The REAL Job of a Leader

At EWING, everything we do and everything we offer—our training, our tools, and our technologies—align with this one simple truth:

Organizations are hard-pressed to fundamentally change workers—i.e., the personal factors they bring with them to the workplace; but organizations can change the social environment factors and the physical environment factors that contain the workers and shape their thinking and behaviors.

Why is this concept important?

Because three things affect human stress levels: personal factors, social environment factors, and physical environment factors. That’s it. At the highest level, these are the macro levers we have to play with to fundamentally alter people’s stress levels. ?

But Isn’t Stress a Good Thing? Why Mess with it??

As we’ve shared in an earlier newsletter, one type of stress is, in fact, healthy. We call the healthy kind of stress, challenge stress. Challenge stressors are those that often result in monumental strain but, at the same time, are energizing and provide opportunities for feelings of accomplishment, as well as meaningful growth and development. Every promotion or new job opportunity that gives us the chance to “show our stuff” to the world, no matter how steep the climb, is a challenge stressor.

Bring them on!

But there is another kind of stress: hindrance stress. Hindrance stress is the kind of sticky gunk that weighs us all down. Common examples include organizational politics (e.g., favoritism), role ambiguity, and job insecurity. ?When I speak of workplace stress and the need to manage it within our organizations, I’m talking mostly about the need to manage hindrance stressors. Challenge stressors and hindrance stressors have markedly different effects on employees’ performance—one positive, the other negative. Consequently, it’s imperative as leaders that we pay attention to the effective management of employees’ stress.

The New Norm: AI Stress

According to a study performed by the International Monetary Fund, in advanced economies, about 60 percent of jobs may be impacted by AI. Roughly half the exposed jobs may benefit from AI integration, enhancing productivity. For the other half, AI applications may execute key tasks currently performed by humans, which could lower labor demand, leading to lower wages and reduced hiring. In the most extreme cases, some of these jobs may disappear.

In light of anticipated technological advancements, what can we expect ahead for our organizations and for our workers?

Role ambiguity?

Check.

Job insecurity?

Check.

Organizational politics?

Check.

Human stress? Check. Check. Check.

The Ecosystem Lens to Organizational Stress

Individual stress doesn’t just sit and stew within the confines of our individual bodies. We bring it into the world. Similarly, our interactions with each other give rise to a wholly other kind of stress—group or collective stress—which is a very real but underrecognized phenomenon. And with group stress comes “herd behaviors.” Herd behavior?occurs when individuals act collectively as part of a?group, often making decisions as a?group?that they would not make as an individual. In short,?herd behavior?is about making a decision based in part on the?behaviors and choices of others—good or bad. ?

Getting deep into herd behaviors and, in particular, collective coping behaviors that manifest when organizational hindrance stressors are high are beyond the scope of this newsletter, but these things point to another important truth:

Enterprises are ecosystems. And ecosystem rules apply. Every factor in an ecosystem depends on every other factor, either directly or indirectly.

What this means is that any stress—healthy or unhealthy—that exists is living in and shaping our organization, our culture. At EWING, we don’t like the word “culture.” It implies some giant, amorphous, immovable force that’s unchangeable. And because of this mental construct, leaders often shy away from trying to influence culture (or we do it ineffectively.) We think the activity seems ungraspable (what do we do - exactly?) daunting, and sure to fail.

But we know that cultures change. And we know that there are levers to change it. The starting point to getting our arms around the specific variables that can drive change is to reframe our thoughts. Specifically, let’s replace the word “culture” with the words “operating environment”—which implies a discrete, tangible physical environment (1) and social environment (2), each of which is comprised of specific attributes that we can directly adjust.

Applying an Ecosystem Lens to High-Performance: A Case Study

You can take baby steps today—and every day—that will make a profound impact on your organization’s (1) social and (2) physical environment that, in turn, will directly impact the health of the larger organizational operating environment. ?

Let’s look at one company that is doing just that by influencing their organization’s social environment by living out fundamental beliefs each day.

McLaren Racing

WHAT:

Specific leadership beliefs at McLaren are driving tangible leadership behaviors that are directly influencing the organization’s SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT.

The healthy social environment is, in turn, positively influencing the larger operating environment that “contains” the workers and affects their daily behaviors, leading to high performance. ??

HOW:

Procedurally, it looks something like this:

(1)??? Core BELIEFS of McLaren’s leadership

(2)??? translate to specific (organizational / LEADERSHIP) BEHAVIORS

(3)??? that, in turn, lead to elevated workforce / WORKER BEHAVIORS

(4)??? that result in outstanding ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE / OUTCOMES.

