September 3, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode we delve into the topic of effective leadership with a special focus on self-awareness and curiosity.
Sanna Rissanen, founder of My Human Self and experienced Organisational Development professional, joins the podcast and navigates the intricate landscape of what it truly means to be an effective leader in today's complex world. She introduces the concept of the "inner game" and how understanding one's self and being curious is a critical capability for today's leaders to drive organisational success.
From the challenges of transitioning from technical expertise to people leadership, to the barriers that fear and vulnerability can create, this episode is packed with insights and practical advice. Whether you're an aspiring leader or an experienced manager, this conversation offers valuable takeaways to help you on your continuous journey of leadership development.
Links:
Sanna Rissanen and My Human Self
https://myhumanself.com.au/
Episode - Discover Your North Star: The Importance of Core Values
https://socialenterpriseau.podbean.com/e/discovering-your-north-star-the-importance-of-core-values
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Social Enterprise would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land
where this podcast will be recorded and pay respects to the elders past and present.
We also want to celebrate the ongoing culture, connections and the storytelling
practices that is very much part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders tradition.
(00:21):
Welcome to Social Enterprise.
Music.
(00:45):
Hello listeners I'm excited to be talking today about effective leadership which
is a very important topic especially a social enterprise in the podcast focused
on career development. I think we can be quite critical when it comes to what
we expect as the traits effective leaders should have.
(01:05):
The truth is the topic of traits and capability that is required to be an effective
leader is so vast that it can't be covered in one episode.
So today we're going to be focusing on the concept of leading the self and more
specifically around self-awareness when it comes to leadership development.
To delve into this topic further, today I'm joined by guest Sanna Rissanen,
(01:28):
who is a passionate organisational development professional and founder and
director of My Human Self,
which is a consultancy that provides human-centred leadership development,
organisational development and talent management solutions to clients.
She has recently released a leadership excellence blueprint,
which outlines the capabilities are required for effective leaders and introduced
(01:51):
me to this concept of the inner game, which broadly can be described as self-awareness
and self-understanding,
both of which are critical for effective leadership.
What I found particularly fascinating in this blueprint is the importance of
curiosity as a key capability needed for leaders to be effective,
which we will unpack further in today's episode.
(02:15):
So, Sanna, you've been in the leadership development space in the UK and Australia
across different companies and industries.
Why do you think it's important for organisations to invest in leadership development?
I think there are a number of reasons. I think leaders really play a key role in any organisation.
(02:36):
I mean, they lead and they look after the people. They're usually responsible
for strategy execution. execution, you know, usually they bring very strong
technical skills and knowledge and they obviously carry a lot of responsibility.
And I always like to say that I think a leader can make or break an individual,
a team or an organisation.
So developing leaders is absolutely paramount.
(03:00):
And I think if we think about it at a sort of more fundamental level,
people are the business, they are your business.
So you need engaged, motivated people if you want to have a strong business.
And in order to have engaged and motivated people, you need strong leaders who
are also engaged and motivated and really equipped to do their job.
(03:20):
So investing in leadership development is really crucial, I think,
for every organisation.
And if we think about, you know, people who are stepping into their first leadership
role, there are obviously new skills they need, new perspectives,
new ways of operating, and in my opinion, most importantly, new ways of understanding
(03:42):
themselves and others and the complex world and business that they're operating in.
So if we're not providing training and development for these new leaders.
They're unlikely to succeed.
And I think more generally, I think people are very complex and the world is very complex.
And if we want to understand and manage the complexity of the the people and
(04:04):
the world around us, I think we need to continuously develop and our leaders
need to continuously develop.
Yeah, absolutely. I definitely echo that, especially from a HR perspective.
I agree with you. Leaders can sometimes make or break an organisation and especially
when we look at things like employee engagement,
(04:24):
even employee relations, sometimes it's about that relationship between their
manager and their employee, which is quite topical.
But the other observation that I've made is that many people become leaders,
but they are more technical experts to begin with that eventually fall into
(04:45):
a people manager or leadership role.
And they're either not entirely motivated to make this shift into a people manager
role, or they're not given the tools to do so.
So that sort of development, as you were talking about earlier,
is this what you're seeing as well? And if so, why do you think that is?
(05:05):
Yeah, for sure. And I think the reason is fairly simple, potentially.
I think these technical experts have obviously done a great job.
They are the technical experts.
And so they're seen as high performers, which they have been.
They're also seen as high potentials and then automatically successes for the more senior roles.
(05:27):
And so therefore, they can promote it into people leadership roles because it's
the most obvious or perhaps even the only career pathway that's available.
And I think what most organisations haven't thought about or are not clear on
is what do we actually need our leaders to do?
You know, what skills do they need to have?
(05:48):
What should they be motivated by? And what kind of support do we need to offer them?
Because I think the transition from a technical expert to a people leader or
even any kind of higher level role is not easy because essentially you go from a sort of celebrated,
potentially very highly rewarded individual contributor to someone whose role
(06:11):
is now to look after and essentially serve a team.
And that is a monumental shift that I don't think is really honestly talked about.
You know, I think leadership is a position of responsibility and accountability.
And it's very different from that of a technical expert and an individual contributor.
(06:32):
And then, you know, I think you mentioned motivation there as well.
I mean, what a technical expert is motivated by can be very different from what
a leader gets to experience.
And so if you get promoted to a people leader role and all of a sudden all those
things that you love doing and you were very good at doing, then you're no longer part of your role.
(06:54):
Well, how much are you going to love that new job of yours?
