Leaders have to learn how to talk

Modern leaders have forgotten the most ancient leadership skill known to mankind. E-mail, Twitter, SMS text, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yammer, Flickr, Myspace, YouTube, mobi, microblogs, chat forums, RSS, Wikis, polls, podcasting, Meetup, widgets, and a plethora of completely remote channels are massacring the most effective form of human connection and leadership effectiveness – conversation!

And within our businesses, it is the sum of a thousand everyday conversations that creates the future.

Top leaders are defined by their leadership choices – the decisions they make.

Think of the leadership choices made by Luis Urzua, the shift foreman who last year was trapped 700 metres underground with 32 men for 69 days in the Chilean Copiapó mining accident.

Imagine the conversations in which he engaged with his trapped fellow miners when they realised they were incarcerated underground. He instilled courage and determination to men trapped in a living tomb, doomed to a terrifying fate. He instilled a philosophical acceptance of their fate so they could accept their situation and move on to embrace the essential tasks of survival. And as the world watched with bated breath, this unlikely hero became the example of true leadership deep underground, leading to one of the most spectacular rescue operations in modern mining history.

Contrast this with the leadership choices made by Tony Hayward, the former chief executive officer of BP, following the worst environmental disaster in the United States, during the Mexican Gulf oil spill in April 2010.

His catastrophic assumptions were that he did not need to have leadership conversations. He failed to listen to his advisers. He failed to have courageous conversations with his own people and the world.

Throughout the tragedy, he complained: “I want my life back.” In New Orleans, T-shirts showed oil-soaked pelicans with the words: “I’d like my life back too!”

The world watched as Hayward appeared in front of the Senate investigatory hearing. His shocking response to nearly every question was: “I have no information on that.”

In the first example, we see a leader who had the necessary leadership conversations to ensure they had the right information on which to base their leadership choices. This was information gained from a shared pool of knowledge, created through the power of conversation.

In the second example, we have the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world, who failed to have the courageous leadership conversations with people to whom he should have been speaking – with disastrous consequences.

The quality and clarity of information is vital. Equally important is the sharing of information: leaders need to supply information freely into the pool as well as be able to access it. A high degree of strategic dialogue is necessary.

Leaders are required to combine rational and emotional thinking ability with vital information gained from leadership conversations. Only when high-quality information is freely shared through the power of conversation, can truly meaningful leadership decisions be made.

There are three distinct drivers that determine human behaviour:

Evolutionary error

Our brains control a multitude of conscious and unconscious activities.

Three of the main conscious activities are retaining what we know, facilitating or impeding our thinking, and providing feedback through our feelings. This feedback is vital to our survival and has been ingrained over millions of the years of evolution. In fact, so ancient are our emotions that they serve the same purpose they did millions of years ago. The limbic region of the brain, specifically the amygdala, have remained unchanged in form and function for millions of years and continue to guide our reactions to many other things that modern-day life presents to us. Despite the exponentially increased cognitive power of the cerebral cortex, the amygdala continues to sway more influence in many situations.

The analogy of the elephant and rider has been used often, where the rider represents the rational thinking mind and the elephant represents the emotional or feeling mind. When that elephant decides it wants to go in a particular direction, as our emotions often do, there is little our rational mind can do to prevent this.

Lack of skills or practices and, specifically, conversational leadership competencies

Simply look at the current debacle resulting from the phone-tapping scandal at News of the World. It is evident from the enormous media coverage that neither Rupert Murdoch nor Rebecca Brooks were fully informed of what was really going on under their own noses. What leadership conversations were they not having? What vital information were they not being told? And what, in the absence of robust leadership conversations, has been the result? Today, more than ever, leaders need to talk!

Self-defeating mindset
(inter-theatre/skull stories)

Every human being has his or her own structure of interpretation. We all see the world through our own eyes and we all create our own skull stories or inner theatre of what we perceive we are experiencing. Because our skull stories are so personal to each of us, we live within our own, self-created reality.

That inner voice, which constantly chatters to us in an ongoing, often uninvited conversation, seldom builds us up or motivates us. Rather, it tends to be negative and destructive, leading to a self-defeating mindset that undermines our behaviour, performance and leadership choices.

Let us examine the dialogic practices of emotionally intelligent conversation. The model outlined below provides us with a framework to facilitate the flow of meaning, improve the information we extract and share and, ultimately, creates an environment for improved leadership choices.

Some people advance – they initiate ideas and offer direction;

Other people support – they complete what is said, help others clarify their thoughts, and support what is happening;

Still others attack – they challenge what is being said and question its validity;

And others observe – they actively notice what is going on and provide perspective on what is happening.

In a dialogic system, any person may take any of the four actions at any time. However, each of us has a preferred position. No role is better or worse than the other, and all are necessary for the system to function properly.

Ideally, leaders should recognise these different roles and act on this recognition to create a sequence of interactions that keep the conversation moving toward balance. In reality, many leaders get stuck in one of the four positions.

Leaders need to pay attention to the actions that are missing; they need to be mindful of providing the missing elements themselves.

There are four distinct practices that can enhance the quality of conversation, each requiring deliberate cultivation and development.

• Listening. One of the executives I was coaching recently said to me, “I have always prepared myself to speak. But I have never prepared myself to listen.” We take listening for granted, although it is actually very hard to do. To follow deeply without judgment so that we can fully understand how others understand, is something few us are able to master. Most of the time, people do not listen – they are preparing their response; they simply reload with their own opinion!

