Calm amidst the storm. How do great leaders do it?

by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department

“In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”

— Mark Twain

Many of us who have visited the UK will laugh at the shock felt by Mark Twain in his description of Spring in the States when this happens almost everyday in the UK, let alone in Spring (why else would the English be so obsessed with discussing the weather all year?). But it feels to us as if for the past 3 years this type of crazy volatility has also covered our business lives.

We have had Covid, Supply Chain breaks, war, Inflation, higher interest rates, floods, power outages - you name it, we have had it all! It’s not for nothing that The World Bank and others are talking of our current global state being in the midst of a polycrisis! No month, week or even day is the same, and often within the day there are a hundred things that disturb our well thought-out plans and assumptions - to say nothing of our sleep habits!

Setting aside for one moment our assumptions, because as we all know - to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME, our plans were (generally) put together with more thought, structure and were based upon previous turnover, facts and figures. Yet they too seem being tossed up in the air.

What is going on? Is there anyway we can bring things back to earth and on a more even keel? Just how can we stop everything we tied down within our minds and on paper, from breaking free and flapping madly in the wind? And once in this state, how can we grab these flapping sails and tie them back down so our boat becomes more manageable and allows us to move to calmer waters?

The problem as the great philosopher John Cleese (he of Monty Python fame) says (here) is that “When people get anxious they want to control things, even if they don’t have the slightest idea of what they are doing.” and this is so true. We surround ourselves with intelligent, hard working, loyal and brilliant people. Yet when there is a sudden increase in volatility or a problem that hits us out of left field, we shout ‘All Hands On Deck’, roll up our sleeves, dive in, and think we are helping the issue by yelling orders, when often stepping back and allowing the manager or director concerned to solve it is by far the best solution.

Easy to say! But how do we get to that point where we feel comfortable in leaving such problems and fiery issues to others? Sometimes those who we employed maybe years ago, have watched them grow, but still we can’t help but feel they still need us to look over their shoulder as they go about their daily work (believe us, they don’t), or as they put out fires.

Have you noticed that when issues flare up, so too does the skill we have seen in top leaders, that skill where whilst everything and everyone is in a panic around them, they are calm, seeing with a clarity that evades all, deliberately managing people and solving the issue with hardly a hair out of place? How do they do it? Can this be trained into our people?

The answer is no. This cannot be trained. You cannot take your management into a classroom, sit them down and start writing on a blackboard: “This is how you remain calm, how you slow things down in your mind, this is how you see clearly through the dark.”

If this cannot be trained - what is the way to build such qualities in your management team?

Sadly you can’t just throw money at the problem - this also cannot be created in people simply by bringing in a consultant (no matter how much they charge), they cannot advise people how to do this.

Mentoring - well we might be getting closer, but that often involves too much listening, too much understanding and less challenging. And that is where the answer lies - in challenging and this is done through coaching.

This ‘skill’, although it is more of an ‘ability’ has to be coached through challenging the potential leaders (let’s call them ‘PL’). Coaching is not about transferring knowledge, but instead drawing out the potential in someone that is already there, but hidden. This is ‘drawing out’, so there will be some of us for whom this is something we shall never (in this lifetime at least) be able to master, luckily, coaching will quickly show you who has it (even if it is hidden well) and who is not ready, so time does not have to be wasted. As we shall see later, that does not mean that they are never able to, simply that they are not ready.

So for coaching, we look at actual problems, watch and challenge as the PL solve these as they work things out. At all stages the PL has to do the actual problem solving, the coach can only ask the right questions, to deeply challenge the leader’s thinking, sometimes using (although certainly not exclusively) the ‘5 Whys’, to first dig down to the root cause of the problem and then work back to find a solution. But they have to do it!

In the Leadership Development series by the global headhunting firm Heidrick and Struggles (‘H&S’, they are at the top end of the league - the group that Fortune 500 or FTSE 100 companies turn to when the need a serious hire - so they know a thing or two about Management), they are very serious about coaching and warn that as it is powerful tool (if done well) it is not for everyone (here):

“It is becoming increasingly challenging to find and retain good leaders…Coaching can be a critical way to help leaders develop the mindsets and behaviors they need to succeed…Indeed, we see many organizations over- or underinvesting in coaching or applying it to leaders and teams without clear standards or criteria for doing so. It’s no surprise, then, that many organizations are seeing less than satisfying results.”

They point out that there are three criteria to decide who to coach and also when to coach:

1. "the mindsets or behaviors leaders need to work on developing are in fact coachable”

2. “the leaders must themselves be at an inflection point”

3. “the leaders must have already demonstrated a capability to take in feedback and change.”

Don’t therefore simply dive into coaching your team - this will be a waste of their and your effort. This is not a ‘GO TEAM’ moment. This is a singular one as everyone is different and will see things from different angles. There also has to be this willingness from the PL and also the PL themselves must be at that ‘inflection point’, the point in their careers where they actually want to move up a gear, either to a new higher position, or that they are now in control of their brief, of their role, that they are wanting more from their role.

As H&S say: “Coaching…is a sustainable form of development; if the leader has already done the hard work of problem-solving in the coaching context, the next time an issue arises or they need to reach for a specific capability they’ve developed, they can find it independently.” And this is what we want - this independence and this “…include[s] building greater clarity in communication, making decisions either more rapidly or more deliberately, and balancing “hands-on versus hands-off” management…an enhanced set of tools.” 

This enhanced set of tools sounds exactly what we want in our management as the next storm clouds hit. If nothing else they will be calm, tie up the loose sails, guide the ship to calmer waters and allow you to work on your sleep habits.

Sounds like a great Return On Investment to us!

Stay safe.