What Makes Great Leadership?
Work Culture Series - No. 1
My description of a good leader is; someone able to provide others with a sense of direction and clarity of purpose.
I’m Tamson - Insight Coach, Speaker and Trainer at Amara Life. I specialise in helping professionals cultivate the psychological insight and skills needed for good leadership.
In the first of a new series of blogs on Wellbeing and Workplace Culture, I talk about two qualities that contribute to really great leadership: Direction and Purpose.
Do you know where you’re heading?
Let’s start with a question. Say I walk into your organisation, liken it to a London bus and ask everyone on board where we’re heading… What would I hear? “Clapham!” shouted from the back and “Hackney!” from the front? Or one clear and united “Mayfair!?”
Time and time again in my work as a Leadership Coach I’ve seen how unclear messaging, inaccurate delegation and low rapport between leadership and team members leads to lower productivity and poor job satisfaction.
Neuroscience tells us that the prefrontal cortex - the executive thinking part located at the front of the brain - lights up and directs human thinking when we possess and share a sense of purpose, an understanding of the ‘Why’ of what we are engaged in.
Charged up with high blood flow, the prefrontal cortex is capable of greater accuracy, more balanced decision-making and an increased likelihood of completing tasks. But when blood flow is charged in the amygdala - the emotional processing centre and home to our survival instincts - our emotional reactions can hijack and compromise our accuracy and commitment to the task at hand.
Professor Steve Peters playfully captured these parts of the mind as the emotionally reactive ‘inner chimp’ and the executive thinking ‘human’ in his mind management book: ‘The Chimp Paradox’. As a Senior Psychological Mentor working with Professor Peters, I coached UK Leaders and teams in applying the principles of neuroscience to getting the best out of themselves and others.
“A good leader’s clarity about the direction the organisation is taking towards success, and how team and individual work activity is helping to get there, is basically neurologically soothing for team members’ minds.”
The most effective leaders are skilled in using messages and interactions to ‘calm the chimp’ and cultivate conditions for the higher functioning ‘human’ to re-emerge. Blood flows away from the amygdala and back into the prefrontal cortex, where productive thinking increases, leading to better performance and outcomes.
Asking the ‘Red Thread Question’
My first question to any leader is, “What do you want?”. As a Coach, it’s not uncommon to hear a leader complain about the lack of productivity and motivation in their team. Then, when I check in with the team, I regularly hear the confusion and a lack of clarity about Team Purpose; why they are doing the specific work activity and how it fits into the bigger picture.
A simple method I encourage leaders to adopt is the principle of a ‘Red Thread’. This is the purpose of the work activity, the very nature of what it is that the team has come together to create.
“If the team’s purpose is to build ‘the world’s fastest boat’, the Red Thread Question becomes: ‘What action or decision can we take to make the boat go faster?”
A leader in alignment with their ‘Red Thread’ is better able to make decisions and direct team effort towards a shared purpose. The team becomes energised, clear and productive. Members know where they are heading and how their work is impacting the vision. This avoids conflict and wasting time, energy and resources on activities that slow the boat down.
Staying Aligned with your Red Thread
So how can you regularly ensure that your team is aligned with the purpose of their work activity and with overall organisational direction?
Firstly; reflect on the purpose of your business or team’s work yourself. Secondly; bring it to your team and discuss it explicitly. If your business’s survival is based on client satisfaction, your Red Thread Question might be, ‘Will this decision or action contribute to greater client satisfaction?’ Make sure your team keeps returning to this question.
“Clarifying what your Red Thread is - and specifically your Red Thread Question - will help your team remain engaged and energised.”
This simple strategy helps your team make daily connections between their efforts at work and the impact they have on the bigger picture. This creates a greater sense of wellbeing and fulfilment, which in turn leads to greater productivity and achievement.
An Amara Life experience will better your leadership to create happier teams where business booms. For further support and guidance on your day-to-day leadership practice, get in touch: tamson@amaralife.com