The Pinnacle of Presence

How great leaders connect, instil trust and get the right results

Sheila Wherry

• Publisher: EI Executive
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780648872917
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Meetings & Presentations
• Index: Business

Do you feel you have to keep working harder and pedalling faster to succeed as a leader?

Are you frustrated by fragmented teams that are pulling in different directions?

Is it always you coming up with the solutions?

This is a common scenario for leaders in today's fast-paced, hyper-connected world.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You have the silver bullet. YOU!

You may not be able to change the relentless demands of leadership, but you can change what you bring to them and how you deal with them. The secret? Presence. Your ability to bring your best self to the role of leadership.

Sheila Wherry specialises in coaching executives to build trust, connectedness and direction within themselves, their teams and across organisations. By sharing her framework, The Pinnacle of Presence, she shows you how to be your own coach.

The presence you bring to yourself and your teams can be the greatest gift to yourself and those you lead.

PART 1

NAVIGATING THE CHALLENGES OF MODERN LEADERSHIP

Increasingly, the sources of competitive advantage will come from the capacity to build cooperative partnerships across various ecosystems. That will bring to the centre stage the capacity to create cultures of cooperation, trust and inclusion.

LYNDA GRATTON,

PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT PRACTICE,

LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL

CHAPTER 1

RELATIONSHIPS TO RESULTS

The door opens and my new client walks in. Let’s call her ‘Ash’. Ash’s face is taut. Her brow is drawn together and her forehead furrowed. Unconsciously, as we start to chat, she clenches her hands tightly together. With a few gentle questions, her words start to flow, then gain momentum. Ash explains that she is overwhelmed. Frustrated. Drained. Her problems are multiplying, and she doesn’t know how to manage them. She can’t understand it. She’s a professional and, until recently, confident in her abilities. Now she’s not so sure. She just can’t see a path forward.

Nearly every leader I work with, no matter what challenges or opportunities they face, has a common story. They have worked hard to get to where they are, and now they have hit a snag and are struggling to produce their best results.

It could be that they:

•have lost their zest for leading

•are missing out on promotion opportunities

•feel overwhelmed, or burnt out, or are on the cusp of burnout

•are frustrated by those around them – their manager, their peers, their stakeholders – and the relationship has frayed

•feel confused about whether the choices they are making are the right ones

•are receiving feedback that their behaviour is being portrayed in a negative light

•feel their team are disengaged or demotivated.

They know they have reached a stumbling block but they don’t know what’s causing it or how to untangle themselves from it.

Add to this that they are expected to be on and available 24/7 in this fast-paced, hyper-connected world of work, and they feel they have to pedal harder, faster and longer to keep ahead of the curve. This can leave them feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, unclear about what to prioritise to turn their ship around, and how to navigate the waters ahead. Does this sound familiar?

There’s a central theme to these problems: their management strategies are no longer working. They are more focussed on results than relationships, which is a leadership style that is no longer effective in the complex times in which we are living and working. Why not? Because relationships are the building blocks of effective teams, and in today’s complex world working in teams is no longer optional, it’s imperative. The problems we are facing are so complex that teamwork and collective thinking are essential to providing innovative solutions, creative problem solving and getting work done.

This is an argument supported by global accounting firm Ernst & Young in their 2013 report entitled ‘The Power of Many’. In this report, they showed the results of a survey of 821 senior executives. An overwhelming majority believed that the ability to develop and manage teams was essential for future competitiveness. These executives felt they spent over 50% of their time on team activities. This really brings the ability of leaders to effectively manage and work with their teams into sharp focus. The report states that, ‘Leadership in a team setting is much less about command and control, and more about getting the most out of a diverse and experienced group of individuals.’

Until recently, leaders used rational cause-and-effect strategies to come up with solutions. Certainty and predictability meant you could use your expertise, rational mind and a more commanding or hierarchical style of leadership. In fact, you were paid to use your expertise and come up with the answers.

But that certainty and predictability is no longer there. Our world of work has shifted unrecognisably and will continue to do so. We no longer work nine to five, remain with one company for decades, or switch off like we used to when leaving the office. We don’t sit at our desk in one location, and many of us don’t sit together with our teams each day. Virtual meetings have replaced face-to-face meetings and teams have become more geographically dispersed and diverse. Changes will continue. They are hurtling towards us at speed and we can’t plan for what’s next. We don’t know what ‘next’ is.

In this new world of work, leaders today are like racing car drivers, but they are on a new and different racetrack.

In the past, drivers pulled into the pits when their tyres needed changing. The pit stop team practiced and, through their coordinated effort, could change all four tyres in under two seconds! Astonishing. The driver then raced back out onto the course. It was a level playing field; all drivers needed to make these pit stops. But the driver with the competitive edge was the one with the team who worked well together and honed their art.

Not anymore.

The ‘racing-car driving’ leaders of today need more than speed and consistency from their teams if they want their business to maintain a competitive edge.

As a leader, you used to drive around the racetrack before the event to plan, prepare and visualise tactics. Now the track ahead is shifting and reshaping before your very eyes. You can’t see what is around the next bend. Your tyre requirements keep changing based on the unpredictable new track. Your team must calculate what tyres you need at any given moment. More pit stops, less time, and harder choices.

As the driver, what do you do in this situation? Be clear on your purpose: to win the race. Absolutely. Be clear on operational aspects, such as making sure your team is highly skilled and motivated. Of course.

Yet so much remains unknown.

