What is a paradigm leadership?

Leadership is the overarching theme of my writing on this site.

As part of this, I write every Friday an article on “Smashing Paradigms“, looking to challenge my own thinking and to be of support to you in the same way.

First, for clarity on the word Paradigm, please read my article on “What is a Paradigm“, though to put it concisely, a paradigm is a set of unconscious beliefs, a goldfish bowl we don’t know we are swimming in (see the base of this article for a beautiful expression of this).

Today I feel the need to pause and once again reflect on old and new paradigms of leadership, as another expression of being stuck in a paradigm is “we’ve always done it this way”. I refer to Old and New Paradigms as leadership is so entrenched in society and business that we somehow seem unable to see the need for change, and even that we can change.

What I can tell you is that I’ve seen both old and new, and that old is on the way out, new is absolutely working and the way forward. The shift is inexorable.

For yourself, for the business or organisation you work in, where on the continuum do you see this? Stuck in the old, already in the new, somewhere on the journey?

Today, then, simply a few pointers, indicators for you to consider.

Old paradigm leadership :

• Leaders expected to be omniscient, ie have all the answers,
• Leaders make the decisions (and quickly)
• Leaders command respect through rank, longevity etc, ie leadership is hierarchical
• Leaders are powerful, strong, invulnerable

In short, the “command and control” structure that drove economic growth post WW2 and that still exists, to a large extent in most organisations, particularly those of scale. Oh, and it still underpins the bulk of most leading MBA programmes. A little scary to think of people in their 20s still being taught this and then going out in the world to lead this way. Much work to do in shifting paradigms for some time to come, then!

New Paradigm leadership:

Each of the links above goes to an article or search on a tag or keyword for articles I’ve posted on this site, and of the hundreds of posts here, you can search on lots of themes and now see multiple articles with eclectic references to many recurring themes around leadership.

I encourage you to invest some time in considering and challenging your own beliefs, trying to see the goldfish bowl you are in.

Of course, we cannot truly see the bowl we swim in, so I also encourage you to invest in outside sounding boards who will help you see yourself clearly, both your gaps and your unique genius. This is the work I do, yet I can only work with a few people at a time, hence part of why I write is to look to extend that opportunity to many others.

In closing, I give you a speech I listen to at least every month or two and hope this helps you see your own goldfish bowl, from David Foster Wallace.

Book your 30-minute meeting here.

A dozen names exist for people who lead others: manager, coach, boss, supervisor, head honcho…the list goes on and on. We often mindlessly choose one word over the other, but when we stop and think about it, a chasm of meaning separates them all. The terms “boss” or “supervisor” are slowly being replaced with “leader” or “mentor”, and this is no accident.

Our favorite April articles explore the common ingredients that make a great leader or coach. Rather than cracking a whip, the predominant behavior involves listening to employees and providing support. We see a shift and are excited to straddle a new paradigm of leadership in business today — one where companies reach their highest potential by supporting their people, and individual employees are engaged and fulfilled in their work.

1. Nine Unseen Qualities That Create Exceptional Leaders

By Jeff Haden
You can quickly assess someone’s leadership skills and experience by skimming their LinkedIn profile, but the marks of true leadership lie beneath the surface. Haden highlights a leader’s ability to consider employees as fallible people, not just flying off the handle when mistakes are made. The exceptional ones seek the underlying issues behind an employee’s challenges and offer them support. They connect company growth to employee’s personal goals. And even after the most productive and triumphant day, they always go home wondering what they could have done better.

In the new leadership paradigm, companies reach their highest potential by supporting employees.

2. This Could Be The Most Underrated Tactic For Boosting Employee Morale

By Will Yakowicz
Many factors go into maintaining positive morale, but none more potent than a leader’s presence. A study conducted by professors at the Wharton School and George Mason University, found that “compassion can increase employee morale and a sense of teamwork, and even trickles down to boost customer satisfaction”. Managers surveyed in the study did not snuggle with employees (they didn’t report that anyway), they performed simple acts of kindness like asking how an employee’s family was doing or getting them a cup of coffee. Compassion in the workplace is now scientifically proven to reduce sick days, increase engagement, and even improves the personal lives of employees.

