Leadership: are all your sub-personalities pulling together?
Published: 2011-04-11 There are 4 comments ... please add yours below
This Potshot was prompted by:
“Three steps to building a better top team” by Michiel Kruyt, Judy Malan & Rachel Tuffield
URL: https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Three_steps_to_building_a_better_top_team_2743
(Please note: pages linked here may require a subscription with the publisher to view the full page)
Each of us has a range of characteristics and skills struggling for control of our actions. This morning, my optimistic, creative self may be taking charge. But, following a couple of bad meetings, colleagues may notice that my angry, controlling aspect have taken over. It’s easy – even amusing – to describe but unpleasant for me (and those around me) if the shifts run beyond my recognition and control. For some leaders, such swings are mild and short-lived; for others, more extreme and durable. Using a theatrical metaphor, how many actors are there vying for parts in your leadership production? Do you understand their styles and motivations – and, more importantly, how to direct them? Here’s a way to consider.
The above article from the McKinsey Quarterly is not one of its best but provides a nice stepping-off point for our discussion. It focuses on improving top-team performance – to avoid “slow down, derailment or paralysis.” That’s exactly what each of us needs to do with the inner characters in our leadership space. So, with apologies, here is my adaptation of the authors’ three main pointers:
- Get the right aspects of yourself onto the stage – and the wrong ones off. Be conscious in managing your mindset and attitudes for the task in hand. Which of your mindsets, skills and attitudes will best help you and your team to define a new vision, craft strategies and make plans? Or, on another occasion, increase customer focus, drive bottom line, improve efficiency, lift benchmarks and enforce accountability. Different casts for different plays! As the authors say (in the teamwork context), this will require “conscious attention and courage”.
- Make sure your inner cast speaks only the script of the current play. As a leader, you need to focus on the areas of action where you add unique value. Doing things that only you can do. Don’t let some of your pushy bit players take over and waste time on ad-libs and irrelevant material. Don’t let the play (or your meetings) run out of control or dig into irrelevant detail.
- Address your internal dynamics and processes. Don’t let any actor or aspect forget their lines, go absent or start fighting with the others. As in a dysfunctional business or theatre company, our internal parts can play the silo game – arguing and pulling in different directions. Make sure the focus stays on the agreed play and how it needs to be worked.
Like me, you probably remember times when you led ineffectively: letting anger or disappointment get out of control or allowing enjoyment to undermine efficiency and performance. As with all things, it’s about finding the right balance. Getting our inner team working constructively, with time for intensity and output; and, time for celebration and taking a breather.
Like the actor-manager of a travelling theatre troupe, we each need to bundle our inner cast and props along the winding road of our career, staging this play here and that one there. If, like Hamlet, we’re smart in our choices and true to our profession, we’ll achieve our objectives. As he rightly recognised “the play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”
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Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership®
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