Glaciers, Dumbledore and the wrong paint choice-3 essential tips

I just spent 4 days in Melbourne with the Thought Leaders Business School on my first Immersion. It was one of the most amazing experiences of my life and the thinking time helped me revisit some really key leadership paradigms that I live by in my Practice and which I wanted to share with you:

I meet people on my group program and during 1:1 coaching sessions who have realized that without some sort of concerted, sustained effort they won’t improve. I like to think of good leadership as being like the difference between a firework and a glacier. Both are impressive and involve movement and excitement. However, a glacier outlasts the few seconds a firework does and more importantly, it changes the world around it as it moves forward; picking up stuff around it and carrying it forward as it goes about its journey. I focus on more of the glacier style shift of mindset and behavioral transformation which applies over a period of time.

When Harry Potter was struggling with becoming an amazing wizard, he often had sessions with Dumbledore who would ask him questions, show him things from new perspectives and encourage him in whichever quest he was on. He would also point out where Harry’s approach was undermining him and he didn’t even realize. I encourage all leaders to get a Dumbledore. These people are sometimes, (but by no means always) in our domain of expertise and they nearly always add value. We can all think that we have exhausted our options as leaders and tried everything we know but a coach or mentor can help you see things you didn’t and offer ideas on how else to continue being that glacier.

Many leadership development programs are all about content and filling you up with models and ideas and theories in the hope that this will “develop you”. Then you go back to your day job. I liken this approach to leadership development to using water-based paint to paint the outside of your house. It looks great until the first rain when you suddenly realize the waste of the investment of time, effort and finances.

I have my clients run “leadership experiments” which they record and then learn from the outcomes. We discuss ideas, challenges, and the barriers to their success upfront and then focus on action, approaches, and applications. Yes, I do occasionally share some content but more often than not, people know the content already (from Mr. Google), and they are sitting in the knowing-doing gap. They often know what to do but they don’t know how to do it or are scared of what if it goes wrong. They also don’t have someone invested in their success to come back to and share how it went.

And so there it is, some secrets of leadership laid out nice and easily and for your pleasure.

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