Diving Into Conscious Leadership

What you need to know as a leader, and how you can accelerate your growth.

We are passionate about supporting leaders at ORCA. It is our mission to raise the consciousness of the leaders we work with in order to create more productive and effective organizations. We measure our success by the impact we have on the leaders we work with. The following videos discuss my own journey to conscious leadership after leaving Microsoft, the trends we are seeing for the future of leadership, and the struggles that leaders go through in their careers.

Paul's Journey to Conscious Leadership

Before we dive into the work we do, I want to share with you some of my leadership story. My journey started when I left Microsoft. I felt I was no longer giving or getting my best and decided it was time to figure out what was next. 

It was challenging to leave. When you work at an organization for a long time, you have structure. After I left, I felt lost. I was expecting people to reach out, to feel needed, and that’s not what happened. I had to go through a grieving process during this time.

What I learned is that you can’t have new beginnings until you have an ending. It’s important to celebrate this ending, and it’s okay to grieve. It’s okay to feel lost. Remember that you are not alone in this journey. If you can accept that the way you’re feeling is normal, you give yourself space to grow.

That’s why I developed our 4 A’s of Conscious Leadership Framework, to help you navigate through transitions and shift your mindset. This is more important than ever as the future of leadership continues to shift. 

The Future of Leadership

As a leader, it’s important to understand what’s going on in the workforce.

Employee’s expectations of their leaders are shifting, and the changes we saw during COVID only accelerated this shift. Younger workers are moving around to opportunities that are the best fit for them and want to find organizations that care about them and their growth. With the increase of remote work, people are now having to bring their whole selves to the workplace. We are in our houses and juggling it all. Employees want their managers and leaders to understand this.

As a leader, it’s important to think about these changes, and how you are leading. At ORCA we talk about a leader’s inner game and outer game. The inner game is composed of the thoughts and feelings you’re having, the stories you tell yourself that impact the way you lead. Your outer game is how this all manifests in the workplace and how you are executing on your leadership competencies. We’ve developed a holistic approach to Conscious Leadership, because we understand that it’s important for leaders to know about their inner game and outer game.

Leadership is a Journey

We love to help leaders scale to the next level but to do so we must understand and acknowledge that all leaders struggle. Presidents, CEO’s, COO’s, and Senior leaders at large organizations, like Microsoft, all go through difficult periods where they need support.

It’s the leaders who are most aware and who are willing to ask for help who get through the struggles more quickly.

Leadership is a journey. Asking for help is a great way to accelerate your own leadership journey, and is an important part of the process. Coaching is a great way to scale up your leadership and have support along the way.

We’d love to support you on your leadership journey.

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch or subscribe to our monthly newsletter to get all the latest updates and Conscious Leadership tips sent straight to your inbox.

The Great Turnover Tsunami: What is the manager’s role in the tidal wave of employee turnovers?

There are a lot of articles being written about the great turnover. Experts call it “The Great Turnover Tsunami,” a tidal wave of employee turnovers due to pandemic burnout, among other factors. Employees are taking the time to reassess what is important to them, and spoiler alert, it’s not going back to the office.

I’ve spent the last few weeks speaking with some of my clients who are considering leaving their current roles. When I asked them why, they mentioned two main reasons. 

  1. They want to create more balance in their lives.
  2. They do not feel valued or cared for by their managers. 

The consensus among these clients was that they felt their managers had not shown up for them when they were going through personal challenges during the pandemic and before. 

Compensation is no longer the only motivating factor

My clients expressed to me that they were all willing to sacrifice compensation in order to find a role and an environment where they felt more supported and valued. 

The Global Gallup Engagement survey states that only 34% of employees in the U.S. feel engaged.The pandemic has seen that number fluctuate even lower. There is room for improvement here, and it is up to managers and leaders to make these changes a reality. Leaders and managers need to create an environment where employees feel engaged and fully supported in their role. This is even more important during times of anxiety and uncertainty. 

Of the 12 Gallup survey questions, the most important one is the following: 

Does your supervisor or someone at work seem to care about you as a person? 

Research shows that employees leave leaders and managers. One of the key reasons is how their manager sees and values them. 

Employees want to feel heard. They want their manager to engage in empathetic and compassionate conversations. They want to know their managers care about them as a person.  

People are looking for more than just compensation and benefits. They want to work in an environment, and with a manager, that motivates and supports them so they can do their best work.

Conscious Leadership can bridge the gap between managers and employees.

