Courageous Leaders Blog

In this fortnightly series, Alison Glynn-Baker discusses some key concepts in Mandy Holloway’s book, ‘Inspiring Courageous Leaders’.  She also poses some provocative questions.  We invite you to provide your opinion and join the discussion.

 

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by [those] who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare… Impossible is nothing.”  - Muhammad Ali

 

Nine = Infinity

Mandy talks about the sustainability conundrum.  How can a business achieve sustainability in terms of people, financials and the brand?  For example, it is tempting to cut investment in people when the world threatens to go into economic meltdown.  Some would say it is imperative.  But is it?

Impossible is nothing.  And possible is everything.  The nine components of the Courageous Leaders Model are positioned around the Infinity symbol.  This represents infinite personal and professional possibilities.   The potential to do business differently.  The potential to evolve as a leader on a journey of life-long learning.

 

   

Nine=Infinity. The Nine Elements of the Courageous Leaders Model

The rest of this blog series will explore Nine = Infinity in more detail.  Here is a quick introduction:

As an emerging leader, how do you build the courage and conviction to lead differently? The first of the nine components is leadership mastery:  embracing your best self and reaching mastery in relationships, the business and technically.

You build confidence in your leadership mastery by spending time in reflection.  One tool you can use is Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, which I will discuss later in the blog series.

Once you have confidence to make the right choices, how far will you go to put your leadership mastery into action?  Are you prepared to take full responsibility for the consequences? This is the concept of conviction.

As an emerging leader, once you have developed courage in your leadership mastery, you can overcome a fear of or indifference towards having necessary, challenging conversations with your existing leaders.

Both emerging leaders and existing leaders need the courage to connect and commit - to meet in the middle, on common ground.  As an emerging leader, you need to have the conviction to challenge the status quo.  Sometimes even challenging existing leaders.  And as an existing leader, you will need to unleash your courage to be challenged and to change.  What starts off as an intimidating wedge of fear for both parties becomes a ledge of learning, untapping that infinite potential we talked about earlier.

The next of the nine elements of the model is challenge and how we respond to it. It is critical to drop the defensive behaviours, manage our emotions and embrace conflict.

How we respond to change is critical for our life-long learning, and for the sustainability of a business.

The last of the nine elements of the Courageous Leaders model is a high-performance culture. In a high-performance culture, a united population of courageous leaders is engaged in constructive and supportive behaviours, and is running a business which is sustainable in the long-term.

Maybe by embracing all nine components in our journey towards becoming Courageous Leaders, we really can create infinite possibilities.  Is it impossible to make business about more than just the share price?  As a Courageous Leader, what else could be possible? This is your chance to have your say.

Don't have a copy of Inspiring Courageous Leaders? Buy it now


About Alison Glynn-Baker: Alison Glynn-Baker has 15 years’ experience in professional services marketing, business development and operations.  Through her own consultancy, she has combined her two passions - training and writing – to help clients improve performance both personally and in business.

 

 

In this fortnightly series, Alison Glynn-Baker discusses some key concepts in Mandy Holloway’s book, ‘Inspiring Courageous Leaders’.  She also poses some provocative questions.  We invite you to provide your opinion and join the discussion.

 

"No one can answer for his courage when he has never been in danger"  - Duc de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims

When I was completing school in South Africa, there was a story going around about a boy whose final English essay topic was ‘Courage’.  After two hours he handed in the exam booklet, in which he had written the essay title and three words: “This took courage.”  It is said he got a Distinction.

Was he lucky?  Reckless?  Or just very brave? What was going through his mind?  And just imagine if he’d been failed instead of given an A?

Sticking to a script is easy.  Facing down a blank sheet of paper and imprinting it with your own story is one of the most daunting things you will ever do.

Chapter 1 of Mandy Holloway’s book talks about what courage is for you. Courage is a very attractive word on paper.  Its root is the Latin word ‘cor,’ meaning heart.  Who wouldn’t act from the heart, you may ask?    You’ll see at the end of each chapter that Mandy asks some Rattling Your Cage questions, designed to challenge your habits.  And you might truly feel rattled as you ponder whether and how you are demonstrating courage as a leader.

Where do you currently fit in the organisation?  If you are part of the top team, which shares overall accountability for the organisation’s outcomes, and have senior leaders reporting to you, then you are known as an existing leader.  

If you are an emerging leader, you are managing people and working towards organisational outcomes.  Emerging leaders report to existing leaders.  

Mandy talks about a wedge of fear.  This wedge prevents emerging leaders and existing leaders from having really necessary conversations with each other. What does this wedge look like?  Discontent. Blame. Defensiveness.  And even apathy.

And that blank sheet of paper?  It’s a ledge of learning – a place where both parties start talking.  Without a script.  Over time people feel stable and supported in having those conversations.  They become part of a united population of courageous leaders, connected to each other and committed to the future of the business.  This creates a high-performance culture, and a wealth of personal and professional possibilities which you can only begin to imagine.  We will talk about an infinity of possibilities in the next blog when we explore the Courageous Leaders Model in more detail.

The Courageous Leaders Model helps you build your own personal framework and identify what courage means to you. You might even find it’s already one of your character strengths.

But it has to start with a single, as-yet-unwritten word.

As a leader, if you do something that takes courage, what does success look like?  And what about failure?  Can it really be said you have failed when you have been courageous?  This is your chance to have your say.

 

 

Don't have a copy of Inspiring Courageous Leaders? Buy it now

About Alison Glynn-Baker: Alison Glynn-Baker has 15 years’ experience in professional services marketing, business development and operations.  Through her own consultancy, she has combined her two passions - training and writing – to help clients improve performance both personally and in business.

 

At our recent Courageous Leaders Facilitator Community meeting one of our facilitators - Jonathan- shared an interesting insight from his latest research.....that standing still is the new going backwards. We all resoundingly went "oh yes"!

Courageous Leaders know very well that change is the new constant as we shared in our recent Research and Insights paper - and that standing still is just not an option. To think of it as going backwards is a critical insight - every leader has a responsibility to keep learning and keep challenging their habits. I don't believe we have enough existing leaders prepared to do this - what's your experience?

Defensiveness sees leaders protecting themselves with their cage of habits and this weighs them down so they DO stand still. The younger emerging leaders keep moving and this is one of the reasons they just keep on moving - out of the business and off to somewhere they can thrive on change.

We need far more courageous leaders igniting and thriving on change!

Over the last month we have experienced the impact existing leaders can have on cultural change. I am sure many existing leaders are unaware of the impact they create when they show vulnerability. By sharing stories and by showing what they are experiencing in order to change the way they lead then others are encouraged to make changes too.

They can also be more supportive of their leaders as they work hard to change. People always wait to see if the existing leaders are really going to make the changes they say they are going to make to create the new culture.

So if you are an existing leader pay attention to what you are doing to show vulnerability to pave the way for others to follow.

While meeting with a newly promoted existing leader we got talking about the changes he wants to make within his leadership team and within the Organisation as a whole. He explained how he has "set the marker" for no more anger within his team.

He passionately explained to me that there is no reason to exhibit such an emotion at work and absolutely no place for using it when asking people to get work done.

This got me thinking - and I acknowledge people will always experience anger at sometime or another - what this existing leader is asking people to do is not to take this emotion "out" on other people.

Having the emotion of anger is not a bad thing – indeed it can be constructive and, in some cases, be indicative of passion. It is how one chooses to use that emotion for their own development and how they choose to control their own reactions by not taking it out on others.

This is courageous and would certainly make for an empowering and constructive work environment. I am looking forward to seeing his progress as he holds people accountable to this expectation.