You know, how motivated are you going to be when you're perhaps doing a whole
bunch of things on a day-to-day base that you don't like doing and you're not
motivated by doing and none of the things that you do love doing?
And you know leadership is hard so
it's not like your role has gotten easier in the
(07:14):
process either. I think many people end
up down this road because they have
a desire to progress which is understandable very normal and you know often
the only way to progress is by going into a people leader role like I said. I
do see though I'll say that there is some sort of a shift happening I think
(07:36):
in organisations and other career pathways,
they're becoming available and organisations are exploring what they look like,
which I think is fantastic.
And I think there's also, you know, I mentioned sort of honest communication around this.
I think there is a bit of a lack of communication about what leadership is,
(07:58):
some of the expectations around leadership,
what that actually looks like day to day, you know, the need to leave certain
tasks and ways of operating behind you.
So people are not perhaps also making decisions from the most informed place
when they accept these promotions.
And I think sort of maybe more philosophically, if we think about society at
(08:22):
large, I think society defines success in a career as a higher level role,
as a leadership role with a bigger, fancier title.
And I think we should start redefining what success looks like.
There's a saying that I absolutely love, that happiness is the most underrated
form of success, which I think we could all reflect on more because it's like, what makes me happy?
(08:46):
Is it really this job where I get a bigger title, maybe more money,
but where my role completely shifts to something that maybe I don't love that
much or is it something else?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've also observed as well is to your point
about sort of leadership put on a pedestal, meaning that it's a people leadership role.
(09:08):
And a lot of organisations don't have those structures in place where from a
career path in progression perspective.
They don't honour technical experts the same as a people leader.
So maybe there is a misconception that if I am a technical expert that wants
to progress their career, I need to take that leadership path.
(09:32):
So absolutely agree, agree with everything that you've said.
But yeah, I think the main thing, whether it is a technical expert,
for maybe leading from a professional technical standpoint or even in a leadership role.
One of the things that I was drawn to in your work is around the capability
(09:54):
of curiosity as a leadership skill.
That is curiosity of the business, the team, but most importantly themselves
and this concept of leading self and real self-reflection.
Can you help us understand that a little bit more? Yeah, so I think at a fundamental
level, if you don't understand yourself, why you are the way you are,
(10:20):
what your beliefs are, what your values are, how they drive your behaviour,
how you make meaning, how you make decisions, if you're not aware of these things
and how they support you or hinder you, how are you able to lead yourselves?
Because to be able to be a leader, you need to be able to lead yourself first.
(10:40):
And I think if you don't understand yourself and you can't lead yourself,
how are you going to understand and lead others?
How are you going to understand and lead a business?
I talk a lot about what makes leaders effective and the research around this topic.
And I think most people would say, if you ask that question,
(11:02):
it's how capable they are doing things like thinking strategically and making
decisions and building high-performing teams and giving feedback and having
difficult conversations and managing change and so forth.
There's a list of capabilities that we associate with leadership.
And I think this is also what most organisations invest in when it comes to
(11:25):
leadership development.
They focus really heavily on capability development and skill development in
a genuine effort to obviously help leaders deal with the increasing and complex
environment that we're all operating in.
Now, if you actually look at the most extensive research on what actually makes
leaders effective, yes, capability development is absolutely necessary,
(11:49):
but it is not adequate on its own.
So giving leaders more skills and building their capability doesn't actually
equal more effective leaders, which is quite interesting.
And what actually determines leaders' effectiveness is how well they understand
and manage themselves and the world around them.
(12:10):
And so this is often referred to as something called the inner game.
And inner game is essentially things like our level of self-awareness,
our emotional intelligence, our meaning-making systems, our values, our beliefs.
And research shows that how developed our inner game is, is actually what determines
how effective we are as a leader.
(12:32):
Now, in-game development is linked to the theory of adult development and stages
of adult development, which is perhaps a topic for another conversation.
But if we go back to your original question, you know, you asked like,
you know, why does leadership need to, leadership development needs to start
with the concept of leading self?
(12:53):
I think because it's the foundation and it's the most significant factor in
leadership effectiveness.
And also what's probably quite interesting is that research shows that in order
for our capabilities to develop and evolve, our inner game needs to develop at the same pace.
Now, I can tell you that that isn't happening at the moment,
(13:16):
which is having all sorts of impacts in organisations.
And it is likely one of the reasons why investments in leadership development,
don't lead to sustainable long-term changes.
But that is probably also a topic for another discussion. Interestingly,
research also has shown that as our inner game develops, so as the self-awareness
(13:37):
develops, automatically our capability develops as well, which I think is pretty fascinating.
So this is really where we should start at leading selves and understanding ourselves.
Yeah, I find that the concept of the the inner game fascinating.
And even if I sort of reflect on my own career and, you know,
I started leading people several years ago, and to be honest,
(14:00):
I sort of fell into that role.
But what I think about when I reflect on my progression in my career,
but also as I've progressed, I've taken on bigger teams across different geographies.
And I've always been curious. I think that's always been my style,
but it's always been outward looking.
So, being curious about the business I'm supporting, the people in my team, what motivates them.
(14:25):
But what's been lacking, and it's been a lot of work that I've been doing over
the last couple of years, is around looking inward.
So it's really interesting that you say that, you know, how important that is
for effective leadership.
And perhaps people underestimate that as well. Well, maybe they feel it's a
(14:45):
little bit self-indulgent as a leader to be thinking inward.
But I guess it's a little bit like the analogy of the oxygen mask when a plane's
going down, you put your oxygen mask on before you help others.
