Client Partner at Korn Ferry | DEI Strategist, Leadership & Executive Coach | Founder, The Hybrid Leadership Institute.
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In austere times, CEOs, C-suite leaders and senior executives face the onslaught of multiple conflicting and ubiquitous priorities, such as responding to various stakeholders simultaneously, navigating global tensions and facing difficult, complex and ambiguous challenges consistently.
In my organization's (Korn Ferry's) recent study, CEOs for the Future, 86% of CEOs interviewed mentioned the increasing blurring of lines between business and society.
Over the past few weeks, the conversations I have been having with my clients, who are leaders across industries, have been about navigating the storm effectively.
The following are core foundational leadership concepts:
• Leadership is complicated, lonely, challenging and risky.
• When you choose to lead, you immediately invite criticism, scrutiny and ridicule.
• Those who will make a difference and transform their world must understand and accept these realities. These are the tradeoffs buried within leadership.
I was stuck at the airport a few weeks ago, hoping to catch an earlier flight back home from a weekend of Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball with my youngest son. As an executive coach, attending my son's games allows me to see other coaches' work. I relish observing how leaders are shaped and how coaches handle the pressures of managing teenagers toward a common goal. And in particular, I love how the coaches take the different parts of the game and their reactions to their players' decision-making abilities.
This tournament was special because it was in a well-designed NBA training facility with multiple courts, adequate lighting, effective passageways and an elevated seating area in its center.
The venue's balcony in the pavilion's center provided an expanded view of the facility. It changed the horizon and opened up additional points of view. I saw team plays developing and observed tendencies, patterns and trends. I could also see other salient factors, such as the referees, scorer tables, facility managers, medical teams, concessions stands and exit doors, that weren't as obvious while I was on the ground floor.
This experience reinforced one of adaptive leadership's guiding principles: getting onto the balcony. The authors of the book Adaptive Leadership, Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky, refer to "spending time on the balcony" to illustrate how leaders need to figuratively "step away" (head up to the balcony) in the midst of their workplace day-to-day. Getting on the balcony means stepping back from the action and observing the system, the patterns, the trends and the opportunities. In contrast, their concept of "getting on the dance floor" is about engaging and interacting with the people, the tasks and the work to be done.
I spend my days advising, coaching, developing and strategizing with leaders on increasing their effectiveness with proven research methods. One of the best ways is working on experimenting with stepping onto the balcony and getting on the dance floor, embracing the opportunity to observe from afar and engage up close.
Step 1. Observe: Ask yourself these three probing questions as you gather data without making any decisions.
• What am I seeing or hearing right now?
• What am I noticing?
• How does it make me feel?
Step 2. Synthesize: Ask yourself, what does the data mean? What is going on? What am I doing or not doing to cause it?
Step 3. Translate: This is where you get to understand what is truly happening. Share what you've seen and think could be the root causes with the intent to validate your assumptions or revise accordingly with better or additional insight.
Step 4. Act: This is the phase of intentional action, where you act decisively on what you've gathered. In this phase, you are focused on getting outcomes. Consider these questions: What will you do? When will you do it, and how will you hold yourself accountable for making an impact?
In conclusion, embracing the adaptive leadership practice of "spending time on the balcony" offers a transformative pathway for leaders to cultivate robustness, wisdom and effectiveness in their roles. By intentionally stepping back from the fray and gaining a broader perspective, leaders can transcend the immediate challenges and embrace a more holistic view of their organization, team or community. This elevated vantage point allows them to detect patterns, identify underlying dynamics, foresee potential obstacles and make more informed decisions. Leaders can build resilience, enhance their emotional intelligence and foster a more empathetic and inclusive leadership approach as they learn to navigate the delicate dance between engagement and detachment. Ultimately, dedicating time on the balcony becomes essential for self-improvement and a powerful strategy to catalyze positive change and drive meaningful progress in an ever-evolving world.
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