What are a few of these core beliefs*? ???

McLaren Belief #1 - Culture is something that has to come from the top. Developing high-performing teams is not the preserve of HR—it’s driven by the CEO and executive team. HR is a key contributor.

McLaren Belief #2 - The effort and attention that’s paid to the welfare of its driving stars should also be provided to McLaren’s wider workforce.

McLaren Belief #3 - In creating a high-performance culture ‘little details’ make a difference.

*to be clear, these core beliefs are lived beliefs—not stated beliefs that often appear in our strategic plans and mission-vision-values (MVV) work but fail to come to life in day-to-day behaviors.

Beliefs Drive Behaviors which, in turn, Drives Outcomes

Let’s unpack a couple of these belief => behavior => outcomes at McLaren:

Belief - LITTLE DETAILS MATTER

Think about the last time you felt valued. Why was that so? It was because someone understood your needs/wants, and thoughtfully delivered against them. Without you having to holler, or even ask. They just knew. And, importantly, they acted in a specific way that led to a specific outcome (you feeling valued.)

How do you behave when you feel valued? Your best.

Belief - EGALITARIANISM

There is another fundamental principle at work at McLaren that’s driving specific and positive (organizational / leadership) behaviors, and that is:

Human performance equals organizational performance.

McLaren leaders believe in the same (general) treatment for all.

We humans aren’t stupid. We know some efforts and some people deserve more at times. But we also know (if we’re truly honest with ourselves) that successes – our own and others’ – are never truly achieved independently – the “system” in which we operate (e.g., boundaries/span of control, interfaces/relationships, inputs/resources, outputs/results, processes/systems, controls/KPIs, feedback/rewards) props us up (or keeps us down) and contributes to our high (or low) performance.

When we believe that everyone is a valued contributor and treat everyone as if they are valued contributors (i.e., minimizing favoritism), that’s when we see extraordinary group performance, not simply extraordinary individual performance.

It’s an ecosystem thing.

A healthy “system” is resilient to change and stressors and provides benefits to its inhabitants. An unhealthy system struggles to function within acceptable limits and can lead to contamination – the gunky stuff that gives rise to poor performance and, yes, disruptive behaviors too.

Another nugget of gold to tease out from McLaren?

Success in sport (and business) is never linear, you have to be resilient as an organization and as individuals.

We can’t win all the time. But we can boost our odds of winning and win more consistently if we create an overarching environment that enables it. And that means proactively shaping the SOCIAL and PHYSICAL environments in which we work. ?

The REAL Job of a Leader

So, what does all this have to do with leadership?

Everything.

As leaders, we exert control over our organizational operating environments by exerting control over the social and physical environments that comprise it.

With respect to the physical environment, we make decisions about the material objects and stimuli that our workers encounter and interact with daily, as well as the arrangements of those objects. Whether our employees are working in the office or connecting remotely, we’re shaping their physical “space,” for example, via the equipment, tech, and tools we provide for getting work done and interacting with each other.

We also control our organization’s social environment which includes, for example, the organizational climate; support systems; social relationships and identity; norms, beliefs and values; and power dynamics. It also includes the people we hire and, importantly, the people we raise up as leaders—specifically, their characteristics and behaviors. Everyone in your organization is watching who rises to the top and is following their lead. Are they making you proud? ?

Here’s the potential big miss (and big opportunity):

• As leaders, our organization’s physical and social environments are largely under our control.
• The health of these environments drives the health of the larger operating environment in which our workers perform their duties each day.
• A healthy (unhealthy) operating environment leads to above par (or substandard) human performance.

With so much control in our hands, it’s hard to refute the notion that it is our role as leaders to create an environment and conditions under which our people can do their work well – i.e., to the best of their capabilities.

This is the REAL job of a leader.

We’re in a sustained period of hyper-change. Never has the innovator’s aphorism, “change or die” been truer than today. But organizationally, we’re still struggling to get change right—after decades of change management tools and best practices at our avail.

Why is this so?

Could it be that we’re missing the fundamental point? That people are, in fact, the power behind our successful transformations.

Enabling their success enables our own.

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Thanks to Raconteur for capturing McLaren’s leadership beliefs in the article, “McLaren’s Chief People Officer on Building High-Performance Teams.” ?Thanks to Russell Ackoff (1919 – 2009), for his work on purposeful systems and human behavior. And thanks to you for subscribing to our newsletter and giving us a platform to share our work and ideas.

#digitaltransformation #leadership #performance