position of leadership to remove these.

3. Help others to connect. It’s really difficult to bully people that you know, like and respect. It’s also really hard to bully someone that has strong connections with their colleagues - the weight of numbers makes the bully the odd one out.

4. Look after yourself, and help others to do the same. Think about activities you can encourage that focus on the classic wellbeing areas of exercise, diet and sleep.

So let’s think this week about ways we can encourage others and lift them up. The relatively small acts that we take as leaders on a daily basis can have a huge impact on those we lead and the cultures we create.

I have included links to Christine Porath’s TED talk and book in the show notes - make sure you check them out. And for those listening in the United States, a big Thanksgiving holiday greeting for the week that has just passed. I trust it has been a great time to connect with family and friends to reflect on all the great things we have in our lives that we so easily take for granted. Have a great week.

References

Christine Porath’s TED Talk - Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY1ERM-NIBY

Christine Porath (2016) Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Civility-Manifesto-Christine-Porath/dp/1455568988/

Episode 61 - "People Fifth" - When Good Values Go Bad

Summary

Values can be a powerful driver of business culture, both for good and bad. This week we look at when values go bad and what to do about it.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 61 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at when values go bad and what to do about it.

I met with a Head of Human Resources a number of years ago shortly before the public listing of their business. He was particularly excited about a new set of values that had been developed by the executive team and were about to be rolled out to employees in the coming weeks. He was then kind enough to give me a preview of the five new values, all nicely printed on cards. They were numbered one to five and went something like this:

1. Deliver for Shareholders - as a business about to be publicly listed, the executive team were keen to focus people around the importance of delivering on the promises made to those about to invest in the business.

2. Delight Customers - this seemed pretty sensible and was focused around providing a great experience for customers every time and responding to customer feedback.

3. Operational Efficiency - streamlining processes to improve efficiency and provide greater consistency across their various locations.

4. I honestly don't remember what the fourth value was, which is probably because of the fifth value.

5. People First. 

At that point of the conversation I had the same reaction you're probably having now. Before I could fully think it through, I found myself saying "Do you think you should change that last one to 'people fifth'?". At that point he understood the irony of their fifth value.

In this instance the executive team had actually constructed what they saw as the most important values for the business in order of importance, and for them the reality was that people came fifth. However, being accustomed as we all are to saying "people are our most important asset", the "people first" tag line seemed like the right name at the time. You may not be surprised to learn that following the public listing of the business, they closed their doors for the last time within a few years. Perhaps putting "people fifth" was part of the problem. 

It’s easy to be cynical about values - we’ve all seen examples of them done poorly. Enron famously had Integrity as one of its four values. However I've seen some great examples of organisational values. When done well, a set of values can provide an invaluable framework for employees throughout the organisation to make decisions in the 'grey space' between black and white rules and procedures. One senior leadership team I was a member of would often refer back to the organisation's values when making tough decisions while navigating the global financial crisis. In the absence of precedents and guidelines, the values allowed us to choose between options based on their alignment with the values of the organisation. The values also helped us to explain these decisions to those affected in the context of the organisation's strategy. Furthermore, it provided a consistent framework for doing business across diverse cultures around the world. When I met with my equivalents from overseas, I was always pleasantly surprised at how consistently they modelled the organisation’s values.

However values can sometimes be poorly developed and inauthentic. 'People fifth' is one example. In some organisations values are developed from the ground up - a sort of democratic discernment of what's important through seemingly endless focus groups, interviews and surveys. This approach almost always produces a bland set of values that are more about avoiding offending anyone than they are about guiding decision making.

The best values are developed at 'the top' and then refined through conversation across the business. In our earlier example, some refinement of the proposed values with employees would have highlighted the 'people fifth' dilemma, and possibly enabled a better end result. However too often executive teams are presented a set of values emerging from an overly consultative process and, as a result, they don't match the strategy of the organisation. The executive team haven't bought into the values before they are printed on a fancy sign that starts off behind the reception desk, and is gradually relegated into a store room to gather dust. 

An organisation's values need to be authentic and matched with the strategic direction of the business. As a leader you need to hold yourself and others accountable to these values. If you're going to do this, you will want to make sure you're 100% comfortable with the values yourself.

Patrick Lencioni helpfully breaks values into four categories:

• Core values - these are the two or three unique aspects that differentiate the organisation. Lencioni calls them “cultural cornerstones”.

• Aspirational values - these reflect what the organisation aspires to be like to succeed in the future. Perhaps the organisation aspires to be efficient, but isn’t there yet. Identifying efficiency as an aspirational value helps people to understand that we’re not there yet, but that this is important for us to focus on.

• Permission-to-play values - these are the minimum standard required to operate in your industry. For example, being ethical if you’re a law firm is a permission-to-play value. Every law firm should be ethical - it’s a legal, business and community expectation. It’s unlikely that your firm is markedly more ethical than the next firm.

• Accidental values - these are the spontaneous values people see and experience that haven’t consciously been chosen. An organisation I worked with that had innovation as a stated value, but the accidental value was to never make a mistake. This fear of making mistakes held them back from being innovative - it stopped people from taking action or trying new things.

In summary, authentic values can be a valuable tool to aid decision making in uncertain times. They can be used to hold leaders and employees to account, not just around what results they achieve, but also how they achieve results. A process that starts with the senior team considering the values they believe are required to achieve their strategy is a great start, and needs to be coupled with a refinement or 'testing' process that involves groups of employees. Clearly defined values can provide that all important compass that people need when navigating uncharted waters. 

What has been your experiences of values? How have they helped and hindered?

