Turn the Trip around - How intent based leadership creates accountability and engagement

Leading a new system?

Recently my 17 year old daughter got her L’s. As a first time teacher, I lacked the skills to teach her. Frankly I was really nervous. I decided to first off all to get trained up and read the guide for parents/adults of learner drivers. I needed to understand what was expected of me, what mindset I needed to adopt, any new terms I needed to learn and be clear on the risks? I was exposing myself to as well as my daughter and also my car.?

New to leading an agile team

This is equivalent to attending an agile leadership course and reading books on agility. You are a novice, so learning the terms, procedures, attitudes, mindset and what is now expected of you and the risk associated with this new style of leadership are important. After all, you are responsible for your department, your budget and the wellbeing of your employees. It’s 10% of your learning journey.?

Learning to lead from others?

Sensing reading was not enough for me, I hired a driving instructor and asked to sit in the back of the car in one of her lessons. I decided I needed to be a learner learning about being a driving instructor. I wanted direct experience of the way it was done.?

This is the equivalent of hiring an agile coach or business leader that has experience in agility to work alongside you and learn from direct experience and observation. This is 20% of your learning journey.?

Managing a new system

Now the practical work and the journey begins - this is 70% of your lifelong learning journey. At first, my daughter needed to be told every step along the way what to do. When to break, when to stop, accelerate, not get too close to a car, keep on the correct side of the road.?

We drove slowly at about the speed of 20Km down a quiet industrial area for about 11 minutes, during which I provided step by step instructions. At the end both of us were sweat drenched nervous wrecks. Beginnings are hard, but a necessary step to get through.

This is the equivalent of management. Anyone that is new to processes and ways of working needs clear, timely and direct instructions, guidelines which provide a sense of safety whilst they find their feet.? This includes you as a manager, learning how to manage a new system of work and responding to feedback as to where you are needed, to provide more or less instructions and guidance. It’s also the time to learn from other experienced leaders in the field. It is hard going in the beginning and a necessary step.?

Adopting a beginners mindset

For those managers and leaders, who have tons of experience already, dropping into a novice mindset can be challenging. In order to take on new instructions, they not only need to drop and unlearn a lot of what they know, they also need to drop their ego of thinking they know better. Humility and curiosity is the way through it.?

Leading - the first steps

After my daughter completed her first lessons I felt prepared enough to sit in the passenger seat in “real traffic” as opposed to the Sunday afternoon industrial area drive. I am not sure who was more nervous, me or her (I am sure it was her). I asked her what type of leadership and guidance she needed from me. We formed an agreement on when and where I would interfere with instructions. I modelled her driving instructor and provided instructions and guidelines along the way. Things went well, so far.?

This is the seemingly golden age of leadership, the novice is still learning and leaders feel like they provide a sense of value. They have presence and influence. They are part of the day to day and oversight of what is happening.

Dealing with set-backs

As she was continuing with her lessons and building up experience, I was excited by her confidence, but I was also unsure what type of instructor I needed to be for her now.? We went on another drive together. It didn’t go so well.

I provided detailed instructions, only to be told to back off. When I pointed out instructions too early, I got told off for being too controlling and not letting her show me what she had learnt.?

Letting someone else make the decisions on where to go is challenging. The need for safety and avoiding risk is high and makes leaders fall back into management patterns. New leaders who are being told to let go and start trusting their people usually need to build up the internal landscape that is made for letting others fail, being ok with not being across all the details of every step. This means building up internal resilience.?

The result of managing too tightly in an emerging system of self organisation?

Guess what, my daughter did not want to drive with me for more than a month. Luckily I had direct experience of this kind of disengagement (because she told me and she's a teenager) and didn’t feel threatened, but slightly worried about her progress.?

If you are a leader, it’s not likely you will find out directly how your people are feeling after you decided to manage them instead of lead them. You may find engagement scores are down, absenteeism increases, or you hear a lot of frustrated voices through the grapevine or sometimes direct.? Your best option to avoid that is to have a regular forum where people can voice their opinion so you can get direct feedback.?

Intent Based Leadership?

For anyone who knows David Marquet - Turn the ship around, this is the part where things change.

After a particular positive driving lesson with her instructor, my daughter announced she was ready to drive in my car again.?

Before the drive I decided to shut the hell up and wait for her to make her own decisions. I also shared my intent with her that I desired her to be an independent driver and as long as she was driving well, I won’t interfere. This went up in my head like a lightbulb. I immediately thought of David Marquet’s Intent based leadership. For those of you new to this, intent based leadership is where the leader provides the intent and the employee leads themselves.

As we kept on driving I noticed that somehow it wasn't enough for me to trust her that she was making the right decisions in time. I gently voiced that and my daughter asked me whether she should tell me what she intends to do. This feedback loop and transparency enabled both of us to make a significant change in the right direction.

Turn the Trip Around

The trip turned around completely. I knew what decisions she was taking as she was telling me. Subsequently I built trust in her and her abilities and less and less needed to confirm her decisions. In turn, she was driving like a champion. There were still times where she needed my help, and when she did, she asked her for it and I provided advice.?

A few times I told her too early to stop, before she was able to voice her next step - hey I am only new to this, so I am bound to make mistakes.?

Leading self directed engaged people

For leaders new to leading self directed employees, this is the crucial time to unlearn control, drop any thought of knowing better and assuming superior knowledge and the corresponding ego and let the employee lead. What you bring is your intent, the outcome you are seeking. Leave the rest to the expert you hired to solve your problems.

?This doesn’t mean you can't fail at times, fall back into old patterns when feeling insecure. There is everything right and nothing wrong though with asking for what’s intended to happen, to step in and confirm or provide feedback towards a new direction.

As for me, my daughter is totally motivated and now wants to drive every day.?

What exactly is intent-based leadership? It is the ability to stop yourself from giving orders and working in an environment where you are responsible for everything! Create Leaders – NOT followers. Is this easy? Definitely not. Is this doable? Absolutely! Does it create an awesome culture where people can be great? — Yes!

To some extent, the capacity for great leadership is innate. However, learning how to be a more effective leader is within everyone’s grasp. Intent-Based Leadership works when you allow yourself to let go and give others the freedom to soar. Strong leaders treat people the way they want to be treated.

https://davidmarquet.com/leadership-keynote-speaker-david-marquet/

?About

Christiane is a systems coach, extended DISC consultant, facilitator, trainer and all round fun person sprinkled with directness and empathy.

She lives in Melbourne with her two daughters and her cats Lotte and Leo. She believes in creating a world where people connect to do meaningful work and where leadership, remote collaboration, coaching conversations wellbeing are paired with developing products that customers love and make the planet a little better everyday.