The Power of Kindness

It’s Monday and it’s definitely not business as usual …

My desk is the same, I was due to work from home today, so being here is no different, but I’m feeling very, very different. Priorities have changed, uncertainty seems to be the order of the day.

This time last week I was in London delivering the training course in the Story Garden as scheduled, enjoying watching the group coaching in March sunshine we’d all been hoping for. What a difference a week makes. Much of our lives has changed, for everyone. Living in a pandemic is outside our experience, there are no (or very few) reference points, it makes life confusing, especially as advice is changing from day to day. 

At the end of last week, I had a burst of energy, exploring options to offer to groups who are mid- training, especially the Devon cohort who were looking forward to mid- April and the last 3 days of a year of training.  I had a quick look at the accounts, cash flow is OK for now. The good news is we don’t have a lot of fixed overheads here at Wise Goose, one of the upsides of being a small, ‘boutique style’ training provider, but I have decided to stop paying my salary from April. I’m lucky, my husband can work remotely and as a professor of health care modelling is in demand.

Even so, this is hitting my survival buttons. Our ‘Steps into Coaching’ free taster session was cancelled last week, and others scheduled unlikely to run.  This means that even if ‘social distancing’ restrictions were lifted in time, which is not going to happen, given all the uncertainty it would be hard to fill the new groups scheduled to start later in the summer.  No new groups = no (or not much) income.

On the surface I’ve not been feeling particularly stressed, but though not intense, I know I’m anxious, I notice I’m not thinking so clearly, it’s harder to focus, I’m no neuroscientist, but surely this is a sign of a busy amygdala; the limbic system in action. I probably should be sending out an upbeat, typically ‘positive’ coaching style message, but I’m not going to lie.  Truth is, this morning I’m sluggish and feeling dull and unmotivated, perhaps a sign that the adrenaline boost at the end of the week is giving way to the stress of higher levels of cortisol in the bloodstream. This isn’t a good thing, prolonged, chronic levels of cortisol don’t support clear thinking, it raises blood pressure, lowers immunity and even, eventually will help make me fatter around the middle, something I really don’t need!

What to do?  Well, I’ve decided to be kind to myself and to not expect myself to be on top of my game. The sun is shining and I’m going to go up to the allotment where I plan to sit and soak in the peace of the place and sow seeds.  I’m not going to try to crunch figures, or read anything too demanding; an easy read, maybe even reread something I love just for the familiarity of an old friend.  I’m going to pause and give myself space for wondering about ‘all this’ and where I am in the midst of it.  I’ll deal with what must be dealt with, take care of the calls in the diary but mostly my strategy for the next few days is to breathe, listen and feel my way back into action from a more settled place.  I know it’s not time wasted but time well spent, I’ll be more effective when I return to the desk.

As I reach the end of this post I realise I’m being kind to myself, and as I sign off I’ve started wondering about the power of kindness, which reminds me of something; I wander over to the  bookshelves in my office.  I’ve decided on my book ‘The Power of Kindness’ by psychosynthesis friend Piero Ferrucci. It’s coming with me to the allotment.  Take care and keep well. With love Helen

Career change crossroads – don’t get stuck at the junction – it may be time to move on…

Gone are the days of having one career for life.  Times have changed.

Today’s global market-place makes our working lives more impermanent and unpredictable plus with a potentially longer working life we’re less likely to settle with something that merely pays the bills.  We want something more – so phrases like ‘self-improvement’ and ‘personal journey’ become part of our criteria when considering our work.  Many participants who come to train with Wise Goose feel that they’re at a crossroads and are looking to step forward into something new.  Recent Wise Goose graduate and Career Coach Lucy Weldon wrote in a previous Wise Goose blog “If you don’t like your job, be clear on the reasons.  And if you’re not sure what they are, go and talk them through with someone, as well as start to explore what you could do.  There’s lots of aspects that could improve your lot before you change job.  But if it is a change that you are looking for, there is plenty of advice available… Be positive.  It helps achieve the right outcome.”

