Why high performing leaders break the ice
May 30, 2023
I was on a call recently with a group of leadership thinkers; talking about the actively futurist leader. I shared this idea of leadership being similar to an icebreaker. A few people came up with different definitions, which I thought was really interesting, and so I thought I’d share that with you here.
An icebreaker in a kind of corporate sense is that little activity you do at the start of a meeting or the start of a conference where everybody kind of gets to know each other a little bit, and you help people feel a little bit more at ease. That icebreaker gets kind of people warmed up so they can perform better in the rest of the event or the conference, or whatever it is. Being a leader is a little bit like that. You have to put people at ease. You need people to be trusting and feel psychologically safe, so they can do their best work.
But if we think back to the historical definition of an icebreaker, it was actually a boat that went in front of the ships as they were going through frozen waters, which literally broke the ice. Its job was to create a path through the frozen water, so the ships could move more rapidly. It had a really hard front or bow, strong engines that would smash the ice and allow the ship to sail behind it through smoother, calmer waters.
Much like that original historical icebreaker, I think a leader is an icebreaker for his or her team. So they’re there to break the ice to smooth the path for their team to do a great job. This requires influence, vision, and strategy setting.
So just two ways of looking at your role as a leader. Are you the one who is helping your team to be psychologically safe to operate at their best in their environment? Are you the one breaking the ice and helping them to do their best work through calmer waters? Or are you do you have a different definition of an icebreaker that might be shared here?
Have a great week and I’ll catch up with you on the next one.
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