The Real Work of Leaders Happens on the Balcony
Personal note:
Dear Reader,
This post published at 7:30 a.m. EST. While standing in line to board a plane, my editor told me I needed an apostrophe on one of the words. When I fixed it I messed up the post and sent out a title for another post. I have no idea where it came from.
To make matters worse, the plane from Philly to Dallas didn’t have Internet.
Thanks for your patience. Here’s the original.
Best,
Dan
P.S. here’s the post that went out by accident. All it is is a title! It has some great comments. How Unpredictable Conditions Can Produce Radical Innovation.
The Real Work of Leaders Happens on the Balcony
When it feels like you’re talking about the same issues for the third time, go to the balcony. Reflect on patterns.
Bias toward action blocks your ability to notice patterns.
You can’t see the big picture when you’re lost in the weeds.
7 pattern-recognition questions:
- When has this happened before? How often?
- Who was involved?
- What was the solution?
- Why is this returning?
- Who should be part of the conversation?
- What outcome would you prefer?
- How might you establish new patterns?
Ronald Heifetz and Donald L.Laurie call this going to the balcony. (HBR)
History and patterns:
In a recent conversation with a coaching client the idea of reflecting on history came up. Consider how far you’ve come. Explore points of pride and concern. What worked in the past? How might you get to the next level?
Pattern recognition requires you to step back, take a breath, and rethink the present.
The real work of leadership:
- Work on the way things are done. Spend time in meetings developing team dynamics, for example. Neglect produces negative patterns.
- Work to strengthen connections between team members. The strength of an organization is measured by the depth of connection between team members.
- Work on making work easier.Where are the energy drains?
- What would you like to do when someone makes work harder for others?
- How might you eliminate unnecessary rules?
- Work to bringing out the best in others. List the top three strengths of each team member. Are they doing the right job?
- List each team member‘s motivations. What fuels their fire? How might you pour gas on their fire?
- Know the formative stories of each team member. What makes them tick?
- Work yourself out of jobs.
Your job is to give your job to others so you can press into the future.
How might leaders recognize patterns?
What is the “real” work of leadership?
Dan,
I see that “patterns develop if the results don’t change”, granted we have good and bad patterns.
So we have to go to the extreme edge to refine the outcome that’s expected, and the actual outcome. Somethings are easy to identify in the process of the pattern, ex. started late, short handed, materials didn’t arrive, etc. so we have to identify all the components of the pattern to assure its outcome and maintain a constant value insuring we are doing the correct thing.
I see the “Real” work of Leadership is to carry the torch to hand off to the next in line so they have the same opportunities we had, let them build their journey so they can live their vision.
Dan,
First of all, I want to thank you for your valuable postsâ¦I appreciate them all. My only comment for a potential improvement from my perspective is that they are happening several times on any given day. Is there a way to have no more than one email a day or better several a week with several postsâ¦sort of like Smart Briefs (if you are aware of them) where they have several posts per email. Just a thought, either way, I mostly enjoy each one, save them to a folder for future reference, and often send them around to others in my organizationâ¦so please know what a big fan I am of Leadership Freak. Your support is a huge service to those who benefit from the encouragement and mentorship provided by your informative posts.
Respectfully,
Adrienne Bachman, PsyD
AKA
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Great idea from Adrienne above and I agree. If I had my choice, I’d like to receive the posts Monday through Friday and give the brain a rest on the weekends.
An authentic leader is one who is a teaching example of oneself and is able to skilfully inspire others to strive to become better. Great leaders are able to inspire change in others without intentionally working on changing others. Their life inspires others to want to change, not because of what they have been told by leadership, but by what they see and the example laid before them by the leader.