What factors contribute to arriving at this career crossroads?  Sometimes a change in our personal lives makes us feel lost, becoming a parent may shift priorities from work to home, children growing up and leaving the nest can make us feel empty, or maybe we’re no longer with people we enjoy and respect.  Writing for Forbes, Kathy Caprino writes “We can feel lost when our work has pulled us away from our core values and our sense of integrity and honesty. We can feel lost when we’re being mistreated and discriminated against…” identifying feelings that contribute to what she calls ‘power gaps’ which ultimately stop us from being effective authors of our own lives.

If we’ve identified that we need a career change – then the next step is working out what we want so we can move forward and take control.  The School of Life says its because our brains aren’t well equipped to interpret and understand themselves.  “We cannot sit down and simply inquire of ourselves directly what we might want to do with our working lives – we must learn to tease out insights concealed in apparently tiny movements of satisfaction and distress scattered across our lives.”  Recognising how vague our minds are helps gain a new perspective… “We start to appreciate that our career analysis is going to take time, that it has many stages, that the reach for an immediate answer can backfire – and that it is a strangely magnificent, delicate and noble task to work out what one should most justly do with the rest of one’s brief life on earth. We should have the confidence to believe that large portions of a sound answer are already in us.”    

Career Coach Maggie Mistal sees the process as being more akin to doing a jigsaw puzzle, finding the pieces and putting them together.  She suggests examining a variety of factors including ideal salary, skills you most enjoy using, finding what motivates you, your unique mission or purpose, and details like size of a company and location of an employer.

Of course it takes courage – and timing is key.  Lucy Weldon believes you should look before you leap in order to reduce uncertainty about the feature.   “What I am certain about is that ‘managing uncertainty’ is a skill that helps inordinately in life. It’s the knowing when to push, when to wait and allow luck, the Universe, or whatever to intervene, provided the groundwork is done.”  One way to do that groundwork could be to enlist for training as a coach.  Not only will adding coaching to your portfolio open options which can make you more employable in a new career, but it will help you in your own self-growth.  To that end Wise Goose runs free taster days where you can test the water and see if coaching really is for you – with no financial outlay it just might get you out of neutral and set you on your way.  What do you think?  Are you ready to change gear and move forward from your career crossroads?   

Beginner Coach – What’s it really like to start out?

As a trainer, it’s not easy to give a true to life flavour of what it’s like to start out, or convey the ups and downs of learning to coach, so I asked a  Ali,  to share her experience of joining a Foundations Course.

Ali has a background in PR, has worked as a personal trainer (and successful blogger), and is currently working in government as a Parliamentary Manager, as well as being a mother of 15 month old twins.

Coaching has interested me since around 2010, when I first worked with a coach who helped me transition from a career in public relations to one in health and fitness. My interest grew through my work as a personal trainer, as I found it frustrating that although I had great success with many clients, there were some who found barriers to any change suggested and I wondered whether coaching might be the answer to enable them to move forward.

Fast forward eight years and a further career shift back to a management role, and the idea of coaching started to pull at me again. Cue an internet search to identify whether I could do a course, how long it would take, and how much it would cost. I knew that if I was going to study, then I wanted to do an accredited course. A general google search led me to the Association for Coaching, which revealed that there were two accredited courses in my area, one of which, the Wild Goose Advanced Coaching Diploma, immediately looked like the right one for me.

I enthusiastically contacted Helen, and a few emails and an application form later, I had been offered a place on the course. I was really keen to get going, so I started reading relevant books, listening to podcasts and scanning through websites and magazines. Once I had the official reading list and could make a start on that I was thrilled!

However, all my enthusiasm started to be tinged with a little anxiety as the first weekend grew near. I had a slight niggling doubt that everyone else might be successful coaches already – yes, the rational me also wonders why they would be taking a course if this were true, or that they would all be senior managers in global companies, and that I, with my somewhat varied career background wouldn’t fit in at all.

Within seconds of arriving on the Friday, and ignoring the bit where I went the wrong way and found myself wandering round Helen’s garden – she didn’t know that until now, I felt much more at ease as I met a group of ten, friendly, interesting and approachable people, all from different backgrounds, but all with the goal of exploring the idea of coaching either as a career change, or as an addition to an existing career.