Leaders don’t wish to create an unmotivating or unsupportive environment. Most leaders aren’t aware of how their own behaviors impact those around them. They are unknowingly (or knowingly) blind to how their actions affect others. Yet, it’s this lack of focus and awareness that contributes to an unsupportive work environment.

One of the reasons for this is that many leaders are not appropriately invested in the management part of their role. In many cases, companies don’t focus enough on investing or rewarding the people manager component of the leadership role. If leaders want to stop the Great Turnover Tsunami, they must invest time and energy into becoming aware of how they show up. This will help them become more conscious leaders and model behaviors like emotional intelligence and empathy that make an environment more supportive and motivating. 

As an executive coach, this is my passion and is what I have dedicated my career to. At ORCA, we’ve developed what I like to call the 4A’s of Conscious Leadership. These steps are an iterative process that help leaders become more aware and implement meaningful change in their organizations.

As leaders, it is our responsibility to reach out with compassion and empathy

When was the last time you had a truly empathetic conversation with an employee? A conversation where you ask about what is going well or not going well for them as a person and not their tasks. When have you shown that you really care about them as a person?

It’s time to have a caring conversation with your employees. If you don’t, you risk losing them. 

Consider the following seven steps to help you gain insight into what your teams are feeling and experiencing.  

7 steps to ignite caring conversations

  1. Set up an individual call or meeting with each employee with the goal of listening with empathy. Do not go into the call with recommendations or action items. This is about listening.
  2. Ask what is going on in their lives at this moment and how you can provide support. 
  3. Ask what transitions they are going through personally. Some people will be feeling a sense of grief from intense change or the impact of the pandemic and continued uncertainty.
  4. Ask what they need to feel empowered and trusted to take care of their work and schedules.
  5. Ask how you can create  the space for them to be innovative and creative. 
  6. Ask how you can help them move forward through uncertainty. 
  7. Create time to have engaging conversations with your employees during your one-on-one meetings or set-up a monthly check-in.
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I challenge you to put time on your calendar to check-in with each person on your team and see how they are really doing. You have the power to lessen the Great Turnover Tsunami and have a profound impact on your teams using compassion, empathy and conscious leadership. 

If you are struggling with how to navigate this time of turnover and uncertainty, please reach out to us.  Our coaches are trained to help you become a caring manager, especially during uncertain times. Also check out the resources in our previous articles. 

Adaptation: The fourth step in Conscious Leadership

Our environment is constantly changing, so we need to continually adapt​

As humans, we naturally resist change. It’s part of our instincts. If we are naturally built to resist change, how can we possibly learn to thrive in a world that is constantly changing? This is where adaptation comes in

What is Adaptation? ​

The definition of adaptation is “a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.” Our environment is always changing, so we need to learn how to continually adapt. This is a continuous process. As we become more aware, acknowledge where we’re at and take action, it is critical that we monitor our progress and make adjustments. Adaptation is noticing our progress and the environment around us and then reacting accordingly. 

This is important if we are to move from Conscious Competence (I know something, but I have to think about it as I do it)  to Unconscious Competence (I know something so well I don’t have to think about it.)

In our last article, we discussed needing to continuously seek feedback and monitor the outcome of our actions. This can be a complex process, which requires us to become more attentive to our verbal, behavioral and effective cues while we are relating to others, ourselves and our environment. This process can be seen as a series of experiments of learning and growth. 
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Case Study: Self-reflection and increased awareness is the key to adapting​

Liz was a coaching client who was working on a plan to be more aware of her triggered reactions when she felt people were not moving at the right pace. She was doing well until her boss asked her to take on some new projects. 

She wanted to take on the extra work, but also felt her stress level increase with the added pressure to deliver more. 

Instead of jumping directly into action, it was important for her to take some time for self-reflection and to diagnose her new situation. 
 
I encouraged her to become aware of what might be going on with this new change and to spend some time observing what was happening as a result. 

She worked through some of the exercises to help her reduce stress, such as taking time to exercise, setting boundaries around work and getting enough rest. She also reflected on how she could shift her perspective and see the situation differently.

Liz asked herself how she could shift some of the responsibilities of her team to get everything done instead of how she is personally going to take on new responsibilities.

She was able to think more clearly because of her increased awareness, reduced stress and with this new perspective she felt ready to take on the new responsibilities. Liz was adapting to the changes in her environment.

Adaptive leadership is about the change that enables the capacity for us to thrive.​

Ron Heifetz’s Adaptive Leadership model is all about experimenting, discovering new knowledge, and making numerous adjustments throughout.” Adaptive problems require individuals throughout an organization to continually make adjustments to their environments. Adaptive leaders are open minded, willing to self correct and examine challenges from new perspectives.