So I really like that concept and you highlighting how important it is and why
we need to sort of shift our thinking when it comes to leadership development
(15:09):
around self before looking outward.
Would yeah I love that you're on that journey as well I
think it's one of those
things it's a it's such a continuous journey as the world around us changes
technology changes it's it's not one of those things where you become a leader
(15:29):
and that's it and you've sort of hit hit that level it's a continuous learning
and you know we're learning new things all the time that shifts the way that
we adapt as well. So, yeah, really, really fascinating.
Yeah, love that. And I think there's also so much about ourselves that we don't
know that we are always discovering.
(15:50):
So, yeah, as you said, it is an ongoing journey. Yeah, absolutely.
So, I guess, as I sort of mentioned, sometimes people might feel that,
you know, leading self and looking inward might be a little bit self-indulgent.
Maybe it's a time issue.
People feel they don't just have the time to do that.
(16:10):
But do you think there are any other barriers that people might face when people
are thinking about being curious and more importantly about looking inward and
this concept of leading self?
Yeah, in terms of barriers to curiosity, I think I would say fear is the number one barrier.
(16:31):
And I think there's so many fears around it. Like there is a fear of looking
stupid. There's a fear of sounding stupid.
I think there's a fear of people thinking you should know something.
You should know the answers to why you're asking.
There's a fear of upsetting people if you're asking questions or wanting to
change things. You know, there's the discomfort.
The fear of being vulnerable is huge. You know, the fear of being judged,
(16:54):
the fear of being laughed at.
I think curiosity really exposes you and it requires so much confidence to be curious.
I do also think, though, that the more curious you are, the more confident you become.
So, you know, start small if you need to, but just start.
Because I think, you know, your curiosity is helping you to get to know yourself
(17:17):
more and to be your authentic self and be comfortable with that.
But also, you know, curiosity helps build other people's confidence and trust
in you because you're showing interest, genuine desire to know something or somebody better.
You're showing openness to change and being vulnerable and that builds trust.
(17:39):
Yeah, and I think definitely agree with that. You mentioned this concept of
fear and the fear of looking stupid, as you said, or being vulnerable.
I think that definitely is something because again, sort of putting the concept
of leadership and putting leadership on a pedestal.
I think the traditional understanding of leaders was that leaders understood
(18:05):
they were technical experts, very experienced.
So subordinates would sort of look up to them for the answers.
So with that sort of traditional mindset, set, I think leaders also think that
they need to have all the answers.
But what, you know, something like the pandemic showed us is that no one had
(18:25):
the answers in such an unprecedented time.
So it's about, you know, the leadership capability being somewhat different.
And I've worked with some leaders that are very good at being open and vulnerable.
And funnily enough, they gain respect and trust with their team by doing that
(18:47):
and being more open, which I've, you know, from afar and observing that,
it's been quite interesting to watch.
And I've also tried that myself, especially when I moved to a different industry,
because I couldn't compete with the knowledge that all my colleagues had.
So I had to be very open and say, look, I don't know,
(19:08):
you know, but can you sort of explain things to me or teach me or give me exposure
and you know I attacked it from a different perspective bringing I guess big
outside in but you know I found that sort of being curious and being very open
and letting go of that fear.
Really rewarding because it helped me progress and be more of an effective leader
(19:31):
yeah I was going to say how good does it feel when you like start saying I don't
actually know can you tell, Tell me a little bit more about it.
Like, I'm new to this. Can you tell me?
I, you know, I remember when I started doing that, when I felt like I didn't
need to hide behind this cover of, well, I'm an expert in everything and I need
(19:51):
to know all the theories around leadership or whatever that might be.
And there's no reaction from people. It's totally fine. Nobody knows everything.
It's okay not to know. and you know
people usually appreciate if you're honest and you just
say I don't know can we talk about it can
can we explore this a little bit more can you explain to me
(20:13):
you're asking people to transfer their knowledge and usually people don't mind
yeah and the more you do that the more comfortable you become with that as well
like you know just being i'm gonna say stupid you're not being stupid but you
know just being like i don't actually know you know it becomes almost like
second nature and you do become more comfortable with that the more you do it.
(20:36):
Yeah, and I would also say that generally speaking, most people are very generous with their time.
Yeah. So, you know, take advantage of that if it means that you can learn something
and just get exposure to something so you can be more effective and it's okay
to ask the silly questions.
Yes. And, you know, that also builds for the other party appreciation but also
(20:59):
that, you know, they're valued for their expertise and their experience as well.
So you can have a two-way benefit as well by doing that.
Absolutely. I agree. I think if we think about, you know, from a more business
perspective, I think one of the barriers when it comes to being curious might be just,
(21:20):
you know, overwhelm over the sheer number of things that leaders are dealing
with or that we're all dealing with,
you know, all the things that are happening in the world, in the economy,
in technology, in politics, you know
AI I think sometimes just the
sheer volume is things that we need to get our head
(21:40):
across and think about you know how do these
impact my business my team our
organisation what do we need to do about it I think sometimes a barrier to curiosity
might be just an absolute overwhelm and you know and maybe thinking I need to
be able to deal with all these things which isn't true because nobody can deal
(22:01):
with these things on their own.
But I think sometimes that maybe stops the exploration because there's so much
that's unknown and sort of coming at us and things that we can't control. Yeah, definitely.
So just to close out, what do you think two or three key takeaways that you
can give someone that's aspiring to become a leader or someone that's sort of
(22:26):
fallen into a leadership role to help them develop effective leadership.
Yeah. So, I mean, my first tip is get curious.