Helen and Diana, our trainers for the weekend, got us started straight away with an icebreaker, and it was fun to find out who in the group liked wild swimming and who played a musical instrument. We then moved on to a range of practical exercises, such as staring into the eyes of another group member for around five minutes (!), and trying out various coaching techniques while walking up a steep hill. Not only did the exercises on day one help us to bond and get to know each other as a group, they also taught us important elements of coaching, such as focus, listening and questioning, and made us laugh, so it was the ideal way to start.

I’d love to say that after this I breezed through the rest of the weekend, but the reality is that on the Saturday morning I just didn’t feel right. There was a niggling feeling at the back of my mind that I wasn’t on the right course, that this one was too focused on business coaching, and that it just wasn’t working for me. After an hour or two of questioning myself, I decided to speak to Helen, who took the time to listen to me. Ten minutes later and I was feeling markedly better, and reassured that this probably was the right course for me, and that the different backgrounds of those on the course was what would make the group work well, as we all have different skills and experiences to bring to the table.

The weekend continued with a great mix of practical and more traditional learning as we got to grips with coaching techniques such as the GROW model, explored the differences between values, virtues and character strengths, learnt to give good feedback, looked at tools such as the wheel of life, and practiced delivering and receiving coaching sessions. I also had the opportunity to have a coaching session observed by Helen, and to hear her say that something I had done during the session was ‘outstanding’ was a real high point of the weekend.

During our final practical session on the Sunday, I had a real ‘this is what I am meant to be doing’ moment, which felt amazing, and spending more time getting to know the group through peer learning time that afternoon was the ideal way to end the weekend.

Overall, despite a few ups and downs, the first weekend was an amazing experience. I feel like I learnt a huge amount about both coaching and myself. I am really excited to see where this journey will take me and I look forward to our next weekend, and to the peer coaching in the meantime.

Widening Coaching Perspectives

I myself am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me. Issac Newton

Earlier this month I said goodbye to my son who is off on the next leg of his ‘gap’ travels before starting university in the autumn. It’s time for him to step out into the world, widen horizons and explore who he becomes as he encounters different places and people.  A few days later I said goodbye to our first London cohort, it’s been a rich and enjoyable year with an enthusiastic and engaged group. They are stepping out now and their perspective on coaching will change as they encounter new situations and new clients.  Continue reading “Widening Coaching Perspectives”

Will you make that change in 2018?

Advanced Diploma in Coaching

 

If you are feeling stuck in the wrong career read on – thanks to Wise Goose graduate and career coach Lucy Weldon for sharing her thoughts in this post…

A new year often kick-starts conversations about the future.  You might be thinking about changes that need to be made around your career or your current job.  Time away over a festive period can bring a different perspective.  What matters is action and not letting the months slip by.   Here are some typical predicaments that you may have talked about over Christmas and the New Year period.

Do you continue to grit your teeth in a job you don’t like?   Feeling stuck?  There are a number of factors that influence how you feel about your job.  Here’s a rule of thumb (from Ann Guo, Passion Analytics, USA) for how long you should ‘suck up’ a job.  In your 20’s, it’s four years; in your 30’s, it’s two years; in your 40’s, it’s 1 year; in your 50’s, it’s 6 months. How long have you been in a job that you don’t like?

If you don’t like your job, be clear on the reasons.  And if you’re not sure what they are, go and talk them through with someone, as well as start to explore what you could do.  There’s lots of aspects that could improve your lot before you change job.  But if it is a change that you are looking for, there is plenty of advice available.  Start with friends and family; then go and talk to peers/colleagues or someone who’s recently changed job.  Be positive.  It helps achieve the right outcome.

You’re coming to the end of this particular career path, what else can you do? It’s a great question and so relevant today.   It can also be about a change that is being forced on you.  Are you a specialist?  Have you been in the same company or in the same kind of role for a long time?  You might be a bit rusty when it comes to CV writing and interviewing, let alone looking for a new role.  A bit of courage can also come in handy as well as a proper professional process to look at what you do next and how to manage the transition successfully.  Multiple careers with on-going personal development are the hallmarks of the world of work now and going forwards (The 100-year life. Gratton & Scott).