Our Conscious Leadership framework can support you in this process. This is not a linear journey and requires continual adaptation to the evolving environment and to recognize that our relationship to this environment is constantly changing. The process of moving from Awareness to Adaptation is not a straight line, but rather a spiral where we are continuously adapting to the world around us at each stage.

New environments and new dreams demand new strategies and abilities, and they require the leadership to mobilize them. My friend and colleague, Sesil Pir, said in her book Human Centered Leadership, “ A leader changes shape, color and quality day by day until, one day, they find people are drawn to them without any further effort. Here are 5 steps that can help guide you through this process. 

5 steps of effective adaptation

  1. Try different approaches and see what the impact is. Adaptation takes place through repeated awareness, acknowledgment and action through experimentation. 
  2. Take time to observe yourself. Be curious about what you feel and how you react  as the situation around you changes.
  3. Slow down. Remember that it takes repetition, trial and error to learn something new.
  4. Recognize that leadership is a continuously adaptive process. In order to become skilled, it requires continual learning and the knowing that the environment around you and your relationship with it will continuously change. This struggle is part of the leadership journey.
  5. Use the system you’re in to support your growth by developing an accountability circle of trusted advisors who can give you feedback. Ask the feedforward question, “what is one thing I can do that will make me more effective in working with you.” 
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By taking time to observe yourself and experiment with different approaches, you will start to better understand your relationship with your environment. Remind yourself that adaptation is a continuous process and that situations and environments are constantly changing. As you go through our Conscious Leadership Framework, you will not only gain insights, but you will also strengthen your ability to adapt to any situation or environment and become a more effective leader.

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Read more articles in our Conscious Leadership Series here.

Acknowledgement: The second step in Conscious Leadership

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Are you ready to take the leap and shift your mindset into one of a continual learner? 

Are you ready to accept thoughts and beliefs that are holding you back?

 


Moving from Awareness to Acknowledgement in the Conscious Leadership Framework is not a linear process.

The Four A’s of Conscious Leadership work together to deepen our understanding of how our experiences impact our perceptions and show up in the world. 

Awareness  is the shift from “I don’t know that I don’t know something” to “I know that I don’t know something,” thus creating an opportunity for choice to ACKNOWLEDGE.

 In Noel Burch’s the four stages of competence this is moving to conscious incompetence (click on the graphic to see more). This step may seem insignificant, but it is a crucial and often the most difficult part of the process. 

It requires  deep vulnerability as well as an acceptance of discomfort.

The Four Stages of Competency & ORCA's Four A's of Conscious Leadership

The key to success in Acknowledgment is shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

The first step in Acknowledgement is admitting that you don’t know everything, and you desire to learn more. 

We call this a growth mindset. 

A growth mindset embraces the challenge of learning and change. 

People who have a growth mindset know they don’t have all the answers and acknowledge they never will. 

They hold themselves with humility and know there’s always more to learn or what is called a beginner’s mind.

When we learn new skills and new ways of coping the stress and challenges of life, new possibilities arise.

We are able to see life from new angles and approach problems with more humility, experience and innovation. 

In his research with Richard Boyatzis, Daniel Goleman established the primary role of leadership as emotional in nature. He used the term “attunement” to intentionally establish the non-linear nature of applied emotional intelligence. 

Attunement aims to maintain the quality of relational health among members of a team or group. It is important for the leader to acknowledge and take ownership of how his/her mindset, expectations and emotional state is going to have an impact on the interactions even if there was nothing said. 

It is important for a leader to acknowledge this and take ownership of this. 

This pursuit of deeper understanding of the group requires the leader to understand how their mindset might impact their perspective of how the team functions.

A case study: a senior leader acknowledges and take ownership of his "internal operating system"

In the previous article written on Awareness, I spoke about my experience coaching a senior leader who learned to become aware of how his direct communication style was hindering his team’s productivity. 

The Leadership Circle Assessment was used to show him how his mindset or “internal operating system” was driving his leadership actions. After the assessment, it became clear that he needed to acknowledge and take ownership of his impact on the overall effectiveness of the team. 

Time and time again, I see many leaders wanting to dive straight into action, without truly accepting themselves and their actions. 

Therefore, I asked him to slow down, take a step back and reflect. Through this reflection period, he became more curious about his communication style, what situations triggered him and why he believed he had to be the go-to person to solve problems. 

