The Five Principles that Propel Leaders Forward

What if leadership progression wasn't linear? What if you could enhance your skills with lateral movements, patience, and practice? We're about to unlock the secret dynamics of leadership growth that are seldom talked about. This episode presents an insightful exploration of leadership movement - both internal and external. We unravel why leaders must keep persevering, the benefits of lateral career moves, and how intuition and emotion could be your best compass.

We also venture into the world of patience and practice in leadership. Can stillness in fact propel leaders forward? Discover how consistent practice and fresh perspectives can help make you a better leader. We delve into the power of observation in recognizing each leader's unique journey and movement patterns. With reflection and understanding, every leader's growth can be nurtured to its full potential. Don't miss this opportunity to see leadership progression in a fresh light!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you ever noticed those leaders who always seem to be progressing or learning or something's always changing? Well, one of the things that we've learned is leaders know how to keep moving.

Speaker 1: 0:09

Now this may be an internal movement or an external movement.

Speaker 1: 0:12

It may be people that understand how to navigate conflict and deal with change, and they seem to be able to persevere no matter what the opportunity or the challenge is. Leaders keep moving by keeping pace with other people. There may be people on their team that they're keeping pace with or that they're learning or collaborating with. They also have a sense of patience. When you think about leaders moving, it's not always moving quickly or moving all the time. They could be patients with how things unfold. Leaders also keep moving by paying attention to what's happening in the surroundings that are around them. And leaders also are not afraid to keep moving by practicing practicing what works, practicing what they're growing in and practicing in how it is that they're navigating and understanding how their intuition and their emotion are helping them keep forward progress. What do leaders do? They keep moving. Leaders keep moving. Leaders are those that have a great degree of influence and effect on other people, and one thing leaders know how to do is they know how to keep moving. Now, this movement may be the external movement that all of us see, or could be an internal movement of paying attention to how their thoughts and their emotions and their intuition are guiding them. For leaders, keeping moving means they know how to persevere. There could be challenges or obstacles, or even opportunities that may take longer than expected, but leaders keep moving because they know how to persevere. Leaders also know how to pace. They know how to keep pace with other people who are teaching them. They may know how to keep pace with those that they're mentoring, but pacing and understanding timing is also really important.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Leaders keep moving by paying attention. They observe what's going on around them. They observe what's happening in the environment and business trends. Leaders keep moving. By sometimes pausing, it may look like they don't know what to do next, but they're actually reflecting and thinking into how it is that they're going to keep moving. And, most importantly, leaders keep moving because they know how to practice. They know how to practice what works well. They know how to practice what they're growing in. They know how to practice letting go and they know how to practice practicing. So what do leaders do? They keep moving.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Brian, I like this idea of how leaders. Something that leaders do is they always keep moving because they're growing. They're always making forward progress towards something, and that something could be a variety of different things, but the best leaders that we have worked with always have an ability to grow, to change, to move, to figure out how to get from A to B Before we get into our outline here. Is this something that is taught, or is this something that you're a great leader because you have this ability to do this, or you do this because a great leader.

Speaker 1: 3:08

One of the things I think that is taught is that forward progress, or movement as a leader, is often that movement up the corporate ladder or the movement to the next promotion. I was having a one-to-one conversation with someone last week and she was talking about how she has this really, really long career and her career was marked by all of these promotions that she has received through her 30 years of working with this one organization. And then she made this caveat oh, but there was one move I had to make that wasn't a progression towards my goal and it was a lateral move to learn a skill that I needed for the next move. And that's part of my point. I think we're taught that movement is toward the next promotion or towards the next opportunity. But what she did in our conversation was she was validating that lateral move, which I think many of us can understand.

Speaker 1: 4:03

But I also believe that there are those leaders that they move in place. What happens to the leaders when they have that job that's that perfect fit for them and their skill set, their character, their unique capacities that they have, that places theirs and they don't really move anywhere else, but they're persevering in place. Their movement happens by how it is that they're shaping and influencing the world and then the people around them. That's just as much of a movement that I think maybe isn't taught as much as the movement towards the next thing. Because you think about it, nathan, there are so many leadership programs, leadership investment programs or development programs within companies that are trying to mature up or identify the next level of leader and kind of move them up the chain, nathan Jones. But how often do we spend time really focusing on what it means to be in place and to teach people that great Dexterity of movement that can happen just around you?

Speaker 2: 5:04

That's interesting because I think a lot of times there is the sense that if you're not moving forward, you're moving backwards. Have you heard right something like that before? And what I hear you saying is that you've got to work on Some of the the lateral, the side-to-side Skills or abilities before you can move forward. I'm thinking of like right now. You and I are both runners, we both had recent races and right now I'm kind of stuck in this place where I have to work on some non-running, specific things to get me better as a runner. And I'm also reminded of, probably ten years ago now, my wife took more or less a lateral move For a few years, because then it was like if you want to go forward first you have to go laterally, gain that experience and Then move forward and I think what the challenge of those things this gets into our five P's here is that you and I might be both wired the same way of like.