What are you going to do when you retire?  You still love working.  Well, you don’t have to retire and maybe you can’t afford to retire yet.  Statistics about pensions and the lack of funding in pensions are well known.   It’s important to have an idea of what life looks like after the official retirement takes place and financial plans are made.  Working, keeping one’s hand in, contributing, keeping the finances going are characteristics of our society now.  It can be a great time to consider new opportunities.  PWC predicts that self-employment is a growing trend, over the next 10 years. The Office for National Statistics estimates that around 1 in 5 people aged over 50 is self-employed, a higher proportion than for any other age group.  You might become an olderpreneur.

What’s the advice?

So, for all these predicaments (and others), there is no set piece of advice.  Career advice is bespoke and should be holistic and thorough.

I’m a

‘look before you leap’ kind of career coach when it comes to any major change.  It needs thinking through.  It can be a combination of ‘head’ and ‘heart’ that helps you make a decision. But there is a professional process available.  A coaching conversation will give you clarity, confidence and a much firmer grip on what needs to happen.

There are steps that can be taken to reduce uncertainty about the future. But what I am certain about is that ‘managing uncertainty’ is a skill that helps inordinately in life. It’s the knowing when to push, when to wait and allow luck, the Universe, or whatever to intervene, provided the groundwork is done.

The groundwork takes time and effort.  It’s all about building a sustainable career that addresses your needs today and it’s always good practice to keep one eye on the future.  Don’t wait for a crisis.  Keep up to date by talking to people, know what’s happening in terms of market trends and keep your network thriving.

Lastly, I want to talk about money.  Life is often fundamentally shaped by this.  Terry Waite, once envoy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, was kidnapped in Hezbollah in January 1987 and held captive for nearly 5 years.  In an interview in the Sunday Times recently, he said that his most important lesson about money was that whilst you must make sensible plans for the future, live each day as it comes and live it as fully as you can.  In other words, don’t let financial concerns dominate at the expense of your day to day life.  That’s beautifully balanced advice in my book.

Are you looking to develop a more sustainable career then you have at the moment?  You can contact Lucy lucy@lucyweldoncoaching.com or via www.lucyweldoncoaching.com.

At the still point of the turning year – solstice reflections…

I’m writing this at the Winter Solstice. It’s one of those still Dartmoor winter afternoons, there’s a blanket of motionless grey clouds and not a breath of wind.  Earlier a buzzard wheeled lazily over our rooftop, the only movement in a sky where even the ubiquitous rooks were still and silent. Though it’s only 4:15pm it’s twilight, that intermediate, in-between state of not light and not yet dark. By the time I finish writing it will be deep dark.

It’s a day that feels like a pause, an in-breath, a still point, an ambiguous and paradoxical turning point in time. Slivers of lines from T.S Eliot’s poem Burnt Norton have been flickering in and out of my mind, like minnows barely visible in peaty amber streams that flow off the moor  “the light is still at the still point of the turning world…”

This year, I almost didn’t send a Christmas post, too many have been popping into my in-box and I felt like I didn’t want to add to the busyness and clutter.  But then at the last minute, I realise there is something I want to share…

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a local young man, not much more than a boy. Nineteen years old – the same age as my son.  The sudden random death of one so young, with so much to look forward to shakes a community. He was ‘one of ours’ a lovely, bright boy. It’s just not how things are meant to be.  It can’t be reconciled.

In the church, mourners squeezed into pews, packed themselves into the back and overflowed down the aisles in silent solidarity.  Being part of a  congregation, brought together to witness the loss and celebrate his life was a first attempt towards reconciling the unreconcilable, a leaning towards an eventual return of the light. It’s easy to say that there is no light without dark, no life without death and no dance without a still point.  It’s easy to say that buried inside polarity and the clash of opposites is always a relationship between two elements. It’s easy to say that the challenge is to hold the tension and find a place to stand that can hold both sides of a paradox, stepping forward into life from there. But it is not easy to live from there and if I am totally honest, as a mother, I don’t know if I’d survive such a loss, I don’t know if or how I’d find my way through.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that on this longest of nights, after a year that’s had more than its fair share of clashing opposites and political polarity I turn to Eliot’s poem and find inspiration and comfort as it edges towards reconciling the irreconcilable.   Here’s a few lines …
 

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

So as the year turns and the light begins its return, with gratitude for all of your good wishes and support over the past year, I wish you the gifts of the season  peace, joy, light, hope and love.

