I’m officially the parent of a teenager.
And it’s reminded me that leadership has inflection points.
Moments in time where what once worked brilliantly before won’t land in the same way any more.
I can’t parent a 13 year old the same way I parented a three year old.
This little adult sitting in front of me has changed. Some things got easier, a whole lot of new stuff is coming our way, and so much feels totally outside my realm of experience in life to date!
“What got me here won’t get me there” comes to mind.
What is needed from me as a parent has changed.
And what’s been on my mind is it’s one thing for me to reflect privately and think, “I have grown and need to evolve as a parent”.
It’s another thing entirely to ask my teenager: “What do you need from me now?”.
Not what I think is needed.
Not what worked before.
What do you need now?
Because teenagers, much like teams and organisations, are evolving and becoming more complex before our eyes - and our leadership needs to evolve with them.
I see leaders around me grappling with complex challenges in different contexts and on another scale.
Leading organisations facing into existential challenges - funding uncertainty, regulatory changes impacting operational delivery and sustainability, and shifting workforce needs and expectations to name a few.
Leading teams who might have grown in maturity or possibly regressed amidst turnover and change. Teams who are not who or what they were a few years ago (or maybe even a few months ago).
Leaders who are deeply reflective and attuned to all the moving parts impacting their organisations day-to-day.
Leaders who are disciplined in pausing to take stock of strategy and make course corrections to stay on track.
Leaders who care and think about who they want to be and how they want to show up.
But who can get so caught up in the noise, the firefighting and reacting that they miss the signs that something different is needed from them as a leader now.
When a leader’s operating context has shifted or the inflection point ahead of them is going to make sure it does, providing direction is no longer enough to steer teams and organisations. That’s when adaptive leadership comes into play (and I’d say that adaptive leadership is the status quo for most leaders these days).
As adaptive leadership experts, Heifetz, Grashow and Linsky declared, “adaptive leadership is specifically about change that enables the capacity to thrive”.
And so as I enter my next phase of parenting, just as leaders facing into adaptive challenges need to do, I have realised that providing direction isn’t enough.
As parents and leaders, we don’t need to have all the answers (thank goodness for that) - but we also don’t need to and shouldn’t try to figure it out alone.
We need to step beyond reflection on our own roles and lean into connection – with vulnerability and in a real and curious way.
We can’t assume we know what our children/teams need - we need to ask them.
This takes some courage, whether we’re talking teenagers or grown adult leaders in organisations. Because adaptive challenges are by nature tricky - no silver bullets, just a critical need to engage, experiment and learn together.
It calls for us to be deliberate about how we show up and the conversations we have if the process of adapting our leadership is going to be engaging, fit-for-purpose and enable our people and organisations to sustainably thrive.
In preparing to connect in conversation with our people, we need to think about not only what we need from them to inform our leadership, but how we want them to feel and what part we want/need them to play. It’s a two-way street.
In the spirit of leading deliberately, here are some questions you might choose to ask yourself and then your people.
First ask yourself:
What’s changed / changing and what do I need to understand about the impact of this on my people?
What context / direction do I need to share?
How do I need / want my people to feel?
What stories and / or genuine reflections can I share to build connection and engagement?
What do I need from my people to enable me in my role to support them in theirs? [And what do I need to be open to hearing about my leadership even if it feels confronting?]
What will I see / hear / feel if my people are engaged and enabled to play their part in change?
By answering these questions, you can get clear about the vision you have for your team - what do you need from them in terms of performance and impact in the context of your purpose, strategy and the current lay of the land? And what do you and they need to enable your time and energy to be directed to what best enables the outcomes you need to thrive going forward.
Importantly, you can be deliberate about how you engage in conversation to help your people feel valued and supported.
Starting with when and where you engage in conversation, what you share and what you ask.
Inspired by my reflections on entering the teen parenting years, together with my experience leading and partnering other leaders through adaptive challenges, here are a few questions you might use or adapt.
These questions are designed to get a ‘pulse check’, gauge understanding, build alignment, identify any obstacles, and figure out what you need from each other so you can play to your strengths and overcome challenges.
You might ask your people:
What questions do you have about where we are at, where we are heading and what this means for you?
What is it that you feel most energised by / uncertain / worried about?
Where do you see the biggest opportunity for you to contribute?
What might get in the way of you bringing your best?
What do you need (more of / less of) from me as your leader to enable you to play your part in this?
As I searched for a birthday card for my teen, I read one which said, “Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional”.
It made me laugh and also made me realise that change may just be the one constant in life, and at the heart of change is people. When it comes to leadership, it can’t be just about setting direction; if we want our teams and organisations to thrive then it also needs to be about building connection and enabling people to play their part.
So if you’ve been reflecting on what’s changing for you and your organisation, maybe it’s time to pause and get deliberate about connecting with your people - to have the conversations that matter to supporting you and them to bring their best?
In the spirit of With Verve; get real, get curious and get connected.
That’s what really matters to shaping leadership in service of people, organisations, purpose and impact.