So, get curious about yourself, about others, about the business.
Like if we start with, you know, being curious about yourself,
(22:46):
you know, reflection is such a valuable practice and I think we all should be doing more of it.
So, you know, sit down, just think about like, what are my beliefs? What are my values?
You know, what are the behaviours that are helping me or not helping me?
Why do I do this? Or why do I think this way? Is this really true?
(23:07):
What is this teaching me? What is this telling me about myself?
Is there something that I want to change? I'm going to do a quick shout out
here also, Anita, to one of your previous episodes about values because it was fantastic.
So if anyone's interested in exploring their values a little bit more,
I highly recommend listening to that episode. side.
When it comes to being curious about others, you know, if you are currently
(23:32):
leading a team and we'll, you know, think about also maybe you're not,
but if you are currently leading a team, you know, ask people questions and just listen,
you know, like think about like how would you like others to get to know you
and understand you and, you know, then go and do that and just spend time with
people and be openly curious about what makes them tick.
(23:54):
And I think even Even if you're not yet leading people or even if you don't
want to be a people leader, I think the reality is that in every job,
we all work with other people and we need to understand them and influence them
and build relationships.
So curiosity is absolutely the key.
And then, you know, when it comes to the business, you know,
you mentioned you've done this as well.
(24:15):
If you're in a new industry in particular, you kind of have to be curious about the business.
But even if you've been somewhere for quite a while, you know, think about.
When it comes to the business, what are the things that you're really passionate
about? What do you want to learn more about?
Where do you want to have impact and how can you do that?
And I always think curiosity is at the core of, I don't know,
(24:36):
customer service. It's at the core of innovation.
It's at the core of process improvement like this.
Curiosity touches everything in a business and there will be something that
is kind of of interest to you or somewhere where you want to have an impact, as I said.
I think the note that I would make about curiosity is that it should come from
(24:58):
a genuine place because I think people can tell if you're not genuinely curious
about something and you're pretending to be. So don't force it.
You know, perhaps think about some of the barriers that we talked about earlier
that prohibit us from being curious and whether they apply to you.
And if so, why that might be.
(25:20):
So we're coming back to the self-reflection again.
And then my second tip would probably be, obviously, we talked about capability
development not being the thing that ultimately determines how effective you are,
but, you know, that's still been necessary to have the skills and capabilities to lead.
So my, you know, absolute suggestion would be to attend all the training and
(25:46):
development you can get, whether it's classroom, on-the-job learning,
getting involved in projects, getting getting mentors, getting coaching,
attending, you know, being part of a peer support network or building one if
one doesn't exist or getting new qualifications, whatever that might be.
I think the key message to, you know, new leaders, upcoming leaders,
(26:09):
more experienced leaders is that learning and development should never stop.
Like development is not one and done kind of event, you know,
a two-day leadership officer you attend, and ticking a box of exercise.
It's a lifelong journey and really it is a privilege.
Yeah, absolutely. And just on that, I think, you know, there's in,
(26:31):
I guess, the human resources field, there's this sort of concept of the three
E's when it comes to development generally.
So you've got your experience, which should be about 70% of the time spent.
So there are things like on the job training, then you've got the exposure piece.
So that might be some form of mentoring. mentoring and that's about 20% and 10% is education.
(26:58):
So a lot of the time I've noticed that when people think about leadership development,
they're expecting all these training courses and the human resources department
to put out a platter of all the learning and training courses that they can go on.
But the reality of that is that they're useful full and they have a place in development.
(27:20):
But what tends to happen sometimes is you go to the classroom and you learn,
you learn the sort of learning objectives from that particular course,
but then you don't really translate that into the on-the-job experience.
So sometimes that return on investment, if you like, is much lower because where
(27:45):
you learn is by doing and by experience.
So, I definitely wanted to call that out as well and echo that.
And as you said, development is not, you know, a done, once you do it, it's done.
It's an ongoing thing. You need to invest time.
As we sort of alluded to earlier, things are always changing.
So, you need to keep up with that.
(28:06):
So, you can be a relevant leader over time.
But I think, you know, the other thing that you mentioned, which I think is
really important, is that genuine curiosity.
I think curiosity is such an underrated skill, whether that's towards others,
but also internally and more importantly, probably internally,
(28:27):
being curious about yourself,
why you're reacting in a certain way, what are your values?
So, yeah, thank you for the shout out. I think anyone
that's listen to my episodes or listen
to that particular episode knows how life-changing values
and doing that work on values has been for me
so definitely you know encourage others to really spend time on those types
(28:53):
of activities as well yeah and a great reflection that I just thought of as
you were speaking there was if you think about your development up until now like think about
when you have developed the most.
It's probably when you were doing a project or a job or learning something on
(29:15):
the job rather than attending a classroom training, right?
So to your point about the 70-20-10 principle, you know, it's a great reflection
piece because we sometimes,
yes, I think we sort of externally put out an expectation that our company needs
to provide us with this development and learning and courses.
And there's a place for that, absolutely. But there are so many other opportunities
(29:39):
to learn and apply your curiosity and get better.
So yeah, great point there.
Yeah. And yeah, just also add as well, in terms of that self-reflection,
I've noticed subconsciously that as I've taken on more senior roles and dealt
with more complicated situations,
is that I'm doing that reflection piece more regularly.
(30:02):
So, it's not uncommon that on a daily basis, I will sort of after my day has
finished, I might reflect back on the day and say, think to myself,
okay, what went really well?
What could have I done better?
And I think that habit of doing that is really important because as we all know, life is so fast paced.