The Climbing Wall – A new way of looking at our working lives

Many thanks to Wise Goose graduate Lucy Weldon for this post.  Lucy is a career coach who specialises in the development of sustainable careers.

Have you thought about what living to a hundred will be like?  It will soon be unremarkable to live that long.  Many societies, including the UK, are rapidly ageing.  There’s lots of discussion about the funding challenge but not enough about the decades that precede our twilight years and what we do with our longer lives.

In the book, The 100-year Life by Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott, the authors talk about this extended life and working life as being a gift.  It’s certainly a positive way of looking at it.  However, it depends on your individual circumstances.  If you live in the USA without health insurance or you depend solely on the UK government pension with little personal savings, the extended working life is a worrying and onerous necessity.

We’re seeing already that the simple career path of a ‘job for life’ is losing its currency.  The vertical career ladder of ‘onwards and upwards’ needs to change to what I call a multi-staged climbing wall model.  Now, more than ever, we need to look at our working lives differently and to manage them more proactively.   Luck will always play its part, but it won’t necessarily get you to where you want or need to get to.

My focus with clients is on having a ‘sustainable career’; by that I mean having a working life that brings in the required financial reward as well as fulfilment, purpose and balance.  How do we achieve this?  It won’t just happen.

Here are some aspects of career management to think about.  They are not necessarily age specific.  Responses to them will be rooted much more in life stage:

  • Re-framing the working life. Given extended lives, the potential exists to look at our careers differently.  Experts now talk about the career as being a marathon, a long journey, a series of short sprints with essential holding patterns in between. I see it more as a climbing wall.
  • Multiple careers. Because the choices exist and the imperative is growing, we will have a number of careers or career paths. This will require us to be flexible, resilient and creative. And to keep on learning and investing in ourselves and our working lives.
  • Re-thinking your working identity.  ‘I’ve always been a ……’.  That may change and may have to change.  What you will also need is a clear understanding of your skills and strengths as well as the kind of work that you find enjoyable and stimulating as you go through your working life.
  • Work life balance. It’s critical to talk about work life balance.  Will we be like the Japanese and have a word that sums up the worst extreme of this imbalance?  ‘Karoshi’ is a Japanese word that means death through overwork.  The UK is known for its long working hours.
  • Financial reward to fit your life stage and lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, money can dictate conversations about working lives.  It is an important
  • consideration.  Whilst money can be a short-term motivator, poor financial reward is a sure fire demotivator that sets in quickly.  Establishing what you want and need is vital, and it typically changes with lifestyle and life stage.
  • On-going personal development within your current role and the future direction of your career. Finishing your education in your younger years reflects the old working life model.  Investing in you, your future working life and a different career direction may well depend on a period of acquiring new knowledge, skills, credentials and qualifications.  You can’t teach an old dog new tricks?  Yes, you can!

It’s the ‘whole you’ not just the ‘working you’ that needs to be looked at and considered.  It’s also about making our extended lives more a voyage of discovery than a haphazard, hoping for the best kind of experience.  When you have choices, when you can get on the front foot, why wouldn’t you?

Find out more about Lucy’s work at www.lucyweldoncoaching.com or contact her at lucy@lucyweldoncoaching.com

 

A Sense of Place -Coaching in Context

 

 

Granite. A glittering, resilient rock. The Barefoot Barn where we hold our Wise Goose Devon training programmes stands upon granite, the house I live in is built from it.  Both overlook the huge granite plug of Dartmoor. Granite is one of the defining characteristics of this place.

 

The moaning, whistling, howling or whispering of wind is another; it’s usually south westerly – you can tell the direction by the lean of stunted hawthorn and oak. Water is another element of this place, drizzling or pouring, to be soaked up by the spongy ground that is our watershed; as I write this the landscape is wrapped in a gentle Dartmoor mizzle. The song of moving water is never far away, sometimes quietly dripping or gurgling, sometimes running off the tors in amber torrents, nudging the granite clitter downslope into streams which run away to meet the sea at Teignmouth.

