What will you unlearn to lead this year?
There are plenty of signs around us that we are living in a leadership vacuum. From presidential tantrums to parliamentary squabbling, we don’t seem to have a lot to learn from the people who should be our leading role models.
Luckily there’s nothing you need to learn from our current leaders — in fact, its time for each of us to unlearn what we know about leadership in order to truly step in to the leaders we want to become. This is an idea Within People have been exploring with our clients and heads of businesses around the world.
As long as I have been in the working world I’ve been told that I should find my own “leadership style”. It’s been suggested that women should lead differently to men. We’re shown that there are “hard” and “soft” leadership skills, and that only “HiPos” (a terrible way to refer to “high performing” individuals) can lead. And that millennials need different leadership to the rest of us.
We’re calling bullshit on all of that. To lead in the 21st century we don’t need to become something else. We simply need to tap in to what it means to be our most authentic, human selves.
To kick off the year, we sat down for some purposeful cocktails with the members and guests of Canopy workspace in San Francisco to continue the conversation about unlearning.
We’ve been hosting these group discussions globally (including our recent session with the Meaning conference team in the UK), exploring eight qualities of 21st century leadership that emerged from our research into how culture drives business growth. We see these as human qualities, accessible to each and every one of us, and essential to growing purposeful businesses where we love who we are and what we do.
For each quality, we have identified an “unlearning” — a route back to these qualities inside of ourselves that some how, thorough our education and careers, have become blocked off.
The start of our unlearning process is to ask each leader to choose one quality that they felt would really serve them and their growth this year. We asked the CANOPY group to work in small groups, reflect on each quality, and discuss which speaks to them most. Some selected a quality that they knew they could rely on. Others a quality they wanted to cultivate as part of their growth.
“Conviction is about confidently putting 18+ years experience to use. Minimizing the self-doubt that I often feel”
“Growth will come from leaning in to my vulnerability”
“I don’t do well with uncertainty. Conviction is accepting and knowing that is ok not to know what will happen and still feel confident that I can do what I say I will do and feel ok about it”
We grouped leaders who chose similar qualities together, and then asked each person to select another quality that would support their first choice. Our suggestion to the group was that pairing qualities together would super boost their growth.
And some interesting themes popped up:
We need Courage to support the Conviction of our promises
Several gravitated to pair up these two qualities. I’ve noticed this theme with clients as well, especially those working in high growth, high pressure cultures. As leaders we need to be brave to stay the course and take people forward with the integrity of our word. With Courage we must accept that there will be fear and work with it so that it doesn’t hold us back.
“Courage and Conviction together will help to overcome the fear of achieving the life I am supposed to have and deserve”
Love is an essential fuel to growth
Here’s a word we barely ever hear when talking about work. Love has been reserved for Hollywood movies and Hallmark cards — something “fluffy” and certainly not found in serious business!
We propose that Love as a leadership quality is about “caring deeply for those we serve, and for ourselves”. In our research, leaders rarely immediately choose Love as a quality that they have relied on in growing their business. Love then surfaces as something missing and badly needed in our working lives.
“Love will be the indicator for the situations in which I need to step out of my comfort zone”
“I need to keep a Curious mind… and find a path that will make me Love my life”
Pairing the qualities help us believe in ourselves
I was struck by several leaders speaking to the need to believe in themselves, their skills and experience, and to befriend the inner imposter that doubts our abilities and what we have to offer.
“I can succeed and believe in myself, but I don’t need to be so hard on myself”
“I love leading a team but I have to remind myself that I am also good just as me. I can do this.”
The journey through the eight leadership qualities offers an opportunity for leaders to tap in to strengths they already have in order to reinforce their confidence in themselves.
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The new year is a time for resolutions, setting goals, and giving ourselves and our teams targets to hit. I was inspired by our Canopy crew’s perspective on the year ahead as they explored the eight leadership qualities. Perhaps by tapping in to what we already have, the notion of success takes on a different meaning.
What if we judged our growth by how much we’ve unlearned, and the impact that has on our business and our lives — rather than seeing success as a destination we are scrambling to achieve?
Last year I felt I was striving for something — trying to get to “more”. As our business concluded its fifth year of growth, I took on too much in order to meet the goals we had set. Reflecting back, that striving didn’t make me feel more successful, or make our work any more impactful.
To unlearn this year, the qualities I would like to bring together are Patience and Conviction. Through Patience I let go of my expectations of myself and others that do not serve growth. And with Conviction I fiercely step in to the work that really matters to help our partnership and our clients grow. In many ways these two qualities feel like they are in opposition with each other. I’m inspired by this tension — what happens when I hold on to the integrity of my values while letting go of my ego’s need to succeed?
Just as I started to review what came out of our Canopy conversations, I was sent this quote from Rumi via a friend, which reinforced that unlearning has always been part of our human experience. The wisdom of a 13th century poet shows how a few century’s of human “progress” has clearly clouded our view of the world.
This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself: everything that you want, you are already that.
Which of the eight qualities will you tap into this year?
Thank you to Canopy, their members and guests in San Francisco for attending our event!
