Leadership Development: The Dance of Connecting Sky to the Roots
How and what is the dance of connecting the sky to the roots in the organizational context? And more importantly, what role does it play in leadership development? Before we dive into the topic, let’s understand the broad framework of this “dance”.
As a leadership development program goes, this dance has a smooth flow. Designed specifically to help leaders be part of a collective transformation process, this leadership drill has five steps:
- Step in
- Step up
- Step back
- Step less
- Step out
This five-step movement that can bring transformational change in an organization is a part of my business coaching. It also happens to be one of my favorite ways of coaching when it comes to leadership development. Where and how I adopted this method is an interesting story.
Going From Training to Business Coaching
As an established corporate trainer between 2003 and 2013, I used to conduct training programs for various companies. The nature of my training was motivational and often, the field staff would talk to me about how they would “feel stuck” at work.
While I always offered some learning perspectives, I couldn’t make their jobs better. In the hopes of solving some of their issues, I proposed to also train managers in organizations. It turned out that the managers, too, were facing a similar challenge; they were also feeling stuck in many situations, and my workshops could not address their issues.
I decided to move to business coaching after I experienced these limitations as a corporate trainer.
There were, of course, challenges in making this shift. I had to align some of my psychotherapy skills to organizational perspectives. Parallely, I also had to learn to let go of the corporate training perspective to evolve as a business coach. I went through several stages of unlearning and relearning. Fortunately, I was not alone in this journey. I found a mentor in Dr Bernd Schmid, a pioneer of business coaching and founder of ISB, Germany.
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The Process of Business Coaching
There are two major challenges to design and executing business coaching and effect leadership development in organizations.
- First, ensure the top leadership is open to learning alongside and in the presence of mid- and junior-level staff
- Second, ensure the staff members feel safe enough to be able to speak openly in the presence of top leadership
Leadership Development in Business Coaching: A Real-World Example
One of my initial business coaching endeavors about 12 years ago comes to mind. I had a four-hour-long conversation with a VP of the organization’s agriculture team, who had engaged me as a business coach. I suggested collective coaching for the VP, the middle management, and the field staff. This way, they could collectively address issues faced by the staff and work out how to make their jobs enjoyable. The VP was skeptical. The team was large, and if a VP had to sit through all the sessions, he would not have time for macro strategies. Furthermore, he was worried about how such an initiative would be perceived by the field staff.
As a business coach, I don’t see the leadership separate from junior members because they depend on each other. Therefore, a well-established connection is a must between the top and bottom tiers for the system to function effectively. This connection is necessary to address the theme of “passing the buck”, which was happening within the executing chain.
I took the VP’s concerns into consideration and proposed we do a prototype of business coaching with just two team leaders and their teams in his presence. The VP was finally persuaded to agree to the trial session. It was one of my first initiatives in coaching the entire team along with the leadership.
Teamwork at Play
On the day of the session, we had the VP, two team leaders, their four middle-level members and eight field staffers. We began by focusing on the following: “What happens within the team that they feel appreciative of? And what repeatedly happens that drains the team of its energy?”
In such a leadership exercise scenario, many organizations ask for pain points. However, I don’t go in this direction because there could be some random issues that may have happened only once but could have caused pain for the team. The key focus was on the issues that happen repeatedly and affect productive working time.
First, focusing on the points of appreciation ensured the team began on a positive note. This, in turn, could motivate them to address the repeated issues. We listed the difficulties faced by the staff at the ground level. I was not worried about these issues because the person who has the power and designation to influence change was part of the process. The first session was an eye-opener for all of us and led to some surprise resolutions. The VP, too, sensed the success of such a process and was fully committed to it.
Subsequently, the VP was part of more than 30 business coaching sessions spread over a year. We identified many possibilities, and implemented changes and sustained efforts for the whole team to experience a transformation. To further the agenda of team development, the VP proposed a raise. The team built a sufficient case study to back their need for a salary increase, including reducing attrition and motivating field-level staff. The raise was effected and the benefit reached more than 300 staff members. This was a deeply satisfying business coaching experience where “passing the buck” transformed into “passing the baton”.
The Evolution of the Five-Step Dance in Leadership Development
However, every leadership development program does not always end positively. Not all leaders are open to being a part of such an initiative.
In a recent coaching session, we studied a situation facing the MD of an organization. His issues were consistent wastage of material and high customer rejection of processed goods due to negligence during production. The organization decided to tackle this by hiring a quality control team. However, the wastage still continued. As a next step, they got an audit team to scrutinize the quality team. They developed stringent norms for the quality control team to follow to pass the product for delivery. This resulted in fewer customer rejections, but the wastage continued to stay high because of the stringent norms. Then the organization brought an external consulting firm to correct the issues at the production line.
The running theme through all their corrective measures was: “We will set the standards, and you will follow. If you fail, we will set even more stringent standards”. Such a top-driven approach was inviting pushback for the executive staff. To break this pattern, we proposed a bottom-up approach that would be supported by the leaders at the top. We suggested a model where the operations team at the floor should take the lead and senior leadership with good technical expertise would mentor them.
However, the leaders, including the MD, were hesitant with the idea of collective coaching. We addressed such leadership hesitation and assured the top leaders that being a part of such leadership chain coaching was not a trap. They could exit at a particular point. This is where I evolved the five-step process. Let’s take a closer look at what each step of such leadership development in business coaching entails.
- Step in
The leader becomes part of the team which could impact organizational growth. At this point, everyone involved agrees that there are key changes crucial for organizational growth. These changes are a priority for all stakeholders.
- Step up
During the coaching sessions, the team dialogues in the presence of the coach about how to achieve organizational growth. The points that emerge include requirements of resources, reorganizing the structure, upskilling the team, and sharing decision-making rights. Everyone discusses these points openly in the safety provided in the coaching environment. The resources and power are redistributed within the team under the guidance and supervision of the leaders. The team thus gains strength, and the presence of the leader legitimizes all the changes. The leader can see the benefit of collective thinking, is able to address the fear of mistakes, and encourages safe experiments. The learnings from such experiments add potency to the team.
- Step Back
In the third stage, the leader becomes more of a witness than an active participant. In the leader’s presence, the team begins consolidating how to work on change initiatives and how to sustain such changes till it transform the organization.
- Step Less
This step is necessary so that the team can step forward. They take on more projects and start moving forward. Simultaneously, the leaders step in less and less.
- Step Out
Now, the team is ready to be on its own and can inspire other teams to develop such autonomy.
The Power of the Collective in Leadership Development
The leaders of the organization may be focused on creating a long-term vision and strategy, but it can all be in vain if they don’t know the strength of the executing team. When the top leader steps in and gains the support of the team, then the execution of Himalayan tasks that could potentially transform the organization becomes viable. This dance of leadership development also ensures a leader’s personal transformation. Going through this leadership exercise gives them the flexibility to adapt to various situations.
Once, a very senior leader who always chose to participate in leadership chain coaching told me, “I get the sense of the entire team in one day. Otherwise, it would be a time-consuming process to assess my team.”
Business coaching, and such a leadership drill as part of it, is not for individuals. It is for the entire team in the responsibility chain. It is, therefore, necessary for leaders to be a part of such team coaching. When all levels of leadership learn together and go through such a leadership development program together, the benefits are wide-ranging. They can make their organization touch the sky while making its roots stronger.
NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Emeritus.