‘Granite Song’, by local sculptor Peter Randall-Page, rests unlabelled, a secret waiting to be chanced upon, on a small island on the river Teign.  At first glance this egg-like granite boulder is like many others nearby. Embedded in the landscape, it could have been tossed there by the river. But it has been split in two like a walnut, revealing carved organic, labyrinthine patterns. The sculptor has taken granite and made it a living part of a tradition of the moors with its standing stones, reaves and hut circles, knitting together a relationship and resonance between the people of this place and time and the land.  In this simple sculpture there’s a sense of belonging, a vision of participation; a sense of place.

Here at Wise Goose we believe place matters in coaching, it can shape, inform and sustain us, place is both geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness.   That’s why, whether in the wilds of the countryside or the midst of the capital city, we do our best to find venues where we have a relationship, that provide opportunities to reflect and renew, connect with context and draw out a networked perspective.  Most professional development courses are held in rootless, sterile and bland conference centres. Even mansions set in pristine landscaped gardens there’s often a disconnect between the content taught and the wider context of work –  they don’t nurture a sense of place.

A sense of place weaves together the physical characteristics of the land with memory, art, story, metaphor and history. The inexplicable feel, sight, sound and smell places leave on the skin and mind affect how we approach our work and our lives.  Connecting beyond our self in this way can inspire an embodied, systemic, networked, holistic approach to coaching that places human persons, organisations and communities as part of their world, co-creating their world, in service to a vision of a better future.

Our Space in the City:  In the midst of King’s Cross Development site close to national and international transport networks, the Skip Garden is a unique and quirky space.

It is a movable, urban  garden where fruit and vegetables are farmed out of skips.  An initiative of the charity Global Generation, it  brings together businesses who work alongside young people and the local residents to create healthy, integrated and environmentally responsible communities   We are delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with a charity whose values and approach so closely mirrors our ow

Amongst the lettuce leaves , blossom trees and open fires are unique indoor spaces, purpose built for all kinds of learning and personal development opportunities.  The venue also boasts a thriving café serving food from the garden.

Our Scottish Collaboration.  It is a real privilege  to be working with the Findhorn Foundation to deliver a residential, intensive Foundations course in Core Coaching and Mentoring Skills in Scotland.

Nestled amidst dunes and forest, bay and beach, the Findhorn Foundation is an internationally respected ecovillage community and spiritual learning centre dedicated to inspired action and a vision of creating a better world.

The Barefoot Barn is our original venue and ‘home’.  Set in six acres of woodland, glades and ponds with views across the atmospheric and spectacular ancient landscape of Dartmoor.   An ideal location from which to practice outdoor walking coaching and widen perspectives.  The Barn was initially created for the local community of Chagford, 20+ years ago, for the teaching and practice of meditation and yoga and is a few minutes walk from the centre of Chagford  a historic and vibrant town, in an area of outstanding beauty, on the edge of Dartmoor and within easy reach of the M5, Exeter airport and the national railway network.

 

The Books That Shaped Me

leadership fo disillusioned

 

On ancient maps of the world cartographers, perhaps believing the world was flat, would write: ‘beyond here be monsters’. Fear of what lay beyond the edge of the known world kept their world small.  Today we smile at how wrong this perspective is; we know that over that imagined rim lay whole new worlds.

In Leadership for the Disillusioned Amanda Sinclair takes us to an edge. She challenges traditional views of leadership, exposing some of the monsters created by values that run through most leadership development: compulsive growth, conquest, materialism, individualism and relentless focus on future targets.

Hopeful, bold and challenging, it was recommended to me ten years ago, when I embarked on a Masters in Responsibility & Business Practice.  Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock and RBS were collapsing, I’d become disillusioned with leadership, mine and others.  I felt sure there was a different way to do the work of leading but I felt shackled by prevailing practices.

