A brief leadership reflection...

I recently read an article on LinkedIn about an individual's experience of working in an organisation where one of the senior leadership team took an active and genuine interest in them and the impact this had on their motivation and organisational commitment. As someone who strongly believes in the power of personal stories when running leadership development sessions, it reminded me of my time as a mid-ranking RAF officer working in the Headquarters at RAF High Wycombe. During this time I shared an office with 3 other colleagues that was situated directly across the corridor from the very senior officer (who I will call VSO1) who oversaw our department. Being several layers above us in the organisation's hierarchy we generally had no direct dealings with VSO1, even though we were part of his team, and in the 12 months I worked for him I only recall him coming into our office once to ask for an update on a report he'd requested. At the time I don't think I saw anything particularly strange about this behaviour from a leadership perspective as he was obviously an extremely busy individual with a very full diary. However, a few months into my tour another VSO (who I will call VSO2) from a completely different department moved into an office just down the corridor. Within a few days of arriving he put his head around the door and introduced himself before taking a seat to find out who we were and what we did. During the conversation one of my colleagues mentioned he was working on a difficult program to do with aircraft defensive aids and, having been involved in a similar program in a previous role, VSO2 offered to help by putting him contact with someone in his network. In the months that followed VSO2 would occasionally put his head around the door and ask how things were going in general and appeared to take a genuine interest in what we did. Now I am pretty sure that VSO2's diary was every bit as full as VSO1's but he actually took time to get to know people and build his network, even with those outside of his immediate AOR. Anyone familiar with VUCA will know the importance of reaching out into the organisation, the need to breakdown pillars and work across hierarchies by building networks to deal with the complexity and wicked nature of the problems that VUCA presents. Whenever I tell this story, I always finish by saying that on the Friday I was leaving to drive home when VSO1 put his head around the door and asked me to stay late to help him staff an urgent report I did so because 'I had to' it would not have been appropriate to say no - after all he was the 'boss'. However, when I bumped into VSO2 a few weeks later, again while leaving on a Friday to drive home, and he was looking for someone to help staff one of his reports, I did so because I wanted to, even though I was not part of his direct team and could have easily made some excuse!