Reference

Patrick Lencioni - Make Your Values Mean Something. Harvard Business Review, July 2002. https://hbr.org/2002/07/make-your-values-mean-something

Episode 60 - Great Teams Manage Task, Process and Relationships

Summary

Great teams manage task, process and relationships. They ask key questions to ensure clarity is built and conflict is addressed in all three areas. This week we look at some key questions you can use to audit your teams and build their effectiveness.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 60 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. Episode 60 is quite the milestone, so a big thanks to everyone who has shared the podcast with others. I love reading your reviews and hearing stories about how the content has been helpful. This week we’re exploring how great teams manage task, process and relationships.

Research demonstrates that there are three main things teams need to manage - the task (what outcome needs to be achieved), the process (how we’re going to achieve the outcome), and the people (how we’re going to work together as human beings). Failing to manage each of these three elements almost inevitably leads to conflict and reduced performance.

There are three common traps that teams fall into:

1. The most common trap is a tendency to focus immediately on the task, neglecting the process and relationships. This results in a flurry of activity but it may well be the wrong activity. We fail to think about the relationships between the people in the room which can result in interpersonal issues and complaints. I often see this trap during leadership programs. You can teach all the theory and techniques in the world, but it all goes out the window once there’s a time-sensitive task to complete. People move straight to the task and ignore process and relationships.

2. The second most common trap is to become caught up with interpersonal issues, and lose sight of the task and process. People end up avoiding the team, progress stalls, and the team often falls apart as people question what the purpose is of meeting in the first place.

3. The third common trap is to focus so much on the process that we neglect the task and relationships. I see this regularly in projects where there’s a huge amount of upfront consultation with little consideration of how to make decisions or deal with differing perspectives. We gather lots of data but don’t know what to do with it.

The impact of conflict in task, process and relationships in teams has varied between different theories, with some frameworks encouraging conflict in these areas. However research into over 6000 teams suggests that task conflict, process conflict and relationship conflict all negatively impact on team performance. The only exception is for decision-making teams, where task conflict can sometimes have a small positive impact. Contrary to earlier theories, none of the three types of conflict reliably lead to innovation.

I’ve previously shared research about the team stages model by Tuckman. In the model he outlined teams get together and are polite during the Forming stage. We descend into disagreements and conflict during the Storming stage as people seek clarity that isn’t there yet. By agreeing standards and ways of working we reach Norming. And that as we combine the strengths of individuals with the strengths of process and relationships we reach Performing. Teams do indeed seem to follow these stages of development, except that storming can occur more frequently and at any point as the team is impacted by outside forces. Conflict about task, process and relationships doesn’t get solved in one neat stage, but rather needs to be continuously monitored and managed.

So the research suggests we need to actively recognise, manage and reduce task, process and relationship conflict. We can’t afford to ignore it or to leave it unmanaged. Conflict is effectively a symptom that something needs to be addressed in one of these three.

Here are some questions that might help for both new and established teams:

• Task - What is our purpose as a team? What is the task we’ve been asked to achieve? What’s the problem we’re needing to solve? What can we uniquely contribute to the organisation?

• Process - How are we going to get there? What’s the plan and order of activity? What’s the division of workload and responsibilities? How are we going to make decisions? How are we going to measure our performance? How will we hold each other accountable? How are we going to monitor and respond to changing needs and circumstances?

• Relationships - What does each person bring to the team? What are the individual strengths and weaknesses? What experiences have we had that might be helpful? What commitments are we making to each other? How will we provide feedback to each other? How will we manage disagreements?

Actively managing task, process and relationships is a key part of any team’s success. Why not undertake a quick audit of all three with the teams you lead?

Reference

Thomas A. O'Neill , Natalie J. Allen & Stephanie E. Hastings (2013) Examining the “Pros” and “Cons” of Team Conflict: A Team-Level Meta-Analysis of Task, Relationship, and Process Conflict, Human Performance, 26:3, 236-260, DOI: 10.1080/08959285.2013.795573

Episode 59 - Approach or Avoidance - It Comes Down to Your Personality

Summary

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Transcript

Hey there. Welcome to episode 59 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at approach and avoidance motivation, and what we can do to foster a more positive mindset for ourselves and others.

Motivation can be divided into two main categories - avoidance and approach. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, Greek philosophers spoke about these two forms of motivation as far back as 400 BC. But research has demonstrated that our preference for one type of motivation over another may come down to our personality.

Avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, is about trying to avoid a negative outcome. Avoidance goals relating to health might include not eating unhealthy food or giving up smoking. These avoidance actions may indeed make me less unhealthy, but they probably won’t make me healthy. As numerous people have expressed it, the absence of disease is not health.

In contrast, approach motivation is about pursuing something positive - working towards a positive outcome or possibility. Approach goals relating to health could include adding healthy foods to our diet or undertaking regular exercise. These goals don’t just move us away from being unhealthy, but actively increase our health.

The primary function of our brain is to keep us alive - to survive. That makes avoidance motivation pretty attractive as a default position for most people. It aligns with the base level need to avoid things that have potentially negative consequences for our survival. But our brains are also about reward. We seek out opportunities to experience pleasure and positive outcomes.

Researchers have found that the balance between avoidance and approach motivation can be linked to our personality - that some people have an approach temperament while others have an avoidance temperament - that we either lean towards self-protection or towards self-enhancement. Those with an approach temperament tend to be more extraverted, have positive emotionality, and a bias towards action. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to be less emotionally stable, experience negative emotionality, and have a bias towards restraint (or not acting).

This bias flows through to the types of goals we set. Those with an approach temperament tend to set mastery goals. For example, “I want to master the material in this class”. A mastery goal is about me - I’m the benchmark of success and progress. In contrast, those with an avoidance temperament tend to set goals related to others. For example, “I just want to avoid doing badly in this class” or “I just want to do as well as most people”.