It’s still one of the most exciting leadership books I’ve read, an antidote to pompous, ‘do it my way’ tomes, with their ‘heroic performances, impoverished theories and oversimplified templates.’  With a critical, systemic perspective Sinclair asks fundamental questions about the discourses that frame or limit what we think leadership is, or could be: What is leadership for? What are the purposes to which leadership is being put? Who benefits from these purposes? What are its unintended harmful consequences?

At times, it’s an uncomfortable read. It exposed my assumptions and less-than-wonderful practices as a leader.  Asking ‘What’s wrong with leadership?’ she explores how leadership is often achieved through a leader’s self-inflation and ‘collusive seduction.’  She examines how the cult of adoration surrounding unassailable CEOs and leaders needs followers who are searching for a someone to fix things and make hard problems simple. She shows how the dependency of these followers, their surrender, suspension of critical faculties and abdication of responsibility leads to moral failure in companies and ultimately, failure of trust in leadership. Since the Brexit campaign and rise of Trump this analysis is more relevant than ever.

Central to the book is a call for leadership that ‘liberates’. She argues that good leaders seek to free themselves, organisations, teams and individuals from oppressive structures or practices and a create flourishing workplaces.

Leading that liberates is not just a job or position, but a way of being in relationship, anchored in self-awareness, mindful of others and wider systems. It’s an invitation to lead with less ego, to extend our sense of identity, be more fluid, porous and freer.  This involves bringing unconscious assumptions about leadership, often laid down in childhood, to light, as well as developing more awareness of power dynamics and the responsibility to use power ethically.  Sinclair argues that the way to do this is through being reflective and embodied, working experientially and thinking critically.

As a trainer, coach, mentor and developer of leaders this book was a place that encouraged me to explore ‘edges’ in my work.  It helped clarify key questions as I developed training courses for coaches: How to create a programme that is reflective and thoughtful, that values relationship, connects to others and the wider world?  How can I develop coaches who have the confidence and competencies to challenge the status quo? What would a coaching course look like that doesn’t ‘feed’ narrow individualistic striving, that is liberating – contributing to valuable, worthwhile purposes?

It shaped my thinking and the way I’ve build my business; I worked on creating assessment processes with power in mind; balanced theory and practice; wove together reflective practice with a critical perspective.  I thought about how groups are recruited, and alongside those from corporate backgrounds, decided to offer sponsored places to charities or social enterprises to include a range of experience and aspirations. By inviting alternative worldviews into the room, I hoped to avoid slipping into ‘executive-coach groupthink’.  These questions are reflected in the Wise Goose ‘brand’, an identity that’s less shiny and glossy than many coach training providers.  I talk about ‘success with a soul’. Making these choices isn’t always easy, I need to maintain credibility with corporate customers, to keep one foot in the world leaders and organisations inhabit while holding a wider context and reframing spirit. I’ve needed to attend to the part of me wants to belong, to quietly follow, not rock the boat and be an insider.

Sinclair is not a comfortable insider defending the status quo.  Neither is she an outsider throwing rocks, she’s a professor at Australia’s foremost business school.  She occupies a precarious space between worlds, the ‘wild margins’. There’s a tension and energy at the places where edges meet, Leadership for the Disillusioned creatively negotiates the gap between hard realities of ‘leadership as usual’ and everyday practices of a liberating leader.  It’s a book that inspired me to explore those edges for myself and in doing so shaped me.

 

 

“The present is not a time for desperation but for hopeful activity.”

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I have the quote above from Thomas Berry, scribbled on a post-it on my desk. Some days it brings out a smile and a sense of purpose. Some days it feels like a bad joke. I am a ‘glass half full’ person but as I look at many of the changes currently sweeping through the world my hopefulness for the future can be put to the test.

I’m not alone, the 2017 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER reveals the largest-ever drop in trust across the institutions of government, business, media and NGOs. The credibility of leaders has also collapsed globally to an all-time low, with government leaders seen as least credible.

More than half respondents, including elites believe the system is unfair and offers little hope for the future. The result is toxic populism and nationalism fuelled by lack of trust in the system, fear of immigration, globalization, corruption as well as economic fears. Continue reading ““The present is not a time for desperation but for hopeful activity.””