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Leadership as support and challenge
Admit it … you’re good
Let’s start by discussing your favourite subject – you. Because I directed this article towards you, and even more because you are reading it with diligence and interest, it is clear to me that you are a person whose business knowledge, skills, experience and behaviours mark you out as someone of way above average capability and competence. You are a success. You are very good at what you do. You have progressed well in your career on the basis of personal merit.
I know it is not a very British thing to do, but I would like you to recognise to yourself just how good you are. Give yourself a pat on the back. Seriously, you deserve it. It is comfortable and reassuring to know that most things that you try your hand at succeed. You are a high performer, a high potential.
And so are they
Now I would like you to notice that most, if not all, of those who work for you, those that you are called upon to lead, are also competent, capable, knowledgeable and experienced. They too have got into the habit of getting things right. They too have managed to structure and control their world in predictable ways.
Whilst the warm sensation of the pat on the back is gently but pleasingly fading away, let’s put it another way: What I mean to say is, we all have a tendency to become creatures of habit who over control and pattern our world. And here is the rub: our greatest strengths can quickly become our weaknesses without us noticing. We become safe, secure and in control, and thus, paradoxically, more vulnerable.
Put the challenge back
A critical leadership role, especially in changing and uncertain times, is to challenge norms, habits and routines, including your own, and to be fully open to unexpected outcomes. This is because habits, patterns and routines make us highly vulnerable in a rapidly changing world. We become too comfortable.
The job of a leader as coach is to challenge people to step out of this warm zone of comfort. To insist that people do things differently and that they do different things, to provoke people to stretch their capabilities.
As leader as coach you are not so much concerned with people’s ability as with their potential.
Raising the bar
The best way to understand this is perhaps through the analogy of a sports coach. Imagine for a moment an Olympic standard high jumper. I have no idea what a good Olympic standard high jump is, but let’s assume that she can jump 2 metres.
As her coach, you are not interested in how high she can currently jump, except as a point to move on from. You are certainly not prepared to let her continue to jump effortlessly and confidently at this height. As her coach, what you are interested in is her potential. In how high she could jump if she really stretched for it.
The important point here is that this stretch must be a demanding but realistic one. It is no good insisting on 3 metres. To do so would be setting her up to fail. As a target, it would be completely demotivating, not to say unreasonable.
Getting to know you
Sticking with our high jump analogy, let’s agree that 2.2 metres sounds more reasonable. It is realistic, but represents a real stretch. Importantly, as her coach, before you can agree such a target with her, you first have to make the effort to get to know her and to understand her capabilities as well as you possibly can. Her success is your responsibility.
Acting as coach, your job is to get her to stretch outside her comfort zone, outside the reassuring security of her current capabilities. You need to challenge her to do this. This is because when you stretch, life suddenly becomes more uncomfortable. Our high jumper starts knocking the bar off. She starts experiencing failure, frustration and self doubt.
Emotional intelligence
Those horrid things that we don’t like talking about in business suddenly kick in. She starts to experience strong emotions. Along with this comes a desire to go back to what she is good at, to what she knows she can succeed at. Ironically, this urge is often at its strongest just before a breakthrough in performance is reached. It is called the point of “impasse”: The last fateful tug of the old habits.
To stretch is to live life in the growing strip rather than the deadwood. It is exhilarating, but not necessarily comfortable. Hence, the challenge offered by the leader must be balanced by and equal amount of empathic support.
Once you accept that leadership is essentially a relational skill, offering effective support and challenge become key underpinning skills.
Earning the right
Support and challenge is a subtle and human thing. It is not a case of being in someone’s face one moment and having an arm around their shoulder the next. You have to earn the right to lean on someone by building up a relationship and a significant level of rapport. There are different strokes for different folks. Your support and challenge must, therefore, be tailored to the needs, capabilities and motivations of each individual. You have to take the time to get to know your people, to talk to them, to get to know them.
Eventually, our high jumper succeeds in jumping 2.2 metres, falteringly and then consistently. First, as leader as coach, you help her to consolidate this capability. Then you challenge her to get out once more into the growing strip, because that is where life is.
An important warning
One final note, this article is a plea for organisational life that is exhilarating, exciting, challenging, energetic and passionate. A plea for life lived to the full. Such stimulation and engagement must never be allowed to run over into fear. Passion moves organisations forwards. Fear corrodes them from the inside. There are well documented defensive habits and routines that people and organisations adopt in response to fear. Such habits are damaging to their health and to the health of the organisation.
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