Light the Olympic fire on your personal leadership
So now the 2016 Olympic Games are open in Brazil. It’s a spectacular event where fine sportsmen and women from all over the world come together to compete for gold in a wide range of sport disciplines.
The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius is a good framework to discuss leadership in the world of today and tomorrow
One of my personal highlights is the opening ceremony. As the participants march into the stadium, you see them walk tall and with pride. No wonder: Behind them lie months of commitment to hard focused physical training and mental preparations, and marching under their national flag is a signal that they come to compete as individuals and as ambassadors for their home nation. This sense of belonging to something bigger even gets taken to the next level when the Olympic flag is raised: The circles represent the continents and you will find the colours of any national flag in the colour of the rings! It’s as much about the individual as its about his or her role in the wider community!
The Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius is a good framework to discuss leadership in the world of today and tomorrow
This is where the games connects to the wider world: We are increasingly depending on and connected to the other nodes (concentration of people/skills/power/resources with connection capabilities) in the global diverse network. Hence leaders ability to see how their own objectives connect to the bigger picture, and turning this into how they lead, will make their teams and organisations more successful and effective.
In so doing the classic Olympic motto Citius, Altius, Fortius is a good framework to discuss leadership in the world of today and tomorrow.
Citius – faster
When you have the full control of a simple system, you have the luxury of taking the time you need to be fully informed and only then decide and move forward. But that’s not the reality today for many leaders. Your decisions can influence the wider Eco system and only if you manage to constantly make fast decisions, will that influence have a meaningful impact, as conditions constantly change. And at the same time as you receive the impulses back, you also need to react.
Acting fast needs a counterbalance of reflection to create personalised insights fast.
This calls for a mindset shift from frustration by data, being it hundreds of emails and multiple social media channels and E-magazines, to embracing the inputs. And as a decision maker you benefit from learning to feel comfortable making decisions on an ambiguous basis until it feels like a natural instinct. Only by then will you radiate the confidence that your team needs to grow the same competence and comfort.
To stay sane it also calls for taking time to connect the dots – acting fast needs a counterbalance of reflection to turn data into information, information into meaning and meaning into personalised insights.
Altius – higher
Leading at a higher level is at its core a commitment to continuous self development. Like for the successful Olympic athletes, it’s not just about training harder and for a longer time – it is training smarter that yields the gains. Smarter ways are often to learn from others – not just by copying best practices, but by translating what works for others into your own unique context. Furthermore it’s asking yourself what you do well that others can learn from, and then actively sharing it.
This calls for a leader also to have a learning network besides the more commonly known business network.
Learning networks tear down the wall between the leader as a person and the leader in the role as leader
Whereas the business network has a very clear commercial objective, the powerful learning network by nature is more fuzzy. Often there will be a great level of diversity in terms of age, nationalities, experience, core believes and geography/industry insights and when working well, the peers even help each other with the tricky experience translation part.
A bit of a warning: Leaders who chooses to immerse themselves in learning networks, as a way to lead at a higher level, will see the wall between me in the role as a leader and me as the person come down. But isn’t that insight not a good starting point for a new development journey to higher grounds?
Fortius – stronger
Strengths in personal leadership can be reinforced by a strong connection between self and the role as a leader – Altius. This minimises the effort spent on ‘internal’ translation, which in term enables the leader to react fast – Citius.
Strong leadership creates organisational capability to breathe in the network
Stronger organisational leadership, though, is when leaders have a bigger and positive impact beyond self and build organisational capability through people. This can be done by ensuring the team becomes a relevant node in the network, with many and strong connections. For this to happen, the leader defines the strategy that aligns with the wider organisations objective, and facilitates the performance and development discussions that enables people to add value to both the internal and external network.
One sign that strong leadership takes place is, that teams adds more value to the business and Eco system than just the sum of the parts. Further, that there is an organisational capability to give meaningful inputs to the wider network and simultaneously translate the feedback into interventions that makes the team and organization stronger every minute of every day.
Whatever you have done so far to lead, the hardest of work and greatest of journeys it may have been, has just been bringing the torch to the Olympic arena. Let’s now light the fire on your leadership for the new era in the true Olympic spirit!