A big part of our role as leaders is setting the emotional tone and culture for our teams. Whether consciously or not, we communicate our own bias towards the upside potential and action, or the bias towards risk and fear. Like almost every aspect of leadership, it starts with the way we think, feel and act. And we can always change the way we think, feel and act, even if it takes some effort.

Here are four ideas to move you towards an approach temperament:

1. Connect with people. Meeting our basic human need for connection to others helps to build a more positive mindset.

2. Note down experiences that provide you with positive emotions and build these experiences into your routine. Going for a run each morning makes me feel positive, so I’ve built that into my daily routine.

3. Anthropomorphise negative emotions. What the heck is this one about. You might be familiar with the Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. In the movie the various emotions the young girl experienced were represented by characters inside her head. Researchers have found there may be some benefits to thinking about negative emotions in this way. For example, they found conceptualising sadness as a person, for example as a girl walking slowly with her head down, helped people to feel more detached from their sadness and actually made them feel less sad. It sounds bizarre, but give it a go. I now have Barry, who is my go-to character when I’m feeling discouraged. Importantly, you want to only use this approach with negative emotions. The researchers found that thinking of happiness as a person also made people feel less happy.

4. Run your own race and stop comparing. Aim to become better at things that matter to you and track your progress against yourself, instead of comparing your capability to others.

This week I encourage you to focus on approach goals and building a positive bias for action in your team. As always, if you’re interested in the research check out the show notes at the leadership.today website. I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

References

Andrew J. Elliot and Todd M. Thrash. Approach–Avoidance Motivation in Personality: Approach and Avoidance Temperaments and Goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 82, No. 5, 804–818

http://qglw.personality-project.org/revelle/syllabi/classreadings/psp825804.pdf

Fangyuan Chen, Rocky Peng Chen, Li Yang. When Sadness Comes Alive, Will It Be Less Painful? The Effects of Anthropomorphic Thinking on Sadness Regulation and Consumption. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 2019;

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003103515.htm

Episode 58 - Curiosity: Bad for Cats, Good for Business

Summary

Curiosity is rarely encouraged at work. In fact, leaders and organisations often actively discourage being inquisitive. This week we explore the benefits of curiosity, and four ways to encourage it in your team.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 58 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the benefits of curiosity, and how to encourage it in your team.

The word “curiosity” often conjures up negative connotations. If I asked you to tell me a popular saying about curiosity, it would most likely be “curiosity killed the cat”. This fear of being inquisitive translates into our organisations. Surely if people become curious at work they’re going to neglect their day jobs and start venturing into distraction. And won’t this lead to conflict, reduced productivity and a lack of clarity?

However, research on curiosity demonstrates that these concerns are unfounded, and that curiosity provides a range of benefits for individuals and organisations.

Here’s just a sample of what the research tells us about the benefits of curiosity:

• Curiosity helps us to become more accurate in our decision making. When we are curious, we seek out more alternatives. This helps us to avoid stereotyping people and selectively choosing information that supports our viewpoint.

• When people are encouraged to be curious, they share information with others more readily and listen more attentively to their perspectives. This helps us to build empathy and insight.

• Curiosity actually reduces conflict. It encourages people to consider alternative perspectives and what it would be like to be in the other person’s shoes.

For a great summary of the research, check out the Why Curiosity Matters spotlight series in Harvard Business Review. I’ve provided a link in the show notes - https://hbr.org/2018/09/curiosity

It appears we’re hardwired as humans to be curious, but our education systems and organisations often don’t reward this natural and helpful drive to explore and discover. However, as leaders, there are simple steps we can take to encourage curiosity amongst our people. Here are four ideas to start with:

1. Encourage questions. I’ve worked with organisations where asking a question is equated with being negative and stepping beyond your role. It was debilitating for the organisation and for the people, taking away initiative and discretionary effort. Make it safe to ask questions. Role model the inquisitive use of questions with your team.

2. Build alternatives. Always go beyond the first and most obvious option to explore other alternatives. So often we stop at option one, when the best idea might be a combination of option two and option three.

3. Provide time for exploration. Curiosity takes time, and that time needs to be pressure-free and self-directed. This podcast is driven by the questions I ask myself, combined with the time to explore the answers. When I was working in management consulting there was very little time to be curious which, ironically, was often what clients valued the most.

4. Pursue learning. Ongoing learning builds the capability of the individual and the capacity of the organisation. Encourage and fund your people to undertake additional learning they’re interested in, even if it isn’t obviously linked to the work. Sometimes the connections people can draw between what they’ve learned and the organisation’s needs will surprise you.

So this week I encourage you to invest time in being curious, and allow the same for your people as well. You might be surprised at the benefits that result.

Episode 57 - Nine Ways to Rid Yourself of Impostor Syndrome

Summary

Chances are that you will suffer from impostor syndrome at some point in your life. In this episode we explore what impostor syndrome is, why it occurs, and nine ways we can avoid feeling like a fraud.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 57 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at impostor syndrome - what it is, why it occurs, and nine ways we can avoid feeling like a fraud.

What is impostor syndrome?

Put simply, impostor syndrome is the fear of being exposed as a fraud - that we lack the capability necessary for the challenges we face, and are only avoiding being found out through hard work and luck.

Bryan Stewart says “The root of impostorism is thinking that people don't see you as you really are. We think people like us for something that isn't real and that they won't like us if they find out who we really are." We’ll look at Stewart’s research later.

Importantly, it’s not a disorder. No psychologist is ever going to give you a mental diagnosis of impostor syndrome. Rather it’s a reaction or response that falls in the normal range of human experience.

Studies vary, however impostor syndrome is thought to impact 70% of people across their life. That is, the majority of people at some point feel like a fraud. In Stewart’s study 20% of university students felt very strong feelings of impostorism at any one point in time.