Speaker 2: 6:01

I don't want to do that. I want to just keep charging forward. I don't want to have time to work on my hip mobility and you know things like this in order to run faster. Oh, I don't want to take this job Doing this other thing before I get promoted into a, you know, senior leader role. So what are what does this look like? What are the ways that a person can keep moving, both laterally or Front and back? You've got five P's here. I'm gonna read them and then we can go back and talk about them perseverance, pacing, patience, which is the one that I struggle with the most in most areas of my life, paying attention or pausing and then practicing.

Speaker 2: 6:38

So let's start with the first one Perseverance. This is the keep going part.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Talk more about that leaders know how to keep going. They know, maybe, what their strength or what their in endurance is as a leader. They understand that there is a need to progress, but the point with perseverance is it isn't always toward the next thing, it's also paying attention to what's happening right now. I think that there are obstacles and opportunities, there are personalities and problems that are around us. I think part of our perseverance is being responsible for what's around us as the next step and not looking too far down the road. So what I'm encouraging people to do is to persevere and Endure just what the next steps are towards something, without necessarily focusing on what's really down the road, because sometimes we can lose track.

Speaker 1: 7:29

We can lose our attention on what's around us, those Opportunities and lessons that are here for us to learn, for whatever is after that, and sometimes you, we want to skip over those present Opportunities and we don't persevere through that. We kind of want to skirt around it or skip over it to get to what's next. That just reminds you of an opportunity I had last week. I was coaching a CEO of a company here and he tended to be bumping up against the same thing over and over again and then he had this way of Explaining what was happening and then kind of stopping, and my observation was you know, it seems like this opportunity keeps going back to you because that's what you need to persevere through, like that's what is being asked of you right now, and when you explain it in this certain way, you stop yourself from persevering or from progressing.

Speaker 1: 8:18

So my point is let's pay attention to what's around us, let's pay attention to what it means to be in place and to still be in movement with what is the next step, as that Opportunity for our growth, that's right now.

Speaker 2: 8:31

That reminds me and this flows into the second one, which is pacing. And if you're not a runner I apologize for using so many running analogies, but when you're pacing in a race, if you're not paying attention to what's around you and you try to run the hill going up at the same pace, you are just running a hill going down. You're gonna Really burn yourself out and not be able to persevere towards the end. So the second P here is this idea of Pacing and that's that awareness of what's around you, the people that changes the environment, the market forces, the business trends, what has been and was talk a little bit more about how pacing is important to a leader's ability to move forward.

Speaker 1: 9:11

Now, just to remind us, I'm speaking to leaders right now. As a leader, there is the opportunity to pace ourselves to what is happening in the business trends, the markets, what's changing in our industry. There is almost this requisite need for us to keep part of our mind on that and to keep our leadership pacing with what's happening within the organization that we have to pay attention to as a leader. There's this other side of pacing that I want us to pay attention to is that is be aware of how your team is pacing off of you or is trying to pace you. That's more about your surroundings, more about the people that are around you. There may be some people that are tucked in right behind you. They're the people that really understand your vision, your clarity. You connect with them well and there's no problem there.

Speaker 1: 9:57

There may be some people who are maybe pacing out to the side. They're creating a different perspective. That's helpful, but what about those people that are maybe falling behind or those that may need a little bit more clarity or communication? They may need a little bit of compassion from you as a leader, just to catch up and to keep pace with you. And also, leader, who is it on your team that you're pacing off of. There may be somebody who has something that they are offering in this moment that you could benefit from, just kind of maybe leaning back and like stepping off the gas for a second and pacing off of them because it's their moment. So pacing is really multi-dimensional, but it does involve that external attention to what's happening in the marketplace and the internal attention to what's happening around you and, nathan, like you were hinting what's going on in you. There may be just a time for you to need to slow down and there may be a time where you feel great and it's time to really pick up the pace.

Speaker 2: 10:56

Well, that leads right into the third one here, and that's patience something that I struggle with.

Speaker 2: 10:59

I want to do things now. I want to strike while the iron is hot, and what I hear you saying is the best leaders who keep moving sometimes forward momentum is you have to be patient to maybe not make forward momentum or slow down, or again, these are all kind of tied together. But you talk about being patient with yourself, with others, with the process. I think that's what I have the most difficulty with and then change in conflict. So why is patience important in this?

Speaker 1: 11:26

Well, patience is important because I really believe that leaders are often being asked to either change what's happening within their teams or they're being asked to change themselves. They're being asked to meet goals or OKRs or whatever the organization has in place for their quarterly goals, and patience really isn't part of the conversation, because everything is about meeting the deadline and accelerating. Now, I'm not saying anything about that, because that also can help with perseverance and our pacing, but with patience, this is what I'm really talking about is patience with the process, is truly understanding what needs to happen, and being patient with the building blocks being put in the place or the folds that are being made to create what it is that you're trying to make. Be aware of the forces you can control and those that you cannot. But the two points I really want to leave people with on this patient's piece is being patient with yourself and being patient with other people.