(30:26):
It's complex. everyone is juggling so much with such high intensity that just
to spend a bit of time doing that self-reflection can also build a lot of self-awareness as well,
but then make you more of an effective leader.
Because I think it's, again, like curiosity, it's such an underrated skill, I would say.
(30:49):
I love that, Anita. That's such a great tip number three for everybody.
And yeah, so underrated, so valuable.
So take the time. It doesn't need to take that long.
Yeah, absolutely. Sanna, I've really, really enjoyed the conversation.
You know, you and I are very passionate about leadership development and the
(31:10):
continuous journey of leadership development. So, thank you so much.
Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
What a great discussion about the importance of leadership development and this
concept of curiosity as a key capability that perhaps you never thought about.
I think it's also important to remember that leadership development and being
(31:32):
an effective leader is a continuous learning journey.
And acknowledging as Sana highlighted that barriers such as fear of judgement
and being vulnerable need to be recognised and addressed.
Employees who are aspiring to become leaders, as well as organisations,
need to lean into leadership development as a priority because leaders have
(31:52):
such a significant influence that can make or break an individual team or organisation.
I'll like Sana's details as well as the link to the previous episode I released
on values which we reference in today's episode in the show notes thanks for
joining and until next time stay safe and well.
(32:13):
Music.
Social Enterprise would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land
where this podcast will be recorded and pay respects to the elders past and present.
We also want to celebrate the ongoing culture, connections and the storytelling
practices that is very much part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders tradition.
(00:21):
Welcome to Social Enterprise.
Music.
(00:45):
Hello listeners I'm excited to be talking today about effective leadership which
is a very important topic especially a social enterprise in the podcast focused
on career development. I think we can be quite critical when it comes to what
we expect as the traits effective leaders should have.
(01:05):
The truth is the topic of traits and capability that is required to be an effective
leader is so vast that it can't be covered in one episode.
So today we're going to be focusing on the concept of leading the self and more
specifically around self-awareness when it comes to leadership development.
To delve into this topic further, today I'm joined by guest Sanna Rissanen,
(01:28):
who is a passionate organisational development professional and founder and
director of My Human Self,
which is a consultancy that provides human-centred leadership development,
organisational development and talent management solutions to clients.
She has recently released a leadership excellence blueprint,
which outlines the capabilities are required for effective leaders and introduced
(01:51):
me to this concept of the inner game, which broadly can be described as self-awareness
and self-understanding,
both of which are critical for effective leadership.
What I found particularly fascinating in this blueprint is the importance of
curiosity as a key capability needed for leaders to be effective,
which we will unpack further in today's episode.
(02:15):
So, Sanna, you've been in the leadership development space in the UK and Australia
across different companies and industries.
Why do you think it's important for organisations to invest in leadership development?
I think there are a number of reasons. I think leaders really play a key role in any organisation.
(02:36):
I mean, they lead and they look after the people. They're usually responsible
for strategy execution. execution, you know, usually they bring very strong
technical skills and knowledge and they obviously carry a lot of responsibility.
And I always like to say that I think a leader can make or break an individual,
a team or an organisation.
So developing leaders is absolutely paramount.
(03:00):
And I think if we think about it at a sort of more fundamental level,
people are the business, they are your business.
So you need engaged, motivated people if you want to have a strong business.
And in order to have engaged and motivated people, you need strong leaders who
are also engaged and motivated and really equipped to do their job.
(03:20):
So investing in leadership development is really crucial, I think,
for every organisation.
And if we think about, you know, people who are stepping into their first leadership
role, there are obviously new skills they need, new perspectives,
new ways of operating, and in my opinion, most importantly, new ways of understanding
(03:42):
themselves and others and the complex world and business that they're operating in.
So if we're not providing training and development for these new leaders.
They're unlikely to succeed.
And I think more generally, I think people are very complex and the world is very complex.
And if we want to understand and manage the complexity of the the people and
(04:04):
the world around us, I think we need to continuously develop and our leaders
need to continuously develop.
Yeah, absolutely. I definitely echo that, especially from a HR perspective.
I agree with you. Leaders can sometimes make or break an organisation and especially
when we look at things like employee engagement,
(04:24):
even employee relations, sometimes it's about that relationship between their
manager and their employee, which is quite topical.
But the other observation that I've made is that many people become leaders,
but they are more technical experts to begin with that eventually fall into
(04:45):
a people manager or leadership role.
And they're either not entirely motivated to make this shift into a people manager
role, or they're not given the tools to do so.
So that sort of development, as you were talking about earlier,
is this what you're seeing as well? And if so, why do you think that is?
(05:05):
Yeah, for sure. And I think the reason is fairly simple, potentially.
I think these technical experts have obviously done a great job.
They are the technical experts.
And so they're seen as high performers, which they have been.
They're also seen as high potentials and then automatically successes for the more senior roles.
(05:27):
And so therefore, they can promote it into people leadership roles because it's
the most obvious or perhaps even the only career pathway that's available.
And I think what most organisations haven't thought about or are not clear on
is what do we actually need our leaders to do?
You know, what skills do they need to have?
(05:48):
What should they be motivated by? And what kind of support do we need to offer them?
Because I think the transition from a technical expert to a people leader or
even any kind of higher level role is not easy because essentially you go from a sort of celebrated,
potentially very highly rewarded individual contributor to someone whose role
(06:11):
is now to look after and essentially serve a team.
And that is a monumental shift that I don't think is really honestly talked about.
You know, I think leadership is a position of responsibility and accountability.
And it's very different from that of a technical expert and an individual contributor.