To remain agile and thrive, you must shift your thinking and ask: what does this team and our stakeholders need? And your team and all other stakeholders must do the same.

As a client recently shared, ‘My senior leadership team, and the wider team generally, talk of change fatigue. I get it. But it isn’t going to change. Our business, as it currently stands, won’t exist in five years. Our purpose will be the same but how we achieve success will be totally unrecognisable from any strategy we are employing now’.

You can no longer be expected to have all the answers. Now more than ever you need the brains trust of your whole team.

Thinking about this racing car scenario, the key for your team to maintain competitive advantage and produce effective outcomes is their ability to rapidly, effectively and intentionally talk and think together, with agility. It is essential that the leader and their crew are openly discussing issues, making suggestions, owning mistakes, coming up with potential solutions together: tweaking and nudging, and all this must be done at speed. It takes a team that feels safe enough to do this together. One that understands the necessity of speaking up, giving feedback, and challenging ideas and each other. Respectfully. One that can do this within their team, but also across teams: a network of teams talking and thinking together.

Leaders today are not necessarily driving the car either. Their role may be best served in the pits, creating the right environment for their team to keep navigating the changing path ahead.

As a client shared, ‘I work hard to empower my senior leaders. I say: You are my leadership team. The best experience for me is if you can come to a common view before coming to me. I don’t want to be the conduit for decision making. Make decisions. I will always back you, as long as you aren’t shooting from the hip. You can’t turn the car if you aren’t moving’.

This leader is explicitly encouraging her team to question, challenge, have hard conversations and keep driving forward. Collectively. Interdependently.

Yet it doesn’t stop there. There is a need for end-to-end accountability across the business, and an avoidance of siloed thinking. There’s a need to draw out connections between teams, as well as within teams.

My client demonstrates this as she explains, ‘I work exceptionally hard to build trust with all my stakeholders. I seek to connect in order to understand their needs’.

My client understands the fundamental need to focus on cultivating relationships to get to the results.

And to do this she starts with trust.

CHAPTER 2

TRUST. CONNECT. COLLABORATE.

It turns out that trust is in fact earned in the smallest of moments. It is earned not through heroic deeds, or even highly visible actions, but through paying attention, listening, and gestures of genuine care and connection.

BRENÉ BROWN

DARE TO LEAD

The traditional idea of leaders as strong and forceful people who lack warmth is outdated. We now know that great leaders start by gaining trust, listening, and developing empathy and emotional intelligence. Whether you’re talking about leadership, friendship, parenting or any human relationship, people need to know that you care, that you have good intentions and that they can trust you. Without this vital element they will not get behind you or the relationship.

People only value a leader when they trust them – abilities come second, argues Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist, author and speaker. She also underlines the value of being a good listener as it is an excellent way to gain trust. I agree.

Great leaders know how to balance warmth and strength. And they invariably lead with warmth.

At the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern found a perfect balance of strength and warmth.

She held a press conference on 23 March 2020 in which she announced the decision to act quickly and firmly in an attempt to get ahead of the pandemic. She outlined unprecedented measures, aware of the huge instability and disruption they would cause. She asked the nation to get behind her. She acknowledged that it was going to be difficult but was firm in her convictions. She did not waiver. She was clear, unapologetic and strong. At the same time, she showed she cared. She finished her speech asking the New Zealand people to, ‘Be kind and strong’. She offered strength and warmth, and she asked for the same in return.

Nearly two months later she polled as New Zealand’s most popular prime minister in a century.

Leaders who choose to focus on strength and credentials, and less on trust and warmth, risk triggering fear and dysfunctional behaviours in the workplace.

This is the point made by Amy Cuddy, Matthew Kohut and John Neffinger in the Harvard Business Review article ‘Connect Then Lead’. These authors explain the need to avoid fear because it limits the cognitive potential of your people, their creativity and their ability to problem solve, all key qualities needed in our knowledge economy. Fear is also a major cause of employee disengagement.

A 2018 study cited in the Harvard Business Review article, ‘Does Your Leadership Style Scare Your Employees?’, explains that managing employees with pressure tactics results in more than a 90% increase in the predicted turnover of employees. Using more inspirational tactics translated roughly to a 68% decrease in likely turnover.

Let’s face it, we all know when our manager isn’t in a great mood, and these feelings can spread across the team. This is called emotional contagion.

Joshua Freedman is the CEO of Six Seconds, an author and an expert in emotional intelligence. His book At The Heart of Leadership explores how emotional contagion flows from the group leader to their team. He cites a study published in the Journal of Organisational and Leadership Design, entitled ‘Quitting the Boss? The Role of Manager Influence Tactics and Employee Emotional Engagement in Voluntary Turnover’ which found, ‘the positive mood of the leader positively influenced group members at both the individual and collective level, with the opposite happening for a leader’s negative mood. The leader’s positive mood also had a subsequent influence on group coordination and effort’. This study concludes that, ‘managers who inspire rather than pressure their employees are better able to retain talent, in part, because they create an emotional connection between their employees and their work’.

Some of my clients have embarked on a coaching program with me because their people have started to disengage or, worse still, they are creating fear and anger in the people they work with and/or lead. Others have become so focused on results and short-term outcomes that they’ve lost awareness of the impact they’re having on those around them. They are on autopilot, responding to the rapid nature of their workload and overwhelming demands.

Let’s return to Ash from Chapter 1.

Ash is a senior leader in a global corporation. She has a team of 235, with five direct reports. As we start our initial coaching session, Ash appears a little more...