My answer to a fundamental flaw in leadership development
There is something that concerns me in the world of leadership development.
I see leaders that define working hard as the only road to success
I see leaders that use ambition and stress as synonyms
I see leaders that feel burned out at the end of the day, every day
I see leaders that measure their worth based on their achievements
I see leaders whose agendas are full of time for others, only to never have time for themselves
I see leaders whose own self-critical thoughts overwhelm them
What it essentially comes down to: I see leaders that lead others, without the support to lead themselves first.
This support is critical, in my view. Every leader can use support in making the journey inward. Without it, chances are you end up striving for your goals and running faster, only to feel unfulfilled and stressed. Some even tipping over the edge into burnout. Who wouldn’t be?
There is something crucial missing in the world of leadership development. But what is it?
It is not better time management
Nor better delegation skills
And also not improved coaching skills
It is not more effective ways to give feedback
Or learning how to handle a “difficult” conversation
Learning how to set compelling goals then? Nope also not.
And yet, these very things are what most leadership trainings are focused on.
Of course, time management, giving and receiving feedback, effective communication, setting objectives and creating a vision are all skills that great leaders develop. But without a clear foundation of self-awareness and introspection as a conscious leader, these newly learned skills and methods have the risk of not fully landing.
Learning leadership skills before increasing our self-awareness and introspection as conscious leaders is like pouring water in a leaking bucket or like watering the soil before even planting a seed.
The newly learned skills become mere tricks we apply because we think we are ‘supposed to’. Tricks because so-and-so said this was the best way. A trick because we saw that someone we admire did it this way.
I plead for consciousness as being the missing piece in leadership development.
Let me explain you why in an example:
John has taken a compelling class in Time Management. After the course, he is excited to implement his learnings. He decides to focus on 3 things to increase his productivity:
Check his email and Slack messages only twice a day at specified times. He decides it will be 11:00 and 16:30.
Timeblock his mornings from 8:30 to 11:00 to focus on big project work
Implement something that is called the “Braindump and To-do list” method to differentiate between things that are on his mind and he should not forget and the 5 things he actually wants to focus on today
After one week, John notices he slips back into his tendency to check his email every hour or so.
After two weeks, he gives in to meeting requests in the morning because they seem to be important.
After three weeks, he is basically back where he started before joining the course: exhausted and with a feeling he accomplished very little, causing him to work even harder.
What happened? John learned new leadership skills. How come they did not stick?
Learning skills without a proper foundation of self-knowledge, self-awareness and self-management does not promote sustainable change.
And that is why, in this example, John did not change. Some may keep applying the tricks, but nothing essentially changes. The change is not sustainable.
What the Time Management training did not cover was why John had trouble keeping a schedule in the first place. It also did not cover what beliefs John had about himself that influenced the way he planned his schedule. Nor did it cover what his values were and how his day contributed to those values.
So what got in the way of successfully increasing John’s productivity?
John always prioritized other people’s requests over his own work and had difficulty stating boundaries
He had a fear of missing important messages, hence he was always pulled to read email and messages
John measured his own self-worth by the amount of his accomplishments, driving him to exhaustion
With those beliefs and dynamics still in place, the time management skills John learned couldn’t stick. He could go to a million other courses to learn new tricks that could help him stick to a schedule, but the likelihood of falling back into old patterns is high.
Without addressing John’s inner world and mindset, his newly learned skills had no real chance of reaping the benefits he was hoping for. The skills and methods itself were great, but they would only land if John’s belief system was challenged first.
The real benefits of leadership skill development will only materialize in combination with increased consciousness
For real sustainable change (and actually giving those newly learned skills a chance) I believe the focus on leadership development should be on increasing consciousness and personal leadership before or during practical leadership skill development. Why?
Our beliefs define our thoughts
Our thoughts define our emotions.
Our emotions define our actions.
Our actions define our reality.
Our reality feeds our beliefs.
And the cycle continues....
For most people, this cycle happens unconsciously and hence they cannot change it. They have no agency over their reactions and tendencies. They run on autopilot, and the autopilot is on a course of exhaustion. Once we do increase our awareness of this cycle, we can access conscious choices and become the leader of our reality.
In John’s case, transforming his belief system and building a more empowering mindset helped him to change his behavior.
He realized he held a belief that other people’s time was more important to him than his own time. He adopted a new empowering belief that his time was most important to him, because his time allowed him to experience life in the way he wanted.
He learned to recognize when fear and not his values would drive him to action. He started observing his own thoughts, emotions and resulting actions to help him pause when fear drove him. He defined his values (Authenticity, Adventure, Connection and Growth) that helped him make different decisions every day.
He explored and found out where his conditioning of accomplishment to feel worthy came from. He reprogrammed his mind and personified his inner critic. Very quickly, his tendency to exhaust himself to feel worthy was released and he started to feel fulfilled, regardless of the circumstances.
He realized that with every “yes” also came a “no”. This helped him to choose consciously in the moment whether the “yes” to someone’s request was actually worth saying “no” to his own project/family/leisure time.
With an increased awareness, new belief system and tools to challenge his (previously) default reaction to stress, John reinstalled his 3 time management strategies. This time, they worked.
He was no longer afraid to miss important messages, so checking his email and messages only 2 times a day was easy to keep up. He informed his team of his new productivity strategy and proposed an emergency contact line via Whatsapp confidently. The team happily adopted it.
He blocked his calendar every morning until 11:00 to work on big projects. This time was for him to be productive and produce outputs he was proud of. If someone proposed a meeting during that time, he would cancel it because he knew that saying “yes” to that requests meant saying “no” to the work he loved.
He reinstalled the Braindump and to-do list. They kept him focused on what truly mattered that day. He became extremely skilled in knowing how much he could do in a day by implementing this strategy. He no longer felt unaccomplished. And on the days that all his intentions did not materialize? No problem; another day tomorrow. He no longer felt worthy or worthless based on his accomplishments.
Having a great foundation of consciousness makes you a great leader; the 8-week Personal Leadership course gives you that foundation
The example described in this blog shows that a foundation in personal leadership helps all the different leadership skills, methods and tools integrate properly to facilitate sustainable change.
The discovery of this gap; in leadership development is exactly why I developed an 8-week Personal Leadership course for (international) teams within corporates and startups. During 8 weeks and in two-hour sessions per week, groups of 8 people tremendously increase their self-awareness and self-leadership skills. They learn about the different energy levels, practice radical responsibility and express vulnerability within a safe container. This experience does not only increase their levels of engagement at work, but also reduce their experienced levels of stress. A true win-win if you ask me.
I have seen the benefits of facilitating this course within multiple companies, and no words do justice to describe its impact. One company even made it the backbone of their Personal Development efforts and now internally trains employees using the same methodology.
Energy Leadership (developed by iPEC) and the 7 levels of energy is the backbone of the course. You see a quick overview of the course below:
If you are curious if this course is something for your team and/or company to experience, send me a request for more information or schedule a discovery call with me to find out more.
You reading it this far shows that you are joining the rise of a new kind of leadership: conscious leadership.
Welcome to the movement.
