PERSPECTIVE
AN INTRODUCTION TO PERSPECTIVE
Strong leaders have an appreciation of the good things that happen and never take them for granted. They always take their time to express their thanks. They are positive about the future and believe that their performance is controllable. They see the light side of challenging situations. They appreciate excellence and skilled performance in all domains of work. They have strong beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of their work.
GRATITUDE
11. I am a grateful person, who takes the time to express thanks for a job well done. Or put another way: develop an attitude of gratitude.
Since pre-history, people have devoted much time to being grateful for things that have happened in their life. Prayer, philosophy and actions have demonstrated an almost innate awareness people have – religious and secular – for the importance of developing a grateful mindset. More recently, researchers have also been showing an interest in the importance of gratitude. The evidence suggests that being truly thankful as a generalised way of living, as a trait, improves wellness and health. Genuine gratitude provides significant positives.
A key idea here is that your gratitude needs to be genuine. If you finish reading this insight and adopt a deeply thankful approach in all areas of your life, but that only lasts for the next 48 hours, we’re not convinced it will make that much difference.
Begin to see the positives in events and situations that you may have been taking for granted and adopt that approach over the long term – and who knows what benefits might accrue? Moreover, faking gratitude is very transparent to others, who will see your new-found attitude as a form of manipulation. Done well, recognising others for their work is incredibly motivating.
You know the concept of unconditional love? It’s the sort of thing that an effective parent gives to their child. The idea is not to provide love in return for something, such as good school grades, but unconditional love is unshakable, regardless of what a child does. Likewise, being grateful unconditionally is where you will make the most gains both for you and others. Therefore, avoid using gratitude in the following ways:
- Only when someone has delivered for you.
- Only when you want something from someone else.
- Only when you remember to do so.
- For some people in your team and not others.
- As a way to make people feel indebted to you.
How can you develop genuine gratitude? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
A couple of core beliefs that will enable you to adopt a broad attitude of gratitude are as follows:
- Giving recognition and expressing gratitude to people is not in limited supply. You can provide as much of them as you want and as others need.
- Being grateful to others does not make you weak. Lots of leaders start by thinking it does. It doesn’t. Showing gratitude is not about you. It is about the recipient.
THINK
Notice how you think when you are debating with yourself whether or not to show gratitude to someone. Is there a little voice in your head saying things like:
- I’ll say thank you when they deliver work next time.
- They get paid to deliver. I’m not thanking them for doing their job.
- I need to keep them hungry. Thanking them will make them soft.
If these thoughts sound familiar, you’ll do well to challenge them at source. Replace them with some thinking that sees gratitude as good for the recipient and for you too.
SAY
The better you know the members of your team, the more able you will be to demonstrate gratitude in a way that works best for them. For example, some people like to be thanked in a bit of a public display, such as a team meeting, whilst others prefer a private word of thanks. A written word of thanks, not an email, for a very special piece of great work can be really powerful.
DO
Here are four ways to cultivate genuine gratitude:
- Review all the areas of your life for which you could or should be grateful. Start small – even if only you know you are doing it – and find ways to show thanks.
- Self-evaluate your performance with your team and peers. Perhaps get some feedback from them too. Are there times you could have shown more genuine gratitude for their support? Where you can admit to mistakes, can you make things right the next time?
- Check yourself: when are you being grateful conditionally? At times you will be. We all are. Reflect on why you and with whom you tend to give conditional gratitude and then work out how to replace it unconditionally.
- Gratitude comes in many forms. Whilst you may be truly grateful for having enjoyed a wonderful life and family, you are unlikely to be found giving daily thanks for it. Perhaps we all should start to do that? Starting a daily or weekly gratitude journal is a really helpful tool – on paper or via an app. Simply keep a note of something you want to express gratitude towards as and when it occurs and then review at the end of each week.
ASK YOURSELF
- What informs my current view of gratitude? Is it time for an upgrade of thinking?
