A leadership revolution

If you thought of some­one assertive, vision­ary, who leads from the front, empha­sis­es con­trol and makes deci­sions main­ly from their intel­lect and mind, then you’d prob­a­bly be describ­ing the major­i­ty of busi­ness lead­ers out there. But as lead­er­ship train­ers, we know that these behav­iours alone are not enough and in fact they have a glass ceil­ing.

Lead­er­ship needs a shake-up. As lead­ers we have to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for our own devel­op­ment and evo­lu­tion, which is why Lea_p has cre­at­ed their flag­ship pro­gramme The Soul of Lead­er­ship. We know com­pa­nies that are prof­itable, sus­tain­able and suc­cess­ful are run by deeply self-aware lead­ers, who have a strong sense of pur­pose and cul­ture. The Soul of Lead­er­ship teach­es you how to become this type of leader.

To cre­ate the pro­gramme, we trav­elled across the world meet­ing and inter­view­ing lead­ers from the board­rooms of the West to the indige­nous tribes of the Ama­zon rain­for­est. We explored the very best exam­ples of lead­er­ship, then analysed the char­ac­ter­is­tics with­in them. What we found were four key skills.

Self-awareness

A team mem­ber comes late to a meet­ing and you get annoyed. Do you know why? Under­stand­ing why we behave the way we do is essen­tial to lead­ing well. We need to under­stand our val­ues, our pat­terns, what or who trig­gers us and why.

One of our clients sends senior lead­ers to an off­site uni­ver­si­ty in France for five days; this gives staff a whole week away from their day job to reflect and learn. This time away isn’t about find­ing solu­tions to busi­ness prob­lems; it doesn’t have key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors that must be hit. Instead the staff are trust­ed to find their own areas for devel­op­ment. The result is every sin­gle par­tic­i­pant leaves with a clear mis­sion for them­selves and their team.

Cre­at­ing time for your­self to explore your behav­iours is essen­tial for your evo­lu­tion as a leader. If you only have time to adopt one of these skills make it this one, the impact will be huge.

Influencing and relationships

Lead­er­ship expert and author Simon Sinek says there are only two ways to influ­ence human behav­iour. “You can manip­u­late it or you can inspire it,” he says. All lead­ers want to be inspi­ra­tional, but to do this you need to devel­op your emo­tion­al intel­li­gence. Many cur­rent lead­ers have a style of “I’ll do any­thing to make it to the top” and we know that a bad man­ag­er is the num­ber-one rea­son employ­ees give for leav­ing a com­pa­ny. Great lead­ers ask them­selves, “How can I cre­ate a team cul­ture where every­one feels empow­ered?”

One of the biggest fail­ings of most lead­ers is how they give and receive feed­back. Great feed­back is in the ser­vice of the growth of the per­son receiv­ing it. Often when giv­ing feed­back it comes from a place of judg­ment about behav­iours the leader doesn’t like. Great lead­ers turn this around and feed for­ward. In essence, this is about see­ing where a per­son is right now, where you see them in the future and the steps they have to take to reach that future poten­tial. This is about believ­ing in your staff so much until they real­ly believe in them­selves. Feed­ing for­ward from a place of love and ser­vice is the start. Empow­er­ing oth­ers is the essence of lead­er­ship.

Purpose

There is noth­ing more soul destroy­ing than spend­ing each day work­ing towards some­thing that isn’t your pur­pose. When lead­ers talk about pur­pose they mean their per­son­al why; why they are here and why they exist.

Hav­ing the courage to pur­sue your pur­pose and share it with the world gives you great ful­fil­ment and inspires those around you. In the Ama­zon, we lived with the Achuar tribe of Ecuador and as a cul­ture they take pur­pose very seri­ous­ly. As young teenagers each tribe mem­ber has to spend time alone in the rain­for­est as an ini­ti­a­tion to adult­hood.

Through shaman­ic rit­u­als, each tribe mem­ber gains clar­i­ty on their pur­pose. This in turn gives them focus for their life and they are then allowed to re-enter the tribe as adults. Each mem­ber of the tribe has to find their pur­pose, no mat­ter how long it takes. For some this is lead­ing the tribe, for oth­ers it’s being a hunter, oth­ers a moth­er, oth­ers a gar­den­er who grows crops in the chakra. Everyone’s role is respect­ed and hon­oured, and every­one has a pur­pose. How much time have you spent think­ing about yours?

Systemic awareness

Lead­ers must think sys­tem­i­cal­ly and under­stand the impact of each deci­sion on not only them­selves and their com­pa­ny, but also on the world.

Lea_p worked with a board who as part of an ambi­tious growth plan want­ed to pre­serve the peo­ple-cen­tric cul­ture in the organ­i­sa­tion. This required them to under­stand the impact of each deci­sion on the entire organ­i­sa­tion. This was a fun­da­men­tal shift in mind­set from a whack-a-mole strat­e­gy of prob­lem-solv­ing to see­ing the organ­i­sa­tion as an inter­con­nect­ed whole.

Sys­tems aware­ness is key to cre­at­ing a clear cul­ture. GE report­ed that cul­ture takes six years to copy, there­fore as a leader it might be the only real com­pet­i­tive advan­tage we have. Who cre­ates the cul­ture? You’ve got it, the lead­ers.

Tra­di­tion­al lead­er­ship skills are all about task; mod­ern lead­er­ship behav­iours are all about who you are being. To cul­ti­vate who you are, rather than what you do takes a com­plete­ly new way of train­ing and devel­op­ing.

The Soul of Lead­er­ship is a nine-month pro­gramme designed to cul­ti­vate who you are as a leader. The Soul of Lead­er­ship will let you embark on a jour­ney of self-accep­tance, find­ing your pur­pose in work and life, and expand your abil­i­ty to be in real and trans­for­ma­tive rela­tion­ships. The jour­ney you take will be unlike any­thing else, but it is this type of deep and pro­found work that is required to cre­ate a new lead­er­ship, one the world des­per­ate­ly needs.

Lea_p Lead­er­ship are an expe­ri­en­tial learn­ing and devel­op­ment com­pa­ny based in Lon­don. Behav­iour­al trans­for­ma­tion is at the core of what we do to cre­ate con­scious lead­ers and con­scious com­pa­nies.

We are tak­ing appli­ca­tions now. If you think you might have what it takes to become a great leader please apply at info@lea‑p.com or vis­it www.lea‑p.com