(06:32):
And then, you know, I think you mentioned motivation there as well.
I mean, what a technical expert is motivated by can be very different from what
a leader gets to experience.
And so if you get promoted to a people leader role and all of a sudden all those
things that you love doing and you were very good at doing, then you're no longer part of your role.
(06:54):
Well, how much are you going to love that new job of yours?
You know, how motivated are you going to be when you're perhaps doing a whole
bunch of things on a day-to-day base that you don't like doing and you're not
motivated by doing and none of the things that you do love doing?
And you know leadership is hard so
it's not like your role has gotten easier in the
(07:14):
process either. I think many people end
up down this road because they have
a desire to progress which is understandable very normal and you know often
the only way to progress is by going into a people leader role like I said. I
do see though I'll say that there is some sort of a shift happening I think
(07:36):
in organisations and other career pathways,
they're becoming available and organisations are exploring what they look like,
which I think is fantastic.
And I think there's also, you know, I mentioned sort of honest communication around this.
I think there is a bit of a lack of communication about what leadership is,
(07:58):
some of the expectations around leadership,
what that actually looks like day to day, you know, the need to leave certain
tasks and ways of operating behind you.
So people are not perhaps also making decisions from the most informed place
when they accept these promotions.
And I think sort of maybe more philosophically, if we think about society at
(08:22):
large, I think society defines success in a career as a higher level role,
as a leadership role with a bigger, fancier title.
And I think we should start redefining what success looks like.
There's a saying that I absolutely love, that happiness is the most underrated
form of success, which I think we could all reflect on more because it's like, what makes me happy?
(08:46):
Is it really this job where I get a bigger title, maybe more money,
but where my role completely shifts to something that maybe I don't love that
much or is it something else?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've also observed as well is to your point
about sort of leadership put on a pedestal, meaning that it's a people leadership role.
(09:08):
And a lot of organisations don't have those structures in place where from a
career path in progression perspective.
They don't honour technical experts the same as a people leader.
So maybe there is a misconception that if I am a technical expert that wants
to progress their career, I need to take that leadership path.
(09:32):
So absolutely agree, agree with everything that you've said.
But yeah, I think the main thing, whether it is a technical expert,
for maybe leading from a professional technical standpoint or even in a leadership role.
One of the things that I was drawn to in your work is around the capability
(09:54):
of curiosity as a leadership skill.
That is curiosity of the business, the team, but most importantly themselves
and this concept of leading self and real self-reflection.
Can you help us understand that a little bit more? Yeah, so I think at a fundamental
level, if you don't understand yourself, why you are the way you are,
(10:20):
what your beliefs are, what your values are, how they drive your behaviour,
how you make meaning, how you make decisions, if you're not aware of these things
and how they support you or hinder you, how are you able to lead yourselves?
Because to be able to be a leader, you need to be able to lead yourself first.
(10:40):
And I think if you don't understand yourself and you can't lead yourself,
how are you going to understand and lead others?
How are you going to understand and lead a business?
I talk a lot about what makes leaders effective and the research around this topic.
And I think most people would say, if you ask that question,
(11:02):
it's how capable they are doing things like thinking strategically and making
decisions and building high-performing teams and giving feedback and having
difficult conversations and managing change and so forth.
There's a list of capabilities that we associate with leadership.
And I think this is also what most organisations invest in when it comes to
(11:25):
leadership development.
They focus really heavily on capability development and skill development in
a genuine effort to obviously help leaders deal with the increasing and complex
environment that we're all operating in.
Now, if you actually look at the most extensive research on what actually makes
leaders effective, yes, capability development is absolutely necessary,
(11:49):
but it is not adequate on its own.
So giving leaders more skills and building their capability doesn't actually
equal more effective leaders, which is quite interesting.
And what actually determines leaders' effectiveness is how well they understand
and manage themselves and the world around them.
(12:10):
And so this is often referred to as something called the inner game.
And inner game is essentially things like our level of self-awareness,
our emotional intelligence, our meaning-making systems, our values, our beliefs.
And research shows that how developed our inner game is, is actually what determines
how effective we are as a leader.
(12:32):
Now, in-game development is linked to the theory of adult development and stages
of adult development, which is perhaps a topic for another conversation.
But if we go back to your original question, you know, you asked like,
you know, why does leadership need to, leadership development needs to start
with the concept of leading self?
(12:53):
I think because it's the foundation and it's the most significant factor in
leadership effectiveness.
And also what's probably quite interesting is that research shows that in order
for our capabilities to develop and evolve, our inner game needs to develop at the same pace.
Now, I can tell you that that isn't happening at the moment,
(13:16):
which is having all sorts of impacts in organisations.
And it is likely one of the reasons why investments in leadership development,
don't lead to sustainable long-term changes.
But that is probably also a topic for another discussion. Interestingly,
research also has shown that as our inner game develops, so as the self-awareness
(13:37):
develops, automatically our capability develops as well, which I think is pretty fascinating.
So this is really where we should start at leading selves and understanding ourselves.
Yeah, I find that the concept of the the inner game fascinating.
And even if I sort of reflect on my own career and, you know,
I started leading people several years ago, and to be honest,
(14:00):
I sort of fell into that role.
But what I think about when I reflect on my progression in my career,
but also as I've progressed, I've taken on bigger teams across different geographies.
And I've always been curious. I think that's always been my style,
but it's always been outward looking.
So, being curious about the business I'm supporting, the people in my team, what motivates them.
(14:25):
But what's been lacking, and it's been a lot of work that I've been doing over
the last couple of years, is around looking inward.