He was then able to take ownership of his beliefs and acknowledge how he might be hindering his team’s productivity.

How to introduce Acknowledgement into your day through reflection and exploration

Moving from Awareness to Acknowledgement is not linear, but iterative in nature. 

We acknowledge through exploration, inquiry and ownership which then helps to increase our awareness. 

There are a few key ways I’ve learned to bring more Acknowledgment into my life.

Acknowledgment Tip #1

Acknowledge your strengths AND your weaknesses. It’s important to celebrate who we are holistically, the things we are proud of and the things we want to improve upon. Looking at one, and not the other, provides a skewed sense of self. Download our 7 Mindfulness Practices to bring more awareness and acknowledgement into your daily life.

Acknowledgment Tip #2

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Know that becoming aware and acknowledging your behaviors and characteristics can be difficult. What allows people to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable is the acknowledgment that the only thing we can guarantee is that change is inevitable.  By changing our relationship to the unknown and getting curious around any underlying story that may accompany the discomfort helps us become more comfortable.

Acknowledgment Tip #3

Practice self-compassion. Self compassion is the act of being kind toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or punishing ourselves with self-criticism. The 5 minute Self Compassion Break by Kristin Neff is a great tool to implement self-compassion daily. 

Acknowledgment Tip #4

Engage a coach or mentor to support you on your growth journey. Coaches are committed to your development personally and professionally and function as a mirror to reflect back your own perceptions, stories, strengths and weaknesses. They can support you in maximizing your  personal and professional potential. 

Discomfort is part of growth. Know that you are not alone in this journey.

Are you ready to Acknowledge and take ownership in pursuit of more effective leadership?

Our assessments can help you better understand how your mindset and behaviors are impacting your leadership.

Stay tuned for the next part of our Conscious Leadership series which covers the third step of the 4 A’s of Conscious Leadership: Action. ‘

If you want to keep up to date, join our newsletter for a monthly dose of conscious leadership.

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Engage your People with Caring Conversations

As I reflect on my previous role as a Microsoft Global HR leader. I have been wondering how I would have navigated a similar moment in history and what challenges I would have faced in that role. What support could I offer my teams as an HR leader and as a business leader as we enter an unprecedented period of uncertainty and upheaval?

Over 80% of the U.S. is being asked to stay at home and some countries, like Italy, are in 100% lock-down. I want to pay my respects and gratitude to people working in essential roles, especially the medical teams on the front lines of support for COVID-19 patients. 

 Since so many are working from home, I have received dozens of emails about virtual meetings and information on how to use technology to support people during crisis. A range of technologies help us communicate when we are physically distanced; however, we need to ensure that our people feel supported through genuine human connection. 

What conversations are you having that connect personally to each of your employees at this time?  How do you show you care?

We must reach out with compassion and empathy. How do you empathize and “step outside your emotions to view something from the perspective of the other person”? To help you gain a wider perspective on what your teams are feeling and experiencing, consider the following questions/tactics:  

  • Reach out to listen with empathy about what is going on in their lives at this moment and how can you provide support 
  •  Ask them what transitions are they going through personally and how can you support them through this. Some people will be feeling a sense of grief from intense change.  
  • Let them know we are all in this together and you don’t have all the answers  
  • Ensure they feel empowered and trusted to take care of their work and schedules 
  • Engage them in conversations, creating the space to come up with innovative ideas 
  • Ask how you can help them move forward through uncertainty 
  • Ask how you can set up a great virtual environment, and provide them with some best practices? 
  •  Be transparent about the work situation and what you know and don’t know 

In the past few weeks, I have read and spoke to a few leaders who are doing great things to support their people. Others have not yet taking action. Where do you stand?  

Some leaders are intentional in their support and some are innovative, offering virtual beer afternoons, coffee breaks online, mental health breaks, mindfulness classes, book clubs from home, reach-outs to help others in need, and many more great ideas. 

I would love to hear from you if you would like to share what are you doing to support your people and what innovative ideas are emerging in your world.    

To help you facilitate support for your teams, we offer a virtual workshop and webinar. 

“Leading in Times of Anxiety and Uncertainty Virtual Workshop”  

  • Helping my myself to help others:  Using Emotional Intelligence tools to understand what is happening to me in times of uncertainty.
  • Empathy and Conversations that build connections :  How I can understand what others are feeling and experiencing. How I can create conversations that build trust and strengthen relationships
  • Supporting my people through turbulent times:  Practical exercises and frameworks that I can use to support myself and my teams 

Contact us at info@orcahrsolutions.com