Leadership Basics: Are you a creator or a reactor?

Happy February Everyone

Thank you to everyone who has reached out in the past week to send me suggestions for this letter.

I have been moved by the generosity with which you have taken time to share your knowledge with me. It has been an unexpected dividend, one that I am grateful for. Please keep them coming!

Our last two letters, Building a Drum Beat and Reclaim Calm, have shown the dividends that come from knowing oneself; from building the capacity for focus and finding ways to replenish one’s soul and energy. Today’s letter is the final part of that trilogy.

STRATEGY

Are you a creator or reactor?

Renowned business thinker and researcher Jim Collins made this body-slam statement in a 2002 interview with Fast Company, “mediocre company leaders displayed a pattern of lurching and thrashing, running about in frantic reaction to threats and opportunities”.

Pause for a moment. Are you that person? Propelling yourself or your teams to pursue each new fad that crosses your desk? Collins reminds us of David Packard’s warning that companies most often die of indigestion, too many initiatives forced into them, than from starvation.

The same is true for individuals. Are your attention and energy flitting from one thing to the next or are you clear about who you are and where you’re going?

Eighteen years later, the evidence is even clearer that great leaders know themselves, are purpose-driven, can hold sustained, focused attention, and seek first to contribute and then to profit.

The article, The Secret Life of the CEO, has an exceptionally useful table that compares creator behaviours and values to those of reactors.

SELF

Start with your body

Getting to know one’s purpose can sound daunting. Here is an easy way to get started.

Start by getting to know your body. You’re in it, but if you’re like most people you probably don’t pay it much attention. By increasing what psychologists would call your ‘somatic awareness’, you build your capacity to know yourself better.

I love the start to this ten-minute body scan meditation; it warns you not to use it whilst using heavy machinery. I’d never contemplated doing a meditation whilst working with a jackhammer, but it is sage advice – it does leave you feeling super-relaxed. I have done this meditation with 150 university students and felt a buzzy lecture hall settle into a space of calm and focus.

Try it. It’s the first step to knowing yourself and it builds your capacity for deep, focused attention – a prerequisite to developing innovative, creative strategy whether for yourself or your company.

 SOUL

The Anatomy of Trust with Brené Brown

Many of you will have heard of Brené Brown and may even have listened to this speech before but take a listen again in today’s context of being a creator.

A leader who creates a sustainable future for themselves and others builds relationships. Relationships can only be built through trust. Sure, you can entice people with all sorts of incentives, but long-term sustainable creative relationships – the type that add joy to life and build value for businesses – come from trust.

What can be more soulful than trusting others? Brown says that it takes “BRAVING”.

• Boundaries;
• Reliability;
• Accountability;
• Vault (Keep confidentiality);
• Integrity;
• Non-judgement; and
• Generosity.

Chip Conley – author, successful hotelier, and currently AirBnb’s Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership – says it succinctly in his book Wisdom @ Work “our habits as leaders can spread like a contagion”. And we all lead – in our own lives, with our families and friends and our organisations – so ensure that what you make ‘go viral’ builds others and the world.

Karl