How does impostor syndrome work?

The researcher Clance outlines what she calls an impostor cycle. The cycle starts with an achievement-based task. It might be a project, assignment or new responsibility. This is followed by feelings of anxiety, worry and doubt. The individual with impostor syndrome then typically takes one of two possible paths. The first is the ‘hard work’ path - this is a period of over-preparation and frantic work. The second potential path is a period of procrastination and avoidance. There’s a sense of relief once the challenge is completed. Those who took the hard work path will then put any positive outcome down to over-preparation rather than ability. Those who took the procrastination path will put any positive outcome is down to luck. In both cases, even a positive outcome and feedback is seen as further evidence of a lack of personal ability, and so the cycle continues.

What’s the impact on the person and performance of impostor syndrome?

Well, there’s the anxiety, fear and self-doubt that accompany new challenges and opportunities. And there’s often a reluctance to put your hand up for even greater challenges and opportunities. After all, those challenges heighten the risk of being discovered as a fraud.

So what can you do to avoid impostor syndrome?

Here are 9 ideas:

1. Reframe challenges as opportunities to learn and grow rather than as chances to be tested and ‘found out’. Bringing a growth mindset to challenges will help reduce anxiety and increase motivation.

2. Establish an appropriate standard for your work. Perfectionism and impostor syndrome often co-exist. If your work is never good enough in your own eyes, then no wonder you feel like a fraud.

3. Reach outside of the group where you feel a fraud. Research by Bryan Stewart and colleagues has demonstrated that seeking support from within the group where you feel like a fraud is generally negative and reinforces the sense of being a fraud, while reaching outside the group to family, friends and others is generally positive. Reaching outside where you feel like a fraud recalibrates your abilities.

4. Stop comparing yourself to others. It’s tempting to select people at the top of their game as comparison points. Look to them as inspiration rather than as a benchmark of where you should be. After all, everyone’s journey is different, and you will have your own strengths that even your idols lack.

5. Keep a note of all the positive feedback you receive. When you receive positive feedback just say ‘thank you’. Don’t question it, just transfer it to a note or folder where you can review it when you face a future challenge.

6. Name it to tame it. Most people have impostor syndrome at some point. It’s a normal part of human experience, and it’s harmful not helpful. Calling it out for what it is can help you to be proactive in reframing your thoughts and approach.

7. Seek feedback on your approach and performance. Find some trusted people who can give you balanced feedback on your performance. We all need a cheer squad in life, but it needs to be a cheer squad that we trust to provide both positive and constructive feedback.

8. Be kind to yourself. There’s a classic piece of research that demonstrated people are more compliant when administering medication to their dogs than they are at being compliant with their own medication. We’re often not kind and compassionate to ourselves. Give yourself a bit of a break and treat yourself the way you would treat a friend.

9. Celebrate development and progress. We often don’t take the chance to reflect on just how far we’ve come. Ask yourself “What can I do now that I couldn’t do a year ago?”. Write out a list of strengths and achievements from the past year.

Is impostor syndrome something you’ve struggled with? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Contact me via the leadership.today website, and use the connect link.

References

Clance, P.R. (1985). The impostor phenomenon: Overcoming the fear that haunts your success (p. 25). Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers.

Richard G. Gardner, Jeffrey S. Bednar, Bryan W. Stewart, James B. Oldroyd, Joseph Moore. “I must have slipped through the cracks somehow”: An examination of coping with perceived impostorism and the role of social support. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2019; 115: 103337 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2019.103337

Episode 56 - Entrance Interviews Beat Exit Interviews

Summary

Entrance interviews beat exit interviews any day of the week. In this Leadership Today podcast we cover some questions to draw on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 56 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at the power of entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Last week we explored ways to improve exit interviews. However, it’s important not just to focus on those leaving our organisation - after all, they’ve already decided to move on. We need to also capitalise on those who are newer to our organisation and the fresh perspectives they bring.

Think back to the last time you joined a new organisation. In those first few weeks you were hyper aware of what was different or unusual about the organisation - the positives, the negatives, and the just plain weird. The security access seems really tight, but people hold the door open for others all the time. People make an effort to introduce themselves and make others feel welcome. Meetings always start 10 minutes late. Most people setup their laptop and work on emails during meetings. There’s a buzz of excitement around the office. Or, it’s like a dentist waiting room in here - all I can hear is typing.

Wouldn’t it be great to capitalise on these unique perspectives as people join your organisation? Like exit interviews, entrance interviews are a great opportunity to learn. But they’re even better than exit interviews because you can still course correct. You might even pick up some frustrations and reduce unwanted staff turnover along the way.

I suggest undertaking entrance interviews at two points in time - 30 days and 90 days after joining. 30 days gives enough time to process what’s unique about the organisation before becoming fully entrenched. And 90 days provides additional time to experience some things for the first time.

I think the two-up manager, the leader two levels above the person, is in a great position to undertake these interviews. It helps that leader to remain close to the experience of new people, while also building relationships and connections. They’re also a step further away from the day-to-day which may bring a different perspective to the discussion. The person’s direct manager could also be well suited to undertake the entrance interview.

It’s important to frame the entrance interview as not being a test. You’re not putting the individual on trial here, and there aren’t right or wrong answers. This is genuinely an exercise to learn from their experiences and fresh perspective and to make the organisation an even better place to work.

Here are some questions I suggest for the entrance interview:

• What is unusual about this organisation? Here we’re trying to get at the unique attributes, both positive and negative.

• What’s exciting about working here? These are the aspects that could motivate and engage our people.

• What’s frustrating about working here? This allows us to identify potential impediments to performance.