Speaker 1: 12:29

I think the biggest challenge is being patient with oneself, yet the greatest pressure point is being patient with others, and we oftentimes, as we have talked about on this podcast, there's a direct correlation between one's capacity to be patient with themselves and their capacity to be patient with others. So my request to leaders is how are you paying attention to the practice of patience for yourself, so many pieces, giving yourself that sense of kindness and acceptance that it's okay to slow down? It may be okay to listen to a practice, could be okay to read a book, it could be okay to even watch or do something on social media, just to kind of get your mind off of something, to rejuvenate yourself, to then step back in. So patience can be, you know, two to 10 minutes during the middle of the day, and it also could be taking on the patient.

Speaker 2: 13:24

You've already mentioned this, but the fifth one is paying attention or the fourth one would number you on one, two, three, four Paying attention or pausing, and what? You just said there. I think is worth repeating, because it's the idea of how do you pause and reflect, how do you listen, how do you assess what's happening? I was just reading something today about how critical it is for leaders to.

Speaker 2: 13:45

You know this is a way overused analogy, but you know, put your own oxygen mask on first, and too often leaders are just so bad at that paying attention Like if you want to continue to move forward and you're not paying attention to what your body needs, you're just going to fall and you're just going to move backwards.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Yes, nathan, that's that is exactly the point.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Paying attention is really important, and I know so many great leaders and they're really, really good at paying attention.

Speaker 1: 14:14

They may not be paying attention to more than two or three things, but they know how to pay attention, and that's the reveal that I try to help leaders with is to help them understand how acutely aware they are to how they pay attention to certain entities and to demonstrate to them that they have the capacity to pay attention that may be asking them to, you know, open the aperture or change their perspective by one or two degrees on each side and, gently, you know, opening their awareness to how they can pay attention to other things that are around them.

Speaker 1: 14:47

There is so much that we do in our practices with teams that is intentionally inviting them to pay attention in ways that they don't often practice whether it's listening to someone else tell a story or reading through some material and doing some type of interaction with it to intentional breaks that last longer than five minutes often can go into 10 minutes, because we want to foster conversation to different teaching styles. We're asking people to pay attention and to exercise those muscles in new ways so that they can be more aware of what they need to pay attention to so that they can ultimately pause and give themselves permission to pause and take breaks to listen to others, to grow and to develop and, like you said, nathan, to read or to exercise or to do something that just gives a person more life. Because leaders, they keep moving, and part of this moving is in how they're paying attention, because they're moving their attention from one thing to another.

Speaker 2: 15:50

Last P word is practice, and I think I should note that this isn't, these aren't steps correct Like this, isn't like. First you do have perseverance, then you focus on pacing, then you have patience. These are all interwoven interconnected.

Speaker 2: 16:05

Yeah, these are. These are things in order to keep moving. A leader has to do these and obviously this isn't an exhaustive list here, but this idea of practicing could almost be sub points to each one of these things. So how are we practicing perseverance? How are we practicing pacing and patience and paying attention? You know the 10,000 hour rule or whatever.

Speaker 2: 16:28

When you break that down, I forget how many minutes like per day, but the idea is to move forward, to get better at anything. It's just this constant practice of these little moments, these daily habits, to get to where you want to go. And I think too often leaders they get impatient and they don't want to practice, they just want to be there. They're not okay with making those mistakes. They're not okay with, like, learning a new piece on the piano. It's like I just want to sit down and do it. It's like, well, it's going to take six weeks, 15 minutes a day, and then you can get to it. Why is this one? I think it's obvious. I know why this one is in there. Talk a little bit more about what you intended around this idea of practicing in order to move forward.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Well, here's what I mean in this conversation concerning leaders keep moving In the example that leaders keep moving. This idea of practice means this we won't always get it right, we won't always be done, we won't always arrive. There will be another invitation for a new iteration.

Speaker 2: 17:36

Oh I like that. I like that.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Brian, another invitation for a new iteration and practice is honing in the skills. It's also learning something new. And the practice that you're mentioning, nathan, it's the ongoing repetition, it's the repeated practices of skills, it's the objective observation from someone on the outside. It's developing and honing in on expertise. But what leaders understand, especially leaders who keep moving, they understand that there's always something else coming. There's always something else to practice towards. There's also part of a practice of letting go, a practice of leaving behind, a practice of gratitude, a practice of being thankful for what was so that we can make room for receiving whatever it is that we're practicing anew.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Practice we've done podcasts on just practice. I think that there's something important here that practice keeps a leader open. Practice keeps a leader developing. Practice gives a leader the chance to listen to outside voices and gives leaders the chance to become better better at who they are as a person, how they're listening with compassion towards other people, how it is they're leading and influencing others Leaders. They keep moving and they do so by maintaining a consistent practice.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Well, Brian, thank you very much. Any final thoughts on this idea of leaders moving forward?

Speaker 1: 19:04

There's no one way. Every leader it looks different, it means something different, and by paying attention to how we move, we'll begin to also be able to pay better attention to how others move and we can nurture and develop and sustain them as leaders as they learn how to move.