So it's really interesting that you say that, you know, how important that is
for effective leadership.
And perhaps people underestimate that as well. Well, maybe they feel it's a
(14:45):
little bit self-indulgent as a leader to be thinking inward.
But I guess it's a little bit like the analogy of the oxygen mask when a plane's
going down, you put your oxygen mask on before you help others.
So I really like that concept and you highlighting how important it is and why
we need to sort of shift our thinking when it comes to leadership development
(15:09):
around self before looking outward.
Would yeah I love that you're on that journey as well I
think it's one of those
things it's a it's such a continuous journey as the world around us changes
technology changes it's it's not one of those things where you become a leader
(15:29):
and that's it and you've sort of hit hit that level it's a continuous learning
and you know we're learning new things all the time that shifts the way that
we adapt as well. So, yeah, really, really fascinating.
Yeah, love that. And I think there's also so much about ourselves that we don't
know that we are always discovering.
(15:50):
So, yeah, as you said, it is an ongoing journey. Yeah, absolutely.
So, I guess, as I sort of mentioned, sometimes people might feel that,
you know, leading self and looking inward might be a little bit self-indulgent.
Maybe it's a time issue.
People feel they don't just have the time to do that.
(16:10):
But do you think there are any other barriers that people might face when people
are thinking about being curious and more importantly about looking inward and
this concept of leading self?
Yeah, in terms of barriers to curiosity, I think I would say fear is the number one barrier.
(16:31):
And I think there's so many fears around it. Like there is a fear of looking
stupid. There's a fear of sounding stupid.
I think there's a fear of people thinking you should know something.
You should know the answers to why you're asking.
There's a fear of upsetting people if you're asking questions or wanting to
change things. You know, there's the discomfort.
The fear of being vulnerable is huge. You know, the fear of being judged,
(16:54):
the fear of being laughed at.
I think curiosity really exposes you and it requires so much confidence to be curious.
I do also think, though, that the more curious you are, the more confident you become.
So, you know, start small if you need to, but just start.
Because I think, you know, your curiosity is helping you to get to know yourself
(17:17):
more and to be your authentic self and be comfortable with that.
But also, you know, curiosity helps build other people's confidence and trust
in you because you're showing interest, genuine desire to know something or somebody better.
You're showing openness to change and being vulnerable and that builds trust.
(17:39):
Yeah, and I think definitely agree with that. You mentioned this concept of
fear and the fear of looking stupid, as you said, or being vulnerable.
I think that definitely is something because again, sort of putting the concept
of leadership and putting leadership on a pedestal.
I think the traditional understanding of leaders was that leaders understood
(18:05):
they were technical experts, very experienced.
So subordinates would sort of look up to them for the answers.
So with that sort of traditional mindset, set, I think leaders also think that
they need to have all the answers.
But what, you know, something like the pandemic showed us is that no one had
(18:25):
the answers in such an unprecedented time.
So it's about, you know, the leadership capability being somewhat different.
And I've worked with some leaders that are very good at being open and vulnerable.
And funnily enough, they gain respect and trust with their team by doing that
(18:47):
and being more open, which I've, you know, from afar and observing that,
it's been quite interesting to watch.
And I've also tried that myself, especially when I moved to a different industry,
because I couldn't compete with the knowledge that all my colleagues had.
So I had to be very open and say, look, I don't know,
(19:08):
you know, but can you sort of explain things to me or teach me or give me exposure
and you know I attacked it from a different perspective bringing I guess big
outside in but you know I found that sort of being curious and being very open
and letting go of that fear.
Really rewarding because it helped me progress and be more of an effective leader
(19:31):
yeah I was going to say how good does it feel when you like start saying I don't
actually know can you tell, Tell me a little bit more about it.
Like, I'm new to this. Can you tell me?
I, you know, I remember when I started doing that, when I felt like I didn't
need to hide behind this cover of, well, I'm an expert in everything and I need
(19:51):
to know all the theories around leadership or whatever that might be.
And there's no reaction from people. It's totally fine. Nobody knows everything.
It's okay not to know. and you know
people usually appreciate if you're honest and you just
say I don't know can we talk about it can
can we explore this a little bit more can you explain to me
(20:13):
you're asking people to transfer their knowledge and usually people don't mind
yeah and the more you do that the more comfortable you become with that as well
like you know just being i'm gonna say stupid you're not being stupid but you
know just being like i don't actually know you know it becomes almost like
second nature and you do become more comfortable with that the more you do it.
(20:36):
Yeah, and I would also say that generally speaking, most people are very generous with their time.
Yeah. So, you know, take advantage of that if it means that you can learn something
and just get exposure to something so you can be more effective and it's okay
to ask the silly questions.
Yes. And, you know, that also builds for the other party appreciation but also
(20:59):
that, you know, they're valued for their expertise and their experience as well.
So you can have a two-way benefit as well by doing that.
Absolutely. I agree. I think if we think about, you know, from a more business
perspective, I think one of the barriers when it comes to being curious might be just,
(21:20):
you know, overwhelm over the sheer number of things that leaders are dealing
with or that we're all dealing with,
you know, all the things that are happening in the world, in the economy,
in technology, in politics, you know
AI I think sometimes just the
sheer volume is things that we need to get our head
(21:40):
across and think about you know how do these
impact my business my team our
organisation what do we need to do about it I think sometimes a barrier to curiosity
might be just an absolute overwhelm and you know and maybe thinking I need to
be able to deal with all these things which isn't true because nobody can deal
(22:01):
with these things on their own.