• What surprised you about the role? Surprises aren’t always bad, so we want to draw out both the positive and the negative.

• How would you describe the culture? What does it feel like to work here? Listen carefully to the words used and the extent to which they align with your desired culture.

• What does it take to succeed here? What is rewarded? You might be surprised at what people see. You might think hard work is rewarded, but the new person sees friendships and connections as the way to get ahead.

I think entrance interviews are a fantastic learning opportunity for leaders and organisations. They signal your interest in listening and improvement. Why not trial an entrance interview this week and let me know how you go.

As a reminder, I’ve recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I’m offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off. Check the show notes for the link - https://leadership-today.teachable.com/p/boost-your-assertiveness/?product_id=1340666&coupon_code=30OFFPODCAST

Episode 55 - Why Exit Interviews Often Stink and Seven Things To Do About It

Summary

Exit interviews often stink. They end up being overly positive or overly negative. This week we explore seven ways to radically improve your exit interviews.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 55 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at seven ways to radically improve exit interviews.

Exit interviews are one of those things that vary in popularity and application. Some organisations use them every time someone leaves. Other organisations may have been burned in the past or not seen the value. The idea is great - let’s find out from people who are leaving the organisation why they’re leaving and what we can do to make the place better for the people who still work here. We can do that using a structured interview just before they depart to whatever exciting opportunity comes next in their career.

In application though, the interviews tend to either be really positive or really negative. As a colleague of mine once wisely noted, you’re never more popular or better at your job than on your last day. We tend, rightly, to celebrate those who have contributed to our organisations on the day they are finishing up. We bring together a summary of their achievements, list all the great things we love about them, and talk about how much they will be missed. Friends come to the person and question how the place will ever be the same without them. All of that primes the person to say positive things in their exit interview. It turns into a “it’s not you, it’s me” conversation. The exit interview may well highlight lots of positives about the organisation, but probably understates the challenges and areas for improvement.

On the other hand you have people leaving the organisation where something has gone wrong. They may be angry or frustrated. The exit interview for them is a way to be heard. In those exit interviews the tone is more “it’s not me, it’s you - and, by the way, I’ve set the stationery room alight”. Those exit interviews end up highlighting a shopping list of problems and complaints, often more about that person than the organisation.

Whichever way the exit interview goes, there’s a risk that what we are hearing is not accurate. It seems like a missed opportunity to improve. If only we could source more honest feedback.

Well, help has arrived. Here are seven tips for dramatically improving your exit interviews.

1. Never on the last day. It’s best to conduct your exit interview as close to the time when the person tells you that they are leaving. At that point their thinking is usually clear. They will be ready to provide honest answers about why they’ve chosen to move on.

2. Split the conversation into two. During the first discussion you can focus on the reasons for leaving. It’s helpful to schedule a second conversation that’s focused on improvements. That provides the person with more time to think about suggestions for improvement rather than putting them on the spot.

3. Balance the discussion. We can tend to dive into the negatives or try to pull out too many positives. Balance the conversations with questions such as:

* What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the most?

* What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the least?

4. Focus improvements on the role. This focus on the role helps people to be more open about improvements without feeling like they’re being overly critical about their experiences. You could ask:

* What could be improved about the role for the next person to fill the position?

5. Explore missed opportunities. Discuss the areas where the organisation failed to draw the best out of the person:

* Are there particular skills or abilities you have that could have been used more effectively?

* How long did you intend to stay versus what you actually stayed for?

* What will be different in the next role that your present position hasn’t been able to provide?

6. Perform a clarity check. Clarity of purpose and role is critical to success, and the following questions can help with that:

* What was your experience of the role and its responsibilities? Was it what you expected?

* How clear were the goals and accountabilities associated with your role?

* Was the induction and training provided sufficient for you to perform the role? How could it be improved?

7. Keep the door open. If the person’s departure is genuinely a loss to the organisation, why not leave open the opportunity of them returning one day. You might ask:

* Would you work for us again in the future? Why or why not?

Applying these tips will help you to get the best out your exit interviews, while also making the process more positive for you and the person leaving.

Keeping all of that in mind, wouldn’t it be great if we could gain some of the benefits of an exit interview earlier in the process? Next week we’re exploring entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of those who are newer to our organisations.

As you might know I’ve recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I’m offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off, taking the course cost down from $149 US to the weirdly precise $104.30 . Check the show notes for the link - https://leadership-today.teachable.com/p/boost-your-assertiveness/?product_id=1340666&coupon_code=30OFFPODCAST

Have a great week.

Episode 54 - Five Tips To Level Up Your Listening

Summary

How are your listening skills? This week we’re looking at five tips to level up your listening.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 54 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at five tips to level up your listening.

Have you ever had that experience of talking to someone, only to notice that they’re not really paying attention? How are your listening skills? What’s the balance like between your speaking and listening?

Listening is an essential part of effective leadership. Listening underpins core skills such as influencing and assertiveness. If we want to influence someone we need to know where we are influencing them from, not just where we want to influence them to. To do that effectively, we need to really listen to what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. We need to listen to the content and also the emotion.

So, rather than just give you some tips about listening, I’m going to test your listening skills through this podcast. During the podcast I’m going to ask you to complete a pretty simple addition of some numbers. Just keep track of the total as the podcast continues. And keep the number in your head - you’re not allowed to take notes. Okay, so we’re going to start with 1,000.

It’s helpful to think about the common levels of listening. The first level is ignoring. To be fair, you could argue that this isn't really a level of listening. It's almost like actively not listening. Smart phones are great for this - if you've ever tried to have a conversation with someone while they play with their phone, you'll know exactly what I mean. +10. So you should have a total of 1,010, and that’s my last hint.

