Revolting Leadership

Whether you’re a royalist, republican, or somewhere in between, nobody can dispute that history was made today as the world saw the coronation of His Majesty #KingCharles III.

I enjoyed watching some of the #coronation today, and there’s no question that the UK does ‘pomp & ceremony’ better than just about anybody else on the planet.

What I enjoyed the most today was the sermon from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. The archbishop told King Charles “We crown a King to serve”, and spoke of how “Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, was anointed not to be served, but to serve . . . creating the unchangeable law that with the privilege of power comes the duty to serve” - adding “the weight of the task given you today is only bearable by the spirit of God, who gives us the strength to give our lives to others”.

The archbishop continued. . . “What is given today is for the gain of all. With the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the #King is given freely what no ruler can ever attain through will, or politics, or war, or tyranny: the Holy Spirit draws us to love in action”.?

I appreciate these words may not resonate immediately with people not of a religious persuasion, but that’s OK, because it's not the religious element of the sermon I was drawn to. . . the message was one of servant #leadership and #accountability, and the importance of recognising that being in a position of leadership and responsibility is a privilege, and it comes with a #duty to serve those you lead.

Most organisations in today’s globally connected economy operate cross-functionally through multi-team #systems working towards the superordinate goal, and if you want to create high-performing #teams (and therefore high-performing organisations), you must be willing to build a high-performing #culture.

In order to achieve this, #leaders must be willing to acknowledge that they don’t know everything, and don’t have all the answers. They must listen and build #trust in order to create a culture of commitment, #agility, and #adaptability.

This requires adherence to a number of key principles:

Common purpose: a shared understanding of where we are going, why we are going there, and how we are going to get there..

Shared consciousness: a consistent flow of relevant and useful information (actionable #intelligence) in order to maintain situational awareness of the operating environment, an understanding of what the other #teams in the system are trying to accomplish, and how each team is interconnected.

Empowered execution: decision-making must be pushed as far as possible to the experts in the organisation, enabling the people closest to the challenge to take rapid action.

By embedding these principles into the organisational culture, leaders can ensure their teams are able to rapidly adapt to changing conditions or disruptions to their operating environments.

In a complex world, where #change is inevitable, this approach is vital to ensure teams feel #empowered to make decisions, remain engaged, and perform well. In other words, it creates a culture of #psychologicalsafety.

However, achieving this requires a different approach to the outdated command-and-control leadership style still deployed by so many organisations whose processes are often barriers to #innovation and #problemsolving, and which so often fail to create environments in which people can grow and develop.

#servantleaders challenge conventional thinking and reframe their view of processes and behaviours through the lens of the organisation’s common purpose, always asking the question: “does this give us the best chance to accomplish our purpose?” . . . This reminds me of Frank Williams’ north star question when building his Williams F1 team: “will it make the car go faster?”.??

Through innovative deployment of human capital and disrupting the status quo in this way, we can build #highperformingteams that are positively engaged because they are empowered to make timely decisions based on #actionableinsights and expertise.

Further, teams operating in cultures of psychological safety, who feel their leaders are genuinely interested in their wellbeing and development (evidenced by their efforts to create a positive working environment) improve organisational focus, #productivity, and #performance.

By holding authority with gentleness and grace, as was emphasised during the King’s coronation today, we can create team’s full of diversity of thought that are empowered to solve wicked problems in creative ways.

And in a world full of wicked problems, what could be more important than this.?

#leadership #servantleadership #culture #teams #highperformance #service #duty #systemthinking #accountability #psychologicalsafety