- What concerns me about showing gratitude to others?
- What assumptions am I making about gratitude that may be unhelpful?
- What do I feel when faced with an opportunity to give thanks to someone?
- What would people outside of work say about my spirit of gratitude? How does it compare to when I am at work?
HOPEFULNESS
12. I am hopeful and encourage others to see a positive future. Or put another way: forward-looking hopefulness is a leadership imperative.
Leadership researchers Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner tell us that leaders can leave a lasting legacy, only if they can imagine a brighter future, and that the:
capacity to imagine exciting future possibilities is the defining competence of leaders.
People want to follow leaders who are positive about the future – leaders who can clear the ‘fog’ and are not weighed down by the past.
If a leader displays genuine confidence during times of change, it helps generate positive moods and hope in others. Through taking a positive approach, we make a choice to shift our attention away from the causes of problems and direct it towards a clear-eyed concentration on strength, vision, solutions and possibility.
When we are hopeful, we are able to think clearly about possible routes forward to a successful outcome and sustain the energy and drive required to deliver on those outcomes. It is this clarity of ‘positive forward looking’ that distinguishes leaders of character from others at times of change.
Optimism and hope are similar but different. Whilst optimism correlates strongly with measures of hope, one does not necessarily lead to the other. Whilst optimists may have high will power to change, they may lack the ability to think clearly and analytically enough to be able to determine the best path forward. Leaders, who score high on hope scales, develop clear goals and are continuously thinking about possible ways to attain them. They demonstrate the ability to think critically about ways to achieve their goals, rather than relying on an optimistic belief that things simply will work out.
In tough times, it is essential for a leader to retain faith that they will succeed in the end, and they must be prepared to confront the harshest facts of their current reality.
So how can you stay hopeful no matter what? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
Whilst optimism is good, adopting a belief based on hope underpins more of an action-oriented approach. Remaining grounded in reality is an accompanying belief that is useful: being hopeful and having a positive outlook is not the same thing as taking a naive Pollyanna view that everything is great. Leaders who are hopeful are realists, so keep a check on beliefs that you are holding to ensure they are reflecting the facts of a situation rather than how you wish it to be.
THINK
Base your thinking in as objective a view of a situation as you can. Hope is not blind to the reality of circumstances. Thus, ensure you challenge yourself to get a full picture of the current reality and then remain positive about your chances of finding ways to uncover solutions. Tap into your own creativity of thinking as well as the thinking of members of your team.
SAY
Introduce the phrase ‘I’m hopeful that …’ as this is a powerful way of remaining realistically positive about outcomes. Self-check words and phrases you use that are either negative or overly positive and unrealistic.
Whilst avoiding becoming the ‘thought-police’ for your team, you can gently challenge language that others use too. Here are some words/phrases that should set alarm bells ringing:
hopeless, pointless, insurmountable, disheartened, waste of time, impossible, intransigent, can’t get them to change and this can’t be done.
DO
Here are three ways to remain hopeful, no matter what:
- Examine your current top three priorities. Identify what attitude you are bringing to these. Adapt your approach where required to reinforce hopefulness.
- Before your next team meeting, consider how you want to communicate in order to reflect a greater sense of hope: select two or three key messages you want to communicate. Then spend 10 to 15 minutes on each message and consider how to add greater hopefulness. Ensure that you have time for working on solutions within the meeting.
- Change how you publish meeting agendas:
- Publish your next agenda at least a week ahead of time.
- Frame the agenda as a set of questions rather than items.
- Include desired outcomes from each question.
- Inform the team they will be expected to contribute to finding solutions to the questions in the meeting.
- During the meeting get each person to share some ideas early, so that everyone’s voice is in the room. No one gets to hide and no one gets to dominate the airtime.
ASK YOURSELF
- What do I notice about the times when I display more hope than when I display less? How do I feel? How do others react? What outcomes evolve from each approach?
