Evolve: Reinventing Leadership - Building Freedom Cultures

Holding a higher vision of members of your team helps them to perceive themselves as they haven’t before.  It helps them to trust you and each other, strengthening their willingness to go the extra mile.  This is not about projecting your ideas about their potential, it is about being curious and allowing their potential to emerge.

Jack Welch once asserted, "If the rate of change on the outside is greater than the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” This seemingly foreboding message is really saying that we should keep up with the pace of our changing environments.  Agility refers to your ability to think and move swiftly and gracefully.  There can be agile strategies that are responsive and thoughtful, and ones that are reactive.  Your ability to adapt is essential to your sustained performance.

 

Reading between the lines is a skill you can use to perceive beyond the surface of what is being said.  It refers to your ability to understand what is not being said, to listen to tone, to understand the subtleties of word choice, and the ability to detect the lack of alignment between words and action.

 

If you value substance more than form, and you work within a political office environment, the good news is that you can engage office politics without sacrificing your values.  By being guided by your values you can build strong, integrity based relationships that can help your team achieve its goals so it is important to take the time to build the skills you need to detect and correct imbalances caused by unfairness and other political behaviour.

As a leader, it is important for you to understand creating an engaged team should start with taking a long, honest look at yourself to determine how your action and inaction may be contributing to your existing team dynamics.

 

Yvette Bethel interviews bestselling author, Devay Campbell, who is also a Coach and HR Consultant.  If you are interested in learning more about what disengagement looks like and how to help your team to evolve into engagement, tune in to this episode!

 

 Relying heavily on a strategy to accommodate others so you can be accepted is an “Achilles Heel” that others will perceive about you.  It is important to become aware of your patterns so you can avoid unwittingly sabotaging your career in the long-run.

 

 

Whatever the size, complexity or intended scope of your intended change, it is important for you to consider change readiness because change has multiple inherent costs.  Costs or risks include wasting resources, damaging organizational trust, reducing existing capacity and encountering surprise elements.

So what is safe space? It refers to the quality of communication and the ability of all parties to be open and respectful of others so trust can exist. The safer the space, the more likely it is that your coworkers will share authentic views.

 

There are a number of reasons why leaders decide to reinvent their careers.  For some, their careers have plateaued, keeping them stuck in the same position for far longer than they anticipated.  Other change careers completely, starting over in a new discipline.  Then there are those approaching retirement.