The next level of listening is pretending. Here I'm trying to give the impression that I'm listening while I'm really not listening. I might nod my head occasionally, say 'mmm-hmmm', but people pick up really quickly when we're just pretending to listen. +1000

The next level up is selective listening. This is better than the previous two levels of listening, but still isn't great. Here we're listening to the other person, but just to elements of what they're saying. Maybe we're just hearing the parts we agree with, or we're listening out for things to disagree with. Either way, there's a whole lot of other information that we're missing out on when we listen selectively. +30

The fourth level of listening is listening to respond. Here my listening is attuned to opportunities to turn the conversation back to my interests. Or I'm listening to argue back, so am only really hearing part of what you're saying. I'm not asking questions unless they will help me to respond. +1000

The fifth and final level is listening to understand. Here my objective is to really understand your perspective. I'm asking open questions and confirming my understanding. I'm not worrying so much about the next question, but am making sure I'm concentrating on what you're saying. I'm listening not just to the words, but for the emotions behind the words. I'm keeping the conversation focused on you. +50

So we want to move our listening up these levels in order to have assertive and influential conversations. Our attention spans can often work against this. If you've ever listened to a podcast or audio book on double speed you will know exactly what I mean. +1000.

Our brains can comfortably process verbal information coming at us at double speed. Which means, when someone is talking normal speed, it's tempting for us to try to divert some of our attention to other things. What should I have for dinner tonight? What meeting do I have coming up next? But we are actually not great at multi-tasking, and anything else we're thinking about will take us away from the task of listening to understand. +10

Okay - that’s all the numbers. What total did you end up with? Did you get 4,500? If so, unfortunately that’s not the correct answer. The correct answer is 4,100, but lots of people end up with 4,500 as their brains try to simplify the task and round up to the nearest 500. If you chose to perform the calculation through this podcast, you probably didn’t end up listening very well or calculating very well. It’s exactly the same when we’re distracted during every day conversations. Trying to think about something else while you’re also trying to listen means you’re probably not doing either very well. It’s far better to have a 10 minute conversation where you’re 100% listening than a 20 minute conversation where you’re 50% listening.

Here are five simple tips to try out this week:

1. Paraphrase what you’ve heard back to the person. That demonstrates you’re really listening and also quickly uncovers any misunderstandings.

2. If you’re in a meeting, take notes. Note taking is a great way to maintain focus and summarise themes.

3. Don’t just listen to the facts, but also listen for emotion. How do you think the person is feeling?

4. Don’t worry about what’s next. Be comfortable formulating your next question once they’ve finished what they’re saying, rather than part way through.

5. Watch your body language. Make sure you’re facing the person and making eye contact. Nod occasionally to demonstrate your interest.

Hopefully today’s podcast encourages you to pay attention to your listening in the coming week. If you liked today’s content, the levels of listening were drawn from my new Boost Your Assertiveness online course. You can find a link to the course via the leadership.today website or in the show notes.

I hope you found the content helpful and I look forward to speaking with you next week.

Episode 53 - The Ten Best Podcasts for Leaders In 2019

Summary

In today’s episode we outline the ten best podcasts for leaders in 2019.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 53 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges.

As leaders, podcasts offer a tempting solution to continuing our professional development and keeping in touch with broader trends. We can simply pull on the headphones and learn about almost anything. But with over 700,000 active podcasts, it can be hard for a leader to know where to start. Fortunately I’ve done the heavy lifting for you, with today’s episode outlining the ten best podcasts for leaders in 2019.

It’s important to note that these are the ten best podcasts for leaders - they’re not the ten best podcasts about leadership. Instead, they provide a broad range of perspectives, topics and approaches.

You’re unlikely to love them all - there’s clearly an element of preferences around style and content. But if you pick up one or two new podcasts then hopefully this episode has served its purpose.

And, for the pedantic, I’m actually going to list 14 podcasts - there were a few ties along the way. I have links to all of the podcasts in the show notes.

So, for dramatic effect, I’m going to start at number 10 and work my way up.

As leaders it’s important to challenge our perspectives and broaden our thinking, which brings me to number 10.

10 - Akimbo by Seth Godin

www.akimbo.me

Seth Godin is one of the most popular and successful authors and bloggers of our time, producing content at a frenetic pace. It’s a little hard to tie his Akimbo podcast down, but he’s bound to challenge your thinking and bring new perspectives to the way you lead. There’s a solid 15% of what he says that I tend to either disagree with or think he has gotten completely wrong. And there’s a solid 15% that makes me think about the world in a completely new way, so that seems like a fair trade off. Episodes vary dramatically in length from 20 minutes to 45 minutes.

Teamwork, engagement and culture are rich topics to explore and it’s helpful to have a seasoned expert to guide the way. And who better to that than Patrick Lencioni at number 9.

9 - At The Table with Patrick Lencioni

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-the-table-with-patrick-lencioni/id1474171732

Patrick is a well known author of books including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The podcast is setup as a chat between Pat and a few of his work colleagues. The format is pretty casual and relatively new, so they’re still bedding down the style a little bit. Episodes are around 30 to 40 minutes.

People are diverse and difficult to understand, but having deep insight into what motivates and drives others is a key part of leadership. That’s where podcast number 8 comes in handy.

8 - Hidden Brain from NPR

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam, this podcast is a gem which combines science and storytelling to uncover the often subtle forces that drive our behaviour. Always thought provoking and really well produced. Episodes range from 25 minutes up to an hour.

Setting up workplaces that are engaging and motivating is what leaders do to achieve results, and that’s the focus of podcast number 7.