Workplace compassion is scientifically proven to reduce sick days and increase engagement.

3. 4 C’s of Enlightened Leadership

By Ekaterina Walter
What distinguishes an average leader from one who is self-aware? Great leaders have character, they know their own strengths and shortcomings and also strive to understand their teams. Self-aware leaders know that they can’t go it alone. They motivate others and form strong relationships with teams, colleagues, and others outside their organization. Revolutionizing industries and establishing the new norm takes courage, and true leaders stay committed to their vision in the face of adversity.

4. 10 Great Things Leaders Say Every Week

By Bill Murphy Jr.
A critical aspect of leadership is aligning employees around company goals by providing a breakdown of past performance and future plans. Leaders inform others on challenges and opportunities and provide benchmarks to assess productivity. For great leaders, this is not just a one way conversation. Ask your team questions, give people an opportunity to share triumphs, and create a culture of gratitude around the efforts of others.

Ask questions, give the team an opportunity to share triumphs, and create a culture of gratitude.

5. When You’re At the Crossroads of Should and Must

By Elle Luna
Leadership is not just about listening to others, leaders must also listen to the desires deep within themselves. Luna outlines the fears that keep us from giving our greatest gifts to the world; perceived lack of money and time, and the fear of abandonment by those who tell us what we should be doing with our lives. In lieu of what we ‘should’ do, she has discovered the exquisite experience of what we ‘must’ do: “when who we are and what we do are one and the same.” Read her piece and you might just discover the courage to choose it for yourself.

The makings of an extraordinary leader can be as practical as listening closely to employees’ suggestions, observations and desires, and offering support when needed. Others take the time to get to know themselves, have the courage to follow their passions, and enroll others in the fulfillment of their grand vision.

David Mizne, Content Manager at 15Five interviews some of the most brilliant minds in business and reports on topics ranging from entrepreneurship to employee engagement. 15Five creates an internal communication process that allows the most important information to flow seamlessly throughout an organization, to surface issues before they become problems, to celebrate wins, discover great ideas and stay tuned in to the morale of the team.

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A new paradigm or model of leadership is starting to emerge from the post 2008 financial crash world. Traditional concepts are starting to shift and a new world idea of leadership is just starting to develop. In a new paper, researchers outline what the new leaders paradigm appears to look like.

Traditional leadership

Traditional leadership in companies prior to the financial crisis of 2008 was a world where people entered a company with a view to one day achieving leadership. They may begin as an intern and be spotted at an early stage as having leadership potential, are perhaps fast tracked up the ranks and find themselves in an executive or board level position before they retire.

A new paradigm of leadership

This is what is known as the ‘corner office’ concept, something that is becoming quite rare in modern business structures. The world has changed. The new post 2008 world is where one uses one’s self to lead and could end up in a position of leadership from almost any route.

The corner office is a metaphor for the aspirations of generations of leaders where the steps to leadership were well defined and the symbols of leadership, like the corner office, well defined and understood.

The new leaders paradigm is emerging and is based on what is known as organisation use of self.

Experience, outlook and ‘Use of Self’

David Jamieson, professor and director of the St. Thomas University, defines the ‘Use of Self’ as, “the conscious use of one’s whole being in the intentional execution of one’s role for effectiveness in whatever the current situation is.”

This enables leaders to “model adaptability and mitigate risk through a delicate balance of confidence and humility.”

Thus Organisation Use of Self leaders from the new leaders paradigm recognise and use the vast range of differences in experiences and skills present throughout an organisation, regardless of formal qualifications and hierarchy. People have different skills and experiences according to their circumstances. Journalism is a classic profession where someone may have no formal qualifications at all when they enter the job yet have the experience and skill to do it far better than a graduate, for example schooled in journalism but with little life experience. There are journalism lecturers who grew up in council estates and have no qualifications when they started out, yet had connections with crime gang families that ran their estates, who produce far better investigative journalism than many schooled in journalism.

