As a senior leader, who are you?

As a senior leader, who are you?

Perhaps the most important question, any leader needs to answer over their working lifetime. The famous quote by Socrates “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom”, is more required than ever before. Yet in my extensive experience as a senior leadership Coach and facilitator, it remains an under-explored area for even the most senior of business leaders.

A cornerstone of becoming a more conscious and effective leader, is gaining high levels of self-awareness. The ability to do this on a regular basis, so that you are continually evolving and adapting yourself as a leader is where a lot of leaders fall short. To do this, a leader needs to become familiar and open to their psychological makeup. What motivates them, what are there core personal values and ethical framework, what beliefs do they hold about themselves and others? Other factors include their sense of purpose and desired impact, understanding their core strengths, what gives them energy and what drains it, their communication and work preferences. Importantly, this exploration must also include a sharp focus of the leader’s vulnerabilities, the shadow of their leadership style, what triggers it and what potentially unhelpful or even damaging behaviour they engage in when it occurs.

This ability for senior leaders to step back from the fray and gain a “helicopter” view of themselves, within their systemic context can be challenging for a number of reasons: –

1. The pressures of ever-increasing complexities of the modern-day role of leader, means that protecting time to engage in active reflection on themselves does not get the time or priority it deserves.
2. Asking for and receiving developmental feedback from a range of business stakeholders, is not always viewed as a necessity by senior leaders. This increases the potential for continuing to be unaware of “blind spots” and potential de-railers, in relation to their impact of others.
3. Some leadership styles, particularly those based on a “powerful charismatic” one, often translates into business stakeholders, particularly those on the senior leadership teams being afraid to challenge the behaviour, or potentially damaging habits of these leaders due to fear of recrimination, and endeavouring to protect their own ego and position. This in effect amounts to collusion with any toxic aspects of their leadership, as the senior leader remains, in effect untouchable.

How can senior Leaders explore their Leadership style, brand and impact?

The ability to gain this high level of self-awareness can be helped by the support of an external senior business mentor of suitably experienced leadership coach. A professional relationship in which, given the right chemistry and trust, the leader can explore all the key facets of their leadership identity brand and impact. They can be challenged, listened to at a deep level and given direct in the moment feedback that highlights where their leadership shadow is showing up or where they are overplaying their signature strengths. With courage, and commitment, the leader can develop levels of awareness and flex their habits to give them more psychological flexibility, ultimately giving them more choice in how they respond to trigger situations and events.

At emintell, we specialise in enabling senior leaders and their teams develop their conscious leadership. Our flagship programme for senior leaders, is focused on supporting the senior leader gain real clarity and insight into their personal leadership identity, brand, and impact.

Benefits of taking part in emintell’s Leadership Brand & Impact Leadership Coaching programme

Working exclusively with a master level leadership coach, with almost 20 years’ experience of executive and leadership coaching, combined with legal and business experience, as a leader by the end of the programme:

• You will know who you really are as leader, will have the deep knowledge and insight into your style and impact, your core values, purpose, and belief framework
• This deep knowledge will enable you hone and potentially reshape the core purpose and values of the business,
• You will develop more psychological flexibility in how you respond to certain situations and events, giving you ultimately more choice and a wider perspective.
• It will enable you take much clearer and well-informed decisions about the way forward for your business and your people, cognisant of your responsibilities towards a larger system

Look at a recent client impact case study, to see how we support our senior leader clients in this aspect of senior leadership development.

Leadership identity, Brand, and Impact Programme – Senior Leadership Teams

This programme can also be delivered to a senior leadership team, enabling the team re-gain insight and clarity into their core purpose, values, and behavioural patterns. This will lead to honest conversations about the where and how the team work very effectively whilst also addressing underlying dysfunctional patterns that are impeding the team from being even more cohesive, and purposeful.

Emintell will be hosting a series of webinars on the topic of senior leadership identity, brand, and impact in the Autumn. To keep informed of our developments in this invaluable aspect of Leadership development, connect with emintell, connect with our company LinkedIn page, and follow Elaine Akester MC EMCC on LinkedIn or Twitter