7 - WorkLife with Adam Grant from TED.

https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife

As an organisational psychologist, Adam’s podcast focuses on motivation and meaning at work. He’s a university professor and the author of several books, including cowriting the excellent Option B with Sheryl Sandberg. Get your thumb ready to skip past the adverts, but otherwise it’s well worth adding to your list. Episodes are released in seasons and are around 30 to 45 minutes.

We operate within a broader economic and historical landscape, and our number 6 podcast combines both.

6 - 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - BBC World Service

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b1g3c

To be honest, history and economics were two subjects I wasn’t great at, but Tim Harford combines the two brilliantly. Each week he explores an aspect of our modern economy by focusing on an invention or discovery that changed the path of business and human life. Episodes come in around 10 minutes.

How do you get the best out of your day? That’s where number 5 comes in.

5 - How I Work - Amantha Imber

https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast/

If you enjoy listening to me each week, then why not add another Australian psychologist to your podcast playlist. Amantha’s podcast is typically interview based, with some shorter tip-based episodes. The focus is on personal productivity - how successful people from a range of backgrounds get the most out of their day. That ranges from musicians to entrepreneurs and even a magician. Interview episodes are around 50 minutes and come out weekly.

Economics doesn’t have to be boring, as the two podcasts at number 4 demonstrate.

4 - Planet Money - NPR AND Freakonomics

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money

http://freakonomics.com/

Planet Money is one of the podcasts I enjoy the most. A really interesting take on economics presented in an engaging way. The show has fantastic hosts and a great format. Freakonomics builds off the success of the book by the same name. Again, an interesting take on economics. It can be a bit hit and miss, so it’s worth working through the enormous back catalogue to pick out topics of interest. Either are great ways to build your confidence as a leader around economic trends. Planet Money is around 20 minutes, and Freakonomics is around 40 minutes to an hour.

Maybe you need some practical leadership tips. Our two podcasts that tied at number 3 can help you there.

3 - Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast AND Lead to Win with Michael Hyatt

https://www.life.church/leadershippodcast/

https://michaelhyatt.com/leadtowin/

Craig Groeschel is a prominent leadership speaker who is also the founder of a large multi-site church in the US. He presents really practical content that’s equally applicable in business and not for profit settings. If you’re after practical leadership advice, the Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast is hard to beat. Another one to check out is Lead to Win. Again, some great practical content, although a little heavy on the self-promotion at times. Both are around 25 minutes.

Keeping up to date with the latest news can be hard, particularly if you want to take a broader view. The two podcasts at number 2 are designed to do exactly that.

2 - The Inquiry - BBC World Service AND Economist Radio - Economist

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029399x

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/

When it comes to taking a global perspective, it’s hard to beat the BBC and the Economist. The Inquiry is topical and comes out weekly, whereas Economist Radio comes out on weekdays and covers several stories. As leaders it’s challenging to step out of our own organisations and take a truly global context. Either podcast will help you to do that.

 It’s fantastic to learn from the experiences of people who have grown successful organisations, which brings us to number one - which is, again, a tie.

1 - How I Built This with Guy Raz AND Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this

https://mastersofscale.com/

You should give both of these podcasts a go. How I Built This provides fascinating background to entrepreneurs and their journeys to build successful businesses. The episode with James Dyson is a great place to start. My only complaint is that they do throw in quite a few reruns into your podcast feed without marking them up as reruns. Masters of Scale is incredibly well produced, drawing together interesting guests into well formulated stories around a theme. Episodes range from about 40 minutes to an hour.

So, as you’re likely to hear on each of the podcasts I’ve recommended, why not help others to find this podcast by providing a rating and review. It does help us to creep up the charts which in turn helps others to find us. 

And finally, a couple of pieces of news from Leadership Today. We have just launched the Midweek Motivate. If you already subscribe to the Leadership Today podcast it’s a bonus episode that will turn up in your feed every Wednesday. And if you haven’t subscribed yet, why not just click on the subscribe button now. The goal is to provide one practical tip that you can apply right away to help get over that midweek leadership slump. And our Boost Your Assertiveness three week online course is live. Go to leadership.today to check out a free preview of the first two days of content. 

Episode 52 - Faking Extraversion Boosts Well-Being - What’s All That About?

Summary

This week we’re looking at research that demonstrates faking extraversion as a way to boost well-being. Seriously - what’s all that about? And what might it mean for leaders?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 52 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re looking at research that demonstrates faking extraversion as a way to boost well-being.

There is a well established link between the personality trait of extraversion and positive affect. That is, the more extraverted someone is, the greater their positive feelings and broader well-being. Now, I’ll just pause there to allow time for our introverted half of the audience click on unsubscribe. But as the cigarette company funded Hans Eysenck demonstrated, extraverts are more likely to smoke and over eat, so it’s not all smooth sailing on the other side of the fence. I’ll pause there to allow time for the remainder of my audience to also click on unsubscribe.

Okay - so our personality preferences all come with benefits and draw backs. But exploring the potential benefits of acting more extraverted on well-being is a legitimate area of study. Well, as of August 2019, the initial results are in.

The researchers from the University of California proposed that behaving in an extraverted way should provide a short-term boost in well-being.

How did they get people to act more introverted and extraverted? Well, they actually had each person do both. Participants were split into two groups, with half instructed to behave like an extravert for a week, then as an introvert for a week, with the other half doing the opposite. The participants completed various assessments along the way. In the extraverted week participants were asked to act as talkative, assertive and spontaneous as they could. In the introverted week they were asked to act as deliberate, quiet and reserved as they could.

During the extraverted week, people saw a significant increase in well-being. This included higher ratings of positive affect, connectedness and flow. The researchers also found that asking people to behave in an introverted way decreased well-being.

These findings are similar to other research quoted in the study where people commuting to work on trains and buses were asked to either speak with a stranger or remain silent. Those who spoke with strangers saw a boost to their positive feelings, while those who remained silent didn’t.

