Harnessing the power of the group
Redefining Communications
A business consultancy specialising in communication, we help you become an efficient and engaging organisation
Hello and welcome to the first edition of The Leadership Fix, our LinkedIn newsletter! This month we’re focusing on harnessing the power of the group and the importance of diverse perspectives in leadership teams.
Leaders often underestimate the power of the group. We regularly talk about leadership in terms of what “one individual does to many” but that isn’t always the case; leadership involves many individuals across an organisation. The problems we face are too complex to be solved by one person. Some of this comes down to ego – the “I’m so busy, but I’m the only one who can do this” mindset.
This thinking is flawed.
Within any leadership team is a group of individuals who can all work, learn, agree, disagree and succeed together if they’re aligned with the organisation’s goals. The problem is that often leadership teams aren’t aligned, which leads to a lack of trust and credibility. We’ll likely see many different agendas that often don’t support the strategy.?This will no doubt have a negative impact, with confused teams, inconsistent messaging and disengaged employees.
“We don't need giant personalities to transform companies. We need?leaders?who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.” Susan Cain
Leaders need to be consistent. Harnessing the power of the group means you can drive forward with intention. You can create change and take people with you on the journey.
It’s important to remember that alignment doesn’t necessarily mean agreement…
Why it’s good to disagree
Groupthink is the practice of making decisions as a group. It is unconsciously incompetent. By this, we mean that the result is often poor-quality decision-making due to a lack of evaluation or critical thinking because no one wants to rock the boat.
But real change can only happen if we really tackle the difficult issues – the things that might be causing symptoms of chaos. People can disagree with you and have different opinions and you can still work together.
Between any members of a leadership team, disagreement is both inevitable and necessary. Without difficult conversations and productive disagreements, we’ll never get to the root cause of issues, communicate effectively, or move forward and make changes. It’s important to make space for open debate and hold respectful conversations that are constructive. Low cohesion and low challenge are the biggest risks to any team.
“The goal of a great discussion isn’t to land on the same page. It’s to explore different views. Nods and smiles stroke your ego and close your mind. Thoughtful questions stoke your curiosity and stretch your thinking. Consensus makes you comfortable. Dissent makes you smarter.”?Adam Grant
So, different perspectives and approaches are a good thing, and we need diverse teams for them to thrive. In Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson shares four different behaviour types. He believes that we need all four in a team for it to work well and that understanding how people function and why we struggle to connect with some people is vital. For example, the blue behaviour type is analytical, red is dominant, green is stable and yellow is inspiring. Obviously, a team of reds might mean they “repeatedly trample on people’s toes” and could result in people fighting for control, whereas a team of greens could be “wishy-washy and unclear”.
“But the most important lesson that you can walk away with is that the idiots who surround you are, in fact, not idiots at all. Instead, they are individuals worthy of respect, understanding, and being valued.” Thomas Erikson
We can take this learning and approach things differently as a leadership team. Just as we need a mix of extroverts and introverts, we also need our blues, reds, greens and yellows. We need to?become intentional about creating diversity in our teams.
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“Groups have an inbuilt tendency to become clone-like… collective intelligence emerges not just from the knowledge of individuals, but also from the differences between them… When executing a plan, dominance can be crucial. But when deciding on a new strategy, or predicting the future, or finding new innovations, you need to hear diverse perspectives. This is where dominance can be disastrous.” Matthew Syed?
What if you’re in a leadership team that’s in conflict?
At some point, we all need to have difficult conversations as a leadership team. Some people in the team will actively shy away from this, wanting to avoid confrontation, while others don’t have any such concern! When it looks like the discussion is shifting to unproductive conflict, these four steps, based on Transactional Analysis, can help to remove emotion and keep you on track:
If you really struggle to find consensus as a leadership team, particularly if it’s a difficult issue, then you might need a facilitator to support your conversations. ?
Agreeing on the big things
While disagreements can be productive, there are many situations where agreement is critical. If you have to share bad news like impending redundancies, these discussions all require an element of tact, empathy, listening and clarity. If you don’t agree on the best way to do this as a leadership team, you won’t be able to do this. It’s important to agree on the right words to use and what they mean in your organisation; make time to find consensus on what important keywords really mean.
Strong relationships
To work as a team, you must take the time to build relationships. As a member of the leadership team, it’s likely you’ll be in meetings and conversations with “two hats”. One for your department, and one for the organisation as a whole and your responsibility to it as a director or senior member of the organisation. This can be conflicting, so take the time to build strong relationships. Make sure you listen to understand (without judgement) and know where you will compromise. These are both important aspects of self-awareness and self-development. To be part of a team, we must know what skills we bring, and what skills we need to develop.
Further reading
More from Jenni Field , founder of Redefining Communications:
If you have any questions about the issues discussed, please get in touch via [email protected]. If you’d like to join our community and receive our weekly Chaos to Calm email, please subscribe here.