Leadership retreats and the importance of consciously detaching from the status quo

We live in transformative times. It’s in transformative times that leaders must themselves transform. But continuing to stare into their phones, going from meeting to meeting and generally being consumed with a busy mind is probably not the answer.

Last year, as part of my work with the University of Oxford’s Sa?d Business School, I published a major piece of research with EY into organisational transformations. It was from this work that we identified six actions needed to do this successfully. One of those - consciously detaching from the status quo - is the foundation for this new mini-series of newsletters about leadership retreats and what can emerge from them.

For context, this newsletter has pointed out time and again how the status quo is unsustainable. Whether it’s pursuing growth for growth’s sake or continuing to devour natural resources, business can no longer operate under 20th century models given the wider problems in the world. Leaders need to pivot away from the status quo.

However, this can be difficult when their roles are so all-consuming. And while the day-to-day tasks are an important part of an executive’s responsibility to ensure their business functions properly, it’s also their job to see what is coming on the horizon. How is their organisation going to be relevant in the next five, 10, 20 years?

If they can’t answer that question, this is where the need for a leadership retreat comes in.

By going to a different place, meeting different people and disconnecting from daily distractions - emails, WhatsApp, meetings, Slack messages - leaders can begin to explore a purposeful vision for the future.

My leadership coaching company, Transcend.Space , recently held its first retreat in the stunning hills of the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park in Wales. (The park is popularly known as Brecon Beacons, but a week before our retreat, its authority reverted the official name back to Bannau Brycheiniog as part of a strategic pivot towards addressing the climate and biodiversity emergency.)

It was in these incredible surroundings that I brought together colleagues, partners and peers who I’ve worked with over the past few years with Transcend.Space. The aim was to collectively explore some of the challenges we’ve come across in our industries and, on a personal level, reflect on our own abilities and directions as leaders.

Following three days of discussions, workshops, hikes and meditations, I was inspired to see the impact it had on people.

The retreat allowed us to focus on the “sound of the genuine”: a phrase from a speech by Howard Thurman and used by our facilitator Nick Ross.

There is something in every one of you that waits, listens, for the sound of the genuine in yourself and if you cannot hear it, you will never find whatever it is for which you are searching. And if you hear it and then do not follow it, it was better that you had never been born…

You are the only you that has ever lived. Your idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all of existence and if you cannot hear the sound of the genuine in you, you will, all of your life, spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls…

There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself and sometimes there is so much traffic going on in your minds, so many different kinds of signals, so many vast impulses floating through your organism that go back thousands of generations - long before you were even a thought in the mind of creation - and you are buffeted by these, and in the midst of all of this you have got to find out what your name is. Who are you? How does the sound of the genuine come through to you…

The sound of the genuine is flowing through you. Don’t be deceived and thrown off by all the noises that are a part even of your dreams, your ambitions, so that you don’t hear the sound of the genuine in you. Because that is the only true guide that you will ever have, and if you don’t have that you don’t have a thing.

The impact of this was reflected in the words of my colleague Thouraya Sayess:

“One of my main takeaways from the retreat was a poem that was shared by our facilitator called ‘The Sound of the Genuine’. Somehow life, noise and distractions get in the way - and take us away - from the sound of the genuine. For me, the retreat was an opportunity for me to reconnect with my sound of the genuine.”

And Alex Hayes-Griffin:

“The retreat created a unique and really special place away from all the noise I was dealing with in my life. It allowed me to exhale and reflect, and take the seemingly complicated challenges I was carrying with me and simplify them down to ‘the sound of the genuine’. I left the retreat in Wales with a much greater clarity on the next stage of my life and career.”

From my perspective, the discussions confirmed the importance of retreats which allow leaders to spend time in a state of “being” rather than just “doing”. That way, they can focus on deeper questions about who they are, how they lead and what impact they want to have. It’s from these reflections that leaders can then be in a better place to pursue their individual (and therefore organisational) journeys of transformation.

So, that’s the context of the retreat. The next two editions of this mini-series, starting on 13 September, will focus on the business insights which emerged from this period of deep reflection in the Welsh hills. If you haven’t already, click the “subscribe” button at the top of this page.

A message from the author

Thank you for reading the 52nd edition of the Leadership 2050 newsletter. You may be interested to know why I am writing it. As a senior fellow of management practice at the University of Oxford’s Sa?d Business School, my research and teaching focuses on how leaders transcend 21st century challenges such as disruptive technology change, the climate crisis and creating diverse and inclusive environments… alongside the ongoing challenge of delivering profitable growth. At Sa?d, I direct the Oxford Advanced Management & Leadership Programme and, in this capacity, work with leaders from many geographies, industries and governments. All this has given me a deep understanding of how good leaders create value - and bad leaders destroy it. One could argue that never before has this topic been so important on a global stage, hence why I am undertaking this work.