But what makes the difference? Was it being talkative, being assertive, or being spontaneous? And do I really need to act outside my personality preference to get the well-being benefits linked to extraversion?

After reading the study, I think these behavioural changes are all possible without working outside of our personality preference. You can be more assertive while still being introverted. It’s a behaviour. You can make a greater effort to connect with other people while still being introverted. Again, it’s a behaviour. And you can choose to be more spontaneous and adventurous while still being introverted. I believe it’s better to think of these as generally beneficial activities and ways of interacting, rather than attempts to change our personalities.

I think one of the key takeaways from this research for leaders is the importance of building connections with others. That, independent of our personality preference for introversion or extraversion, we all need other people and we all want to belong. One of the leadership styles I explore with groups is what I call Connecting. This isn’t just about connecting directly with individuals you lead, it’s also about helping those you lead to make connections with others across the organisation. This helps to provide support while also boosting a sense of belonging, just like those people on the bus or train taking the time to talk with a stranger. As leaders, we can boost well-being and performance by using a Connecting leadership style.

The other key takeaway is helping people to boost their assertiveness - being able to explore other’s perspectives while also presenting my own views and opinions clearly and confidently. If you want to learn more about that, you can check out episode 6 on Assertiveness, and you can also keep an eye out for my online Boost Your Assertiveness course which I’m currently trialing prior to a September launch. But as a leader, I can encourage people to share their views, and also take the time to listen to alternative views. We can boost the assertiveness in our organisations, not just in our people.

If you’re interested in exploring the benefits of introversion, I recommend Susan Cain’s excellent book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. She also has a great TED talk which I’ve linked to in the show notes. There are benefits from talking less and listening more. I think it’s entirely possible to work on our listening at the same time as we work on building connections and assertiveness. Unlike extraversion and introversion, they’re not opposite ends of a scale.

Now, I came across the research on extraversion and well-being via the excellent British Psychological Society Research Digest. I highly recommend checking that out and I’ve provided a link in the show notes.

References

Susan Cain TED talk - The Power of Introverts. https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts?language=en

Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153

British Psychological Society Research Digest - https://digest.bps.org.uk/

Margolis, S., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2019, August 1). Experimental Manipulation of Extraverted and Introverted Behavior and Its Effects on Well-Being. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000668

Episode 51 - Confidence in Action

Summary

Confidence is a key part of leadership effectiveness. It’s much easier to follow a confident leader than one who appears to doubt themselves. But what is confidence, and how can we develop it?

Transcript

Welcome to episode 51 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today’s biggest leadership challenges. This week we’re exploring confidence in action.

Confidence is a key part of leadership effectiveness. It’s much easier to follow a confident leader than one who appears to doubt themselves. But what is confidence, and how can we develop it?

First a thought - yes, it is possible to be overly confident and to overestimate our abilities. Check out episode 49 on accurate self-assessment for ways to avoid that. 

Self-confidence is underpinned by two concepts:

1. Self-esteem - this is the belief that you have an inherent value. Furthermore, it’s a belief that this value isn’t based on what you do or offer others, rather it’s something that all human beings share. You might also think of self-esteem as self-worth or self-respect. How can you have self-confidence unless you believe you are of value?

2. Self-efficacy - this is the belief that you have capacity to influence events in your own life. It’s a sense of control - that you’re not just a victim of your circumstances, but have the ability to shape the world around you. That no matter what cards are dealt to you, you still have choice and influence. Self-efficacy is necessary for self-confidence. How can you have self-confidence if you don’t think you can impact your circumstances?

You may have noticed that both self-esteem and self-efficacy are grounded in beliefs. They are both about how we think about ourselves and the world. They’re not primarily about feelings, although they will absolutely impact the way we feel. And they’re not primarily about action, although they will absolutely impact the way we act.

Self-confidence is a little different. It is grounded in thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Self-confidence is the belief that you can face day to day challenges. It’s a level of trust in your abilities, capacities and judgements. You can think confidently. You can feel confident. And you can act confidently. Importantly, you can take confident action even when you don’t feel confident. And taking confident action can help you to feel more confident.

So what holds us back from thinking, feeling and acting confidently:

1. Spotlight effect - this is the misguided belief that everyone is watching and judging what we’re doing all the time. It’s easy to feel like we’re always the centre of attention in our world, but that’s probably not the case. More likely is that people are thinking about themselves more than they’re thinking about you. So the fear and anxiety of feeling like we’re in the spotlight can hold us back - it’s a harmful belief that we can reduce once we’re aware of it.

2. Catastrophic thinking - this can lead us to overestimate the potential downside and underestimate the potential benefits of taking action. We can all benefit from taking a more optimistic view.

3. Thinking we need to feel confident before taking action - confidence is, in large part, about taking action even when we don’t feel confident. Try measuring your confidence on the actions you take rather than the feelings you experience.

4. Perfectionism - the need to get things perfect the first time can hold us back because, let’s face it, it’s never going to be perfect the first time, or the second time, or any other time. Instead, set goals around trying new things and improvement rather than perfection.

Confidence is often about what I describe as flight time. Just like when you’re learning to fly a plane, the number of hours of experience matter when it comes to boosting your confidence. Keep putting yourself in situations that expand your capabilities, that stretch you into new territories, and that encourage you to take action. Because, over time, you’ll find out for yourself that your actions can shape your thoughts and beliefs, and ultimately change the way you feel. The pathway to feeling confident is through taking confident action.

If you want to explore more of the themes in this episode further, I suggest checking out two other episodes where we explore growth mindset. That’s episode 9, “Why following your passion isn’t enough”, and episode 42, “The power of ‘I don’t know’”.