- When am I at my most positive?
- How can I encourage others to be more hopeful?
- How can I more fully tap into the thinking, insights and motivations of the wider team to drive a solution focus?
- Who in my team is in most need of some positive challenge around the negative attitude or mindset that they display? How will I positively challenge such behaviour?
THE LIGHTER SIDE
13. I like to laugh and encourage others to see the light side where appropriate. Or put another way: lighten up a bit!
Lighten up. Seriously. We mean it …
We all know you are incredibly busy and that you are doing great and vital work. But, creating a monastery-like team environment, where there is an absence of fun, only works well for monks. Mind you, lots of monks seem to like a laugh too.
Allowing yourself some space for levity with your team at work has the proven potential (Hughes and Avey, 2009) to bring about transformational changes in those you lead, including:
- positive emotions of both you as the leader and those you lead
- improved trust
- greater identification with the direction of the team
- increased affective (psychological) organisational commitment
- improved job satisfaction
Your appropriate use of humour also has a positive impact on creativity and innovation across your team. This may not surprise you. If the boss plays the fool at times, what is often referred to as the ‘free child’ state, then people tend to relax a little and that is the very best state to tap into creativity and innovation.
Humour, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. It is highly subjective. It is this subjective nature that makes leaders nervous about humour. Indeed, getting it wrong and using aggressive humour or thinly veiled bullying via humour can produce all sorts of negative impacts (Pundt and Hermann, 2015). With these cautionary notes ringing in their ears, leaders quite rightly don’t want to offend others, so, rather than risk doing that, they create a sterile, monotonous environment at work. And that’s a shame and it seems unnecessarily safe.
Whilst we’re definitely not suggesting you need to take on the role of team clown or start each day with a little bit of stand-up, it is worth noting that transformational leaders embrace, indeed they seek out chances to see the funny or lighter side of life. They don’t contrive it. They don’t cross the line and end up being offensive. They just have a light, humour-related energy that is able to see the funny side of things, including themselves.
How can you inject the right balance of levity into your leadership style? You can believe, think, say, do and ask.
BELIEVE
A helpful set of beliefs in relation to humour centre on your views of work and your role as the leader. Here are three beliefs to adopt:
- Being a leader isn’t about controlling others.
- Work is where many people spend most of their working hours each week and therefore it is a central part of their (and your) experience of what life is all about. You can shape that experience.
- Levity is an enabler of outstanding performance, not an inhibitor.
THINK
Understanding your mindset around fun, laughter and joy is a helpful start. Exploring how you view these things in the workplace helps you understand why you view things as you do. We have found that leaders who can balance taking their work incredibly seriously with a lightness of touch succeed. Achieving such a blend starts with understanding this balance and holding it as a conscious thought about how you will lead yourself and others.
SAY
Situations where you can demonstrate levity are so specific that it is hard to suggest words and phrases you can employ. However, what you can do is smile and laugh more. When a situation is genuinely funny or ridiculous and it moves you to laughter, lighten up and let others see your enjoyment of the moment. The energy both in the moment and beyond increases significantly with shared times such as these.
DO
There is a case for suggesting that the world is so serious that we seem to have lost the ability to laugh. Here are three ways you can tap back into that life-affirming activity:
- Find some time at home next weekend to watch your favourite comedy film. Indulge in it and relax. Allow yourself just to enjoy it and, if you feel moved to laugh, go for it. Repeat at least once a month.
- Look for times at work when a situation provides an opportunity to see the lighter side. Appropriately, of course.
- Occasionally (not every time), when you make a mistake at work, rather than try to cover it up or brush it off, revel in it. Poke fun at yourself. Yes, it takes some courage to do that but it also shows a confidence that allows others to share their ‘glorious failures’.
ASK YOURSELF
- What appeals to my sense of humour?
- What are safe areas to exploit when the time is right, with some humour at work?
