The concept of emergence is clearly applicable during these changing times and reveals the need for a shift in leadership thinking.
Consider how emergence is revealed in the C-level leadership actions you bring to your groups and teams: What are the behaviors you exhibit when working with your senior leadership team? Your Board of Directors? Other sub-set teams? How do those differ from your behaviors when you are working alone?
Collective team behaviors have certainly changed in the last eight weeks – and not always for the better. In the worst cases, “emergency leaders” have become paralyzed, reacting as if each decision were a crisis situation. The result is high levels of ongoing stress and confusion due to a lack of clarity and prioritization. This occurs when the leader reacts emotionally, sometimes out of fear, and no longer sees options clearly nor is able to make choices objectively.
Sound familiar? Perhaps you can point to leaders in your organization that have fallen prey to this behavior trap. What about you? Might you have resorted to this behavior at times and didn’t realize it? Most senior leaders have experienced this mindset from time to time, either in response to recent circumstances that are perceived as adverse, or by getting stuck and unable to adapt to the changing environment – which is just as damaging as a crisis mentality.
Reassess the characteristics that define a great leader
As the system and environment within which you operate continues to emerge and evolve, as an “Emergence-C Leader,” you must first focus on yourself, elevating and refining your skills in order to lead more effectively. Changing times require new and different thought patterns and behaviors. As emergence occurs, you must consciously choose your thoughts and actions to make a productive contribution to the team that is looking to you for guidance.
The pivotal question: How do you expect your company and its leaders to grow unless you are growing?
Consistently ask yourself these 3 questions:
- What is my contribution to this team dynamic?
- What is the behavioral pattern I bring to these situations and what does it produce?
- What does it look like for me to adopt a different pattern and what will it produce?
You don’t need to change your personnel nor do a ropes course together. A scientific approach to understanding behavioral patterns holds the key to creating lasting change.
Shifting leadership behavior to change an organization – a case study
The Challenge: The COO of a middle-market company hired Velocity Leadership Consulting to work with her and her senior leadership team on their team dynamic: conflict avoidance. On occasions when the team did engage in conflict, it was unproductive, wasting huge amounts of time and money.
This dynamic was also an obstacle to achieving both organizational objectives and individual team members’ potential, crippling company culture. Attrition was at an all-time high.
The Solution: Velocity Leadership Consulting utilized a group dynamic development tool called Total SDITM along with our unique Power PathwaysTM one-on-one coaching approach. These scientifically validated approaches unearthed blind spots and conflict triggers. Coaches helped leaders close gaps between their assumptions about their own impact and how their behavior was actually experienced by their team members. The team developed an understanding of the benefits of healthy conflict and productive debate and how each individual contributes to a successful dynamic.
The Results: As a result of work with Velocity Leadership Consulting, the company had its best growth year in 80 years of business! The team has gone from high turnover to working together seamlessly, while embracing healthy debate and conflict as an integral part of making the best decisions for company direction. Company culture is following suit and transitioning from one characterized by mistrust, unhealthy conflict and high attrition to one of openness, transparency, and regular, productive feedback. The Board of Directors has acknowledged an elevated state of company productivity and projections of future prosperity that they never thought possible.
Farewell Emergency Leader Mindset
With a forever-changed leadership landscape that continues to evolve, we must say goodbye to the days of no-growth C-suite executives and embrace the concept of the Emergence-C leader – a leader who understands that successfully piloting their organization into the future will require a focus on their own personal, behavioral growth.
You can’t afford not to have a coach on your side in rapidly changing times. Contact me to learn more about how scientifically-proven, results-driven, leadership development techniques can help you move your business forward in ways you hadn’t thought possible.