• Expanding. Respect is the practice that shifts the quality of our attacking. When we expand with respect, we attempt to gain more information in order to help us better understand the other person’s point of view. To respect is to listen for the coherence in their views, even when we find their words unacceptable. As leaders, we need to respect others’ opinions and to challenge them without evoking reaction through genuine inquiry. Too often, we allow emotions to get in the way of respect, particularly when we disagree with another person’s opinions or interpretation.

• Acknowledging. When we listen to someone speak, we face a critical leadership choice. On the one hand, we can resist the speaker’s point of view and try to get him/her to accept the right way to see things – our way of seeing things. Or we can learn to suspend our opinion and the certainty that lies behind it. By mindfully suspending our own preconceived opinions, and accepting that we can learn from the opinions of others, is one of the greatest gifts any leader can accept. The essence of honest conversation is that we as leaders should open our minds to the possibility that we are not right, and that another opinion may provide us with valuable information that may assist our leadership choices.

• Responding. To speak our true voice is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of dialogic leadership. Speaking our voice has to do with revealing what is true for each of us, regardless of all the other influences that may be brought to bear on us. Saying what is truly authentic takes courage; but when we speak our authentic voice, we set up a new order of things, open new possibilities for courageous leadership.

Conversational leadership demands that we cultivate these four dimensions in a balanced and dialogic manner to ensure a two-way flow of meaning and understanding. Imagine the impact if we were able to engage in meaningful and productive leadership conversations, if leaders were able to conduct more emotionally intelligent conversation.

Truly emotionally intelligent conversation occurs not merely in the head, but also from the heart. Here are the seven conversational steps for truly powerful leadership conversations:

Listen – Peter M. Senge, scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says: “To listen fully means to pay close attention to what is being said beneath the words. You listen not only to the music, but to the essence of the person speaking. You listen not only for what someone knows, but what he or she is.

“Ears operate at the speed of sound, which is far slower than the speed of light the eyes take in. Generative listening is the art of developing deeper silences in ourself, so we can slow our minds’ hearing to our ears’ natural speed, and hear beneath the words to their meaning.”

Conversation demands that we talk and listen – listen with the intention to understand, rather than to reload.

Simultaneously, engage with the heart. Interact as equal human beings. Engage with your eyes and ears and all your senses so that you are truly present.

The next important step, which is invariably omitted, is to acknowledge. Acknowledge what the other person is saying by verbally and non-verbally, showing that you are actively listening to what he/she is saying. Acknowledge that the other person has something valuable to contribute – vital information that can help us as leaders make better decisions.

Define exactly what you understand is being said and verify that your understanding is complete and accurate. Through gentle but focused questioning, expand to ensure that which is not being said is brought to the front.

Once you have completed the circuit, re-enter it and go around and around until, finally, every person is certain of what is in the other’s mind. Only then can we respond!

Finally, stay in the conversation; stay in the conversation for as long as it takes to surface the correct leadership choices.

Hold certainty lightly, knowing that the leader of tomorrow must be less certain and more willing to explore alternatives and opinions of others. Respect, appreciation and acceptance of each other’s opinions are the cornerstones of our humanity. In regaining that humanity, we not only regain our leadership soul, but the essence of what it is to be a truly authentic and effective leader.

As we stand at the crossroads of our leadership evolution, we face more critical choices than at any time in our history. Never before has the need for crucial dialogue been more important. If we are to move forward into a future of our own creation, leaders need to talk!

I would like to summarise by moving from left brain to right brain through the medium of poetry and sharing with you some verses that I composed about emotionally intelligent conversation:

Voice of the Quiet Leader

The boardroom surged in shrill debate,
the voices barked out loud;
amidst this noise none could relate –
a display far from proud.
Emotions churned like stormy sky;
progress far out of reach.
Their logic blown by passions high
like sand across a beach.
Yet as the dissent louder grew
one silent voice stayed quiet;
a leaders voice of reason true –
a lone star in the night.
She watched and listened to their words
and tried to understand.
It seemed they came from different worlds –
tongues from a foreign land.
At last she spoke, her tone was calm,
her eyes engaged direct;
and soothing, like a gentle balm
she gathered their respect.
“I’ve listened hard and listened deep,
your points are strong and bold –
but at this time we need to keep
a dialogic mold.”
“Permit me please to define clear
the issues now at stake,
to clarify what we hold dear
so choices we can make.”
The room went quiet and as she spoke
in conversational mode,
they stopped to hear and dropped the cloak
of intent to reload.
She started, asking questions first,
listening to each reply.
Absorbing like an unquenched thirst
for knowledge, running dry.
Acknowledging their different views,
encouraging debate,
she surfaced facts and helped them choose
a new way to relate.
Concerns were shared and meaning grew
by speaking from the heart,
building insights on what each knew
but before kept apart.
And as the pool of info filled
more choices soon came clear.
From fertile soil of minds new-tilled
true wisdom now appeared.
And one by one they realised
how much they still should know
and how through talking undisguised,
they really stood to grow.
The conversation now on track,
her purpose ratified,
the leader smiled and then stepped back
and observed, satisfied.

Michael Pryke
CEO of EQ Impact