- What areas should I steer clear of exploiting, such as personal characteristics, personal situations, religion and tragedy?
- How would I describe my view of engaging in the lighter side of work?
- What is my team’s culture in terms of setting a positively light atmosphere?
AESTHETICS
14. I appreciate the aesthetics of skilled performance in all domains of work. Or put another way: excellence is captivating.
Leaders who develop great performance in their team revel in the achievements, skills and talents of others and go out of their way to show admiration and appreciation. Often, where performance is exceptional, a leader who is strong in this area may be left open-mouthed or speechless, such is the emotional impact that excellence can have on them.
This is a long way from taking the view that it was their job anyway, or that’s what people are paid for. Actually, leaders are more likely to be motivated by the achievements and talents of others, rather than seeing them simply as part of the work contract. They show a genuine interest in the outcomes of people’s work and the processes that support it.
Leaders actively seek out examples of excellence in their people and their work.
Great leaders may see beauty in a traditional sense, in design, a piece of writing or marketing, but are often also in awe of ground-breaking systems and processes, creative solutions to problems, a new accounting procedure or new report format. We even know leaders who get genuinely excited about the creation of a new spreadsheet. And no, we are not using humour here.
Equally, leaders may show an appreciation for people who work in accordance with a shared set of values or principles. They recognise and place a high value of virtuous acts and ‘goodness’ in others. They show admiration and gratitude for those who actually live shared values, over those who only laminate them and place the poster on their office wall.
What is at the root of such an admiration for outstanding contribution or performance? For us it is not about the need to show appreciation for it. Great leaders are simply deeply moved by the exceptional because they recognise the incredible efforts that go into attaining and sustaining such standards. Awesome presentation? Fabulous project management? Incredible product development? It matters not. Leaders simply love exceptional performance, regardless of context.
So how can you experience and show more admiration of excellence in a leadership role? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
Do you believe that developing the maximum potential in everyone is a central part of a leader’s role? Yes, then make it so. Do you believe that when the strengths, values and motivations of all the people in your team are aligned they can all achieve outstanding work? Yes, then do what it takes to lead your people to achieve the exceptional.
THINK
Avoid the trap of deficit thinking (focusing on what is not right, or not good enough). Instead, focus on what’s good, on strengths and what you want to see more of. Deficit-based thinking is draining for everyone and fails to bolster confidence or drive higher performance.
Strengths-based thinking energises people and bolsters confidence and performance. We don’t mean that you need to ignore under-performance or congratulate the ordinary. We do mean that you address such situations by focusing on what you want to see more of – rather than what you want to see less of – and on ensuring the momentum that comes with positive reinforcement.
So, whenever someone completes a truly exceptional piece of work, and you will know because you’ll be moved by it, be sure to commend them and make clear what it is about that piece of work that makes it exceptional and what it is that others can learn from it. Think too about the best way to show your appreciation. Whilst many people like to be complemented in public, others don’t.
SAY
Some of the best leadership conversations, as reported by ‘followers’, are when a leader shows unadulterated interest in the work someone has just completed. So, the next time you have the opportunity, take the time to have a conversation with an outstanding performer. Flex your curiosity to understand what drives them to out-perform, as doing so can be illuminating for you, uplifting for them and informative for colleagues.
DO
Here are five steps to appreciating the aesthetics of skilled performance:
- Suspend your ego and accept that others are capable of great work.
- Accept that even in tough times, when many things can be ineffective or go wrong, there will be pockets of excellence. Go and hunt them out.
- Listen out for excellence as well as looking out for it. This will require getting out of your office or workspace and getting closer to your team.
- Notice whenever you have an emotional response to an exceptional performance – in sport, an orchestral piece, a work of art or anything else. Noticing such emotional responses is a good sign.
- Consider your own performance when you produce great work, as you must regularly as the leader. How do you respond to that?
ASK YOURSELF
- What do I notice when I witness exceptional performance?
