Leading inside the circle

We often talk at TIER1 about the idea that we lead as a team. No single leader independently affects other people. It's the composite of experiences individuals have with various leaders that shapes their thinking and belief in the organization they are part of. Those experiences, in aggregate, affect culture, expectations, values, priorities etc. This is true in any organization and particularly true in flatter, dynamic and matrixed organizations: I have a relationship with individuals I lead; they have relationships with other leaders; and I have a relationship with those leaders. All three of those connection points affect each other and the more they are symbiotic, the healthier the growth process.

The implication is we need to have strong connections across the organization or, as I think of it, a strong "leadership fabric", where leaders are bound by common beliefs and perspectives and have direct personal relationships, lending credibility to each other, helping each other shape and influence and frame messages that reinforce what people feel and see. For this to be real, organizations have to develop core shared perspectives across leaders and invest in relationships across them as well. If the message and tone of leaders varies substantively, then there will be dissonance and friction in the organization. This is often true in organizations where leadership is frequently changing and the culture is unstable.

And yet healthy organizations have to go even further than this triangle of relationships. This triangle has to sit inside the circle of the organization itself. Leading within the circle is a challenge of its own. The circle is the environment in which we lead. The tone we show up with, how we react to things we disagree with, how we talk about the organization, about decisions made elsewhere, how we process tensions, how we respect or ignore expectations the organization has of us, how we help people work through struggles are all affected by whether we are leading inside the circle or outside the circle.

When we're leading outside the circle, the organization is something separate from us. It is often characterized by "they" language: I don't know why they haven't promoted you yet; The acquisition they did really doesn't make much sense; I'm not sure what they're doing. In these situations well-intended leaders can sometimes over rotate on the empathetic response to an individual who is struggling with the organization or with other leaders. The response can often be one of commiserating with the individual. That's neither healthy nor constructive. It doesn't solve much it just creates further tensions and erodes the environment itself.

Leading inside the circle means we act as part of the organization; there is only "we", no "they". When we lead inside the circle we believe in the organization's positive purpose and assume positive intentions in others. We see it as part of our job as leaders to both create that environment of trust, hope and purpose and to help others discover it and see it for what it is. When an individual is struggling or uncertain about where the organization is going or who it is, we need to get along side them and hold space for them to process their struggle, while also helping them navigate the organization and reframing their situation to to see healthy paths forward.

Leading inside the circle is much harder than judging it from a distance. It requires us to still be empathetic, but to elevate our vision; it requires a realistic sense of current state but a belief in the direction we're headed; it requires us to be in the game; it requires a sense of extreme accountability for the broader environment we work in. It is this mindset - one of leading within the circle - spread across many leaders, that causes the circle itself to be healthy. In healthy organizations, there is no "they"...it is only us. Leaders help everyone recognize that we collectively create the environment, all of us, every day by how we show up. We create the circle we lead in. And we each own all that is inside it.

"Points of Impact" is a weekly publication expressing thoughts on how we might approach our work differently to have a better impact on others and the world. For more related perspectives, check out Impact with Love: Building Business for a Better World.