It is the involvement in and pragmatic use of this informal but very powerful network that separates out the new leaders from those more traditional leaders who are restricted, largely by their own mind-sets, to using the more formal and hierarchical ‘qualified’ resources the system provides.

The idea behind Organisation Use of Self or the organisation use of self is that the new leaders are at their core adaptable, pragmatic and use a mixture of self-confidence to make decisions and act, whilst having the humility to understand they don’t know everything and don’t have all the answers, drawing on experience and expertise from wherever they find it to solve problems and move forward.

Command and control leadership carries too many risks in this day of change and volatility.

Leadership Development: Cultivating leader identity and capacity

The idea of ‘Organisation Use of Self’

The core concept of organisation use of self is that the individual leader uses their whole being, their mind, emotions, intuition, body, everything to move forward. There are three factors in the new leadership paradigm:

The 3 new rules of leadership

The new leaders paradigm appear to have 3 new rules of leadership:

1.    Be on purpose at any moment in time, fully focused and present.

2.    Express what matters. This includes asking questions and sharing thoughts and emotions.

3.    Align ethics. The new leadership is ethical and ethically aligned.

There are two particular strengths the new leaders paradigm bring that develop the level of adaptability and breadth required:

1.    Resilience and

2.    Ego strength

The new leaders are not only emotionally resilient and can bounce back but have core empathy and understanding and can develop resilience and adaptability in others and their organisation.

Secondly they have ego strength which means they have confidence in themselves and others, and humility. They can ask without feeling threatened.

In essence the new leaders paradigm is hugely pragmatic and doesn’t comply to formal hierarchical thinking and functioning.

The 6 areas of new organisation use of self leadership

The study found there are six areas of leadership in the new leaders paradigm which develop the above attributes:

1. Communicator. The conversations you have with your colleagues will influence the direction of the organisation. She wrote, “Your conversations should embed meaning that allows you to express what matters, allows ideas to emerge, invites and expects diversity, and energizes everyone.”

The study describes an organisation that in the eyes of the leader has no formal hierarchy and treats all employees equitably (not the same, there is a big difference). They use their strengths to help direct their business. This even comes down to how they are contracted and includes practices such as Colleague Letters of Understanding (CLOUs) that describe the role that they will play for the business that plays to their strengths.

2.    Decision maker. There is no A or B in business any more. It is almost always a balance of paradox. One example is balancing cost and quality. Not every car company builds supercars. How to build a high quality car at a fair price? Change is something we write a lot about in the Oxford Review and making decisions and remaking them in times of change is vital.

3.    Builder. Leaders are building the organisation as well as people around them. One stand out quote Baker gives is that of Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technologies, an information technology company based in India. She describes his communication practice thus: “He says he learned to communicate in extremes by asking himself, ‘How do I communicate in a way that destroys hierarchy and says I’m one of you?’”

4.    Designer. The new organisation leader designs the physical space around effective leadership. They will often lose that ‘corner office’ themselves and design the physical space around the effective running of the business. Baker wrote, “there are now more opportunities than ever to align the physical environment with your organization culture and to integrate your workspace, work processes, and leadership.”  We see this with Google and Zappos for example.

5.    Giver and taker. The leader who disappears into the office all day and can only be seen through his gatekeepers is a thing of the past. The new leader is as much part of the team they lead as the next person. Max De Pree, former CEO of Herman Miller and son of the founder D. J. De Pree, once said: “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last responsibility is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.”

6.    As a model of virtuous character. Power plays and authority through hierarchy is a thing of the past. Being patient, humble and honourable is as key as any of the other characteristics described above.

How you act as a leader is The New Leaders Paradigm

As the researcher herself concludes “How you act as a leader determines how you are perceived by others, and how you are perceived by others determines how much trust, cooperation, and respect you receive. Organization use of self raises the level of your conscious awareness of self-behavior and its impact on others.”

Reference

Openness to change

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