- In what contexts am I most or least likely to notice excellence? Why is this? What are the impacts for myself and others?
- What would my team say about my ability to admire excellence?
- Where do I excel at work?
- Who can I show some appreciation to today for a truly great piece of work? Team member? Peer? Boss?
HIGHER PURPOSE
15. I express strong and coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of work. Or put another way: they lead on purpose.
A clear sense of purpose reveals what you were born to do. Once you are aware of your higher purpose, you are able to let go of the need to get too close to details. This leads to faster decision making.
There is nothing new about this insight, in spite of recent musings on the subject, such as Simon Sinek’s 2009 TED Talk. Indeed, the central nature of purpose has been expressed since at least the days of the Greek philosophers, through to more contemporary psychologists such as Viktor Frankl and Patrick Hill.
The idea that having a clear purpose is so important has long been recognised, whether it be global in nature, such as a purpose for your whole life, or contextual, such as your defined purpose as a leader at work. Indeed, recently, Patrick Hill has found that spending some time designing a clear global purpose can even increase your lifespan, regardless of your current age. Now, you can’t get more important than that, can you?
When we set up a business together, the very first thing we did, along with our fellow directors, was spend time away from the office defining our core purpose. We worked through several iterations and it continued to be refined, but even from those early days, we agreed that we wanted to ‘shape the future of leadership coaching’.
Being clear about our sense of purpose acted as a guide for everything we did. It enabled quicker decision making: ‘Is what we are about to do shaping the future of leadership coaching?’ It also ensured that we engaged with people who can help us achieve our purpose and helped us be more efficient. And it gave each of us a sense of pride in the difference we can make.
So why is defining your purpose so important?
Because it allows you to tweak the rudder of your life – personal and professional – within a known boundary. Depending on the scale of your purpose, it can also provide you with a connection to something bigger than yourself. It provides a reason for being, living, working and striving.
So how can you lead purposefully? You can believe, think, say, do and ask yourself.
BELIEVE
If you believe in a grand plan – that your life is all laid out for you and that you have absolutely no control over your destiny – creating a purpose will hold very little meaning for you.
If, however, you feel that you have some free will and can shape your future, believing in the power of purpose makes sense. So, commit to developing your own purpose. It will serve you and those you lead.
THINK
Consider:
- What really excites and is important to you?
- What are your views of leadership and of employees?
- What are your values?
What do your answers to the questions above tell you about your potential purpose?
Once you have identified your purpose, find a way to hold on to it consciously and stay connected to it. You could embed it into your screensaver or write it down and carry it around in your wallet.
Keeping it in your field of awareness in this way helps guide your thinking and provides a mantra against which to check your decision making too.
SAY
‘Is this in line with my/our purpose?’ is a question you can regularly ask, in order to align your decisions and retain coherence in your work. Where decisions do not align, don’t dismiss things completely, but consider asking: ‘How would this need to be in order to align with my/our purpose?’ Sometimes things just don’t look or feel right until you look at them from different perspectives. Draw in members of your team too and ask them to consider decisions in light of your purpose.
DO
Here are three ways to access your life’s purpose.
- Write down what you see as your current purpose in life. Hint: it probably involves helping people in one form or another and it probably hasn’t got anything to do with the amount of money you are going to make.
- Work on your purpose over two weeks. Go back to it frequently. Try different words or phrases until you get your ‘Aha’ moment and realise you have found what you are on earth to do.
- Decide how you are going to fulfil your purpose. What is the vehicle you are going to use to enable you to be living ‘on purpose’? It might be your business, your family or something that is currently a hobby.
ASK YOURSELF
- What is the purpose of leadership? What does this mean for how I will lead?
- What is my purpose in life?
- What is the purpose of our team?
- What steps will help me ensure that I remain aligned to my purpose?
- What processes can we include as a team to help us work in a coherent way with our purpose?