The being and doing of leadership development
Interconnectedness as experience - weaving a web of coloured threads, together with Regenerative Stemmer gathering, September 2023, Copenhagen
Lots have been going on in my little shop over the past few months, including some interesting workshops:
I ran a workshop on Authentic leadership workshop with my coaching peer Christopher McCann for the Swedish Design Leadership Community
I just ran a Relationship intelligence for leaders and aspiring leaders at the Hatch conference in Berlin last week
I’m fully prepped for a workshop on Resilience for startup founders that is happening in Liverpool in November
Also, Creative Catalyst, my virtual leadership program, is now live with the beta cohort, and we’re halfway through it already! It’s been great to finally have it out there and start making a bigger positive impact; yay! 🎉🔥❤️
This program is so important because I see that there is not enough investment in leadership development in the creative industry. I might not have the numbers (it’s a topic worthy of investigation), but I’ve had enough coaching and peer conversations to know that it’s a general trend. People often get promoted to leadership roles with little training and support (my story as well) and are expected to learn on the job. Learning by doing is a principle I hold dearly, but, this job is not a continuation of the career ladder but an ENTIRELY new competence area.
We often think that developing new skills, competencies and getting new tools (horizontal development) will be enough. The reality is that leadership requires an entirely different internal CAPACITY. We need to be able to rally people around a shared purpose and vision, have difficult conversations, hold a diversity of voices and guide our teams and organisations towards new horizons. This all requires self-awareness, self-authority and self-love (vertical development).
Creative Catalyst covers both continuums, and I’d like to borrow the structure to describe them both from my coaching colleague Chris McCann.
Horizontal development is about DOING, action, and execution:
Developing and applying new skills and competencies
Learning new tools and frameworks - the how
Focused on practical external application
Vertical development is about BEING, self-awareness and mindset:
Learning to reflect, pause, open up the systemic perspective and respond
Following your own inner answers and developing trust in yourself
Focused on the come-from, internal STATE
I believe in learning by doing. Making things tangible for people is important to me. And - I can also tell you from personal experience, that there is no tool alone that will make that difficult conversation manageable. Imagine having to let someone go. Having a clear process is important, but being in a calm state, with clarity of intention and openness is absolutely critical. It can help you navigate the toughest situations with grace.
I like the metaphor of a cup as representing your capacity. Expanding the size of your cup will mean it can hold more.