Embracing Humility and Self-Awareness With Kirstin Ferguson

Welcome LinkedIn friends! Your weekly insight to grow your relationships and book of business.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr Kirstin Ferguson AM , author of The Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership. This is perfect for anyone who has one foot in deep technical expertise, but you've also got to lead teams. You've got to lead strategic partner relationships to do the great work that you do.

Mo asked Kirsten:

“So Kirsten, you've been giving talks and workshops, and you know best what is resonating with the audience. What do they need to know?”

Kirsten responded:

“I do, and it's so exciting, though you have no idea. When people read through, or self-assess, or do anything, it's like a light bulb goes on. Nothing I'm going to say requires you to stop doing anything you're doing. There are no fads; there's no new-fangled way of doing it.

What I'm going to try and encourage your listeners to think about is to embrace some of those attributes of leadership they might use with their kids or in their local sporting teams, community groups, church, or whatever it might be.

Humility is one, you know, humility, where we're prepared to accept that perhaps we don't know all the answers. We understand that some things are beyond our control. It's not about being less than or weaker than. It's actually a huge strength to be able to say, you know, I don't know the answer to that, but gosh, I'm going to come back to you.

So if we use that as an example, I think at home, we're generally pretty able to be humble. If anyone's been married for any length of time, you certainly learn humility pretty quickly. If you've got teenagers, you're learning humility pretty quickly. Imagine if you're in that sales meeting you're talking about, and you've got clients listening to equal proposals; there's really nothing in it, but they ask a question, and you are listening and trying to answer. I came up with an answer. It's the best answer I can come up with. It's way more powerful and courageous in that moment to say, "That is a terrific question."

In fact, it shows that you've got a real insight into this that I'd love to learn from. Let me come back to you. I'm going to come back to you tomorrow because I don't want to answer, you know, in a way that doesn't give you the depth of response that you deserve. That will be remembered far more than the person who just says the best that they can at the moment.

Now that takes true humility and courage, but it stands out as the kind of person you trust. It builds trust because if I'm on the other side of the desk as the client, which I am. I sit on plenty of corporate boards. And that's my day job. I love hearing an advisor say, I don't know the answer to that I actually want to come back. Yeah, I trust them, I trust them that they're not going to sit there all day and tell me what I want to hear.

So that is a very small example. As a junior sort of starting out, particularly in sales, that's hard to do. We have this preconceived notion that we need to have all the answers, but my encouragement to you is to understand that modern leaders are leaders who really can be brave in those moments. That's an example of a monument.”

Mo followed up:

“I liked that. And I'll tell you what it is as a counterexample. Then when people don't know the answer, and they try to give their best, sort of like, yeah, played through that pretty quickly. The other side can tell, you can tell, you can tell if somebody doesn't really know, and they're just talking for a long time. And you're way better off doing that, because of all the reasons you mentioned. So that's number one. Humility. What's the second one?”

Kirsten responded:

“The second one is self-awareness. We kind of touched on that previously. That's having this insight into the impact we're having on those around us. This is why I mentioned we're such bad judges of the impact that we're having, which is why you need to have people around you who will give you feedback.

Now, it is scary to ask for feedback. It's scary when someone comes and says, "Can I give you some feedback?" it has the same emotional reaction in our brain; as you know, footsteps in the night, we all want to run. Self-awareness is knowing when you're being triggered.

It's knowing, you know, that flash of heat you feel at the back of your neck or the adrenaline that's pumping, and you're about to say something or do something you know is not right.

Self-awareness is knowing what's coming and knowing how to just be in the moment. So self-awareness is incredibly important, particularly in the work that your listeners do, because you are going to get bad news, you're going to feel embarrassed at times, you're going to have people say things that trigger shame. Being aware of that is incredibly important.”

Dive deeper into the conversation with Kirstin Ferguson here.

Kirsten highlights the importance of humility and self-awareness in leadership, advocating for genuine responses and acknowledging triggers to navigate challenges effectively.

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Thanks for reading!

-Mo