But I think sometimes that maybe stops the exploration because there's so much
that's unknown and sort of coming at us and things that we can't control. Yeah, definitely.
So just to close out, what do you think two or three key takeaways that you
can give someone that's aspiring to become a leader or someone that's sort of
(22:26):
fallen into a leadership role to help them develop effective leadership.
Yeah. So, I mean, my first tip is get curious.
So, get curious about yourself, about others, about the business.
Like if we start with, you know, being curious about yourself,
(22:46):
you know, reflection is such a valuable practice and I think we all should be doing more of it.
So, you know, sit down, just think about like, what are my beliefs? What are my values?
You know, what are the behaviours that are helping me or not helping me?
Why do I do this? Or why do I think this way? Is this really true?
(23:07):
What is this teaching me? What is this telling me about myself?
Is there something that I want to change? I'm going to do a quick shout out
here also, Anita, to one of your previous episodes about values because it was fantastic.
So if anyone's interested in exploring their values a little bit more,
I highly recommend listening to that episode. side.
When it comes to being curious about others, you know, if you are currently
(23:32):
leading a team and we'll, you know, think about also maybe you're not,
but if you are currently leading a team, you know, ask people questions and just listen,
you know, like think about like how would you like others to get to know you
and understand you and, you know, then go and do that and just spend time with
people and be openly curious about what makes them tick.
(23:54):
And I think even Even if you're not yet leading people or even if you don't
want to be a people leader, I think the reality is that in every job,
we all work with other people and we need to understand them and influence them
and build relationships.
So curiosity is absolutely the key.
And then, you know, when it comes to the business, you know,
you mentioned you've done this as well.
(24:15):
If you're in a new industry in particular, you kind of have to be curious about the business.
But even if you've been somewhere for quite a while, you know, think about.
When it comes to the business, what are the things that you're really passionate
about? What do you want to learn more about?
Where do you want to have impact and how can you do that?
And I always think curiosity is at the core of, I don't know,
(24:36):
customer service. It's at the core of innovation.
It's at the core of process improvement like this.
Curiosity touches everything in a business and there will be something that
is kind of of interest to you or somewhere where you want to have an impact, as I said.
I think the note that I would make about curiosity is that it should come from
(24:58):
a genuine place because I think people can tell if you're not genuinely curious
about something and you're pretending to be. So don't force it.
You know, perhaps think about some of the barriers that we talked about earlier
that prohibit us from being curious and whether they apply to you.
And if so, why that might be.
(25:20):
So we're coming back to the self-reflection again.
And then my second tip would probably be, obviously, we talked about capability
development not being the thing that ultimately determines how effective you are,
but, you know, that's still been necessary to have the skills and capabilities to lead.
So my, you know, absolute suggestion would be to attend all the training and
(25:46):
development you can get, whether it's classroom, on-the-job learning,
getting involved in projects, getting getting mentors, getting coaching,
attending, you know, being part of a peer support network or building one if
one doesn't exist or getting new qualifications, whatever that might be.
I think the key message to, you know, new leaders, upcoming leaders,
(26:09):
more experienced leaders is that learning and development should never stop.
Like development is not one and done kind of event, you know,
a two-day leadership officer you attend, and ticking a box of exercise.
It's a lifelong journey and really it is a privilege.
Yeah, absolutely. And just on that, I think, you know, there's in,
(26:31):
I guess, the human resources field, there's this sort of concept of the three
E's when it comes to development generally.
So you've got your experience, which should be about 70% of the time spent.
So there are things like on the job training, then you've got the exposure piece.
So that might be some form of mentoring. mentoring and that's about 20% and 10% is education.
(26:58):
So a lot of the time I've noticed that when people think about leadership development,
they're expecting all these training courses and the human resources department
to put out a platter of all the learning and training courses that they can go on.
But the reality of that is that they're useful full and they have a place in development.
(27:20):
But what tends to happen sometimes is you go to the classroom and you learn,
you learn the sort of learning objectives from that particular course,
but then you don't really translate that into the on-the-job experience.
So sometimes that return on investment, if you like, is much lower because where
(27:45):
you learn is by doing and by experience.
So, I definitely wanted to call that out as well and echo that.
And as you said, development is not, you know, a done, once you do it, it's done.
It's an ongoing thing. You need to invest time.
As we sort of alluded to earlier, things are always changing.
So, you need to keep up with that.
(28:06):
So, you can be a relevant leader over time.
But I think, you know, the other thing that you mentioned, which I think is
really important, is that genuine curiosity.
I think curiosity is such an underrated skill, whether that's towards others,
but also internally and more importantly, probably internally,
(28:27):
being curious about yourself,
why you're reacting in a certain way, what are your values?
So, yeah, thank you for the shout out. I think anyone
that's listen to my episodes or listen
to that particular episode knows how life-changing values
and doing that work on values has been for me
so definitely you know encourage others to really spend time on those types
(28:53):
of activities as well yeah and a great reflection that I just thought of as
you were speaking there was if you think about your development up until now like think about
when you have developed the most.
It's probably when you were doing a project or a job or learning something on
(29:15):
the job rather than attending a classroom training, right?
So to your point about the 70-20-10 principle, you know, it's a great reflection
piece because we sometimes,
yes, I think we sort of externally put out an expectation that our company needs
to provide us with this development and learning and courses.
And there's a place for that, absolutely. But there are so many other opportunities
(29:39):
to learn and apply your curiosity and get better.
So yeah, great point there.
Yeah. And yeah, just also add as well, in terms of that self-reflection,
I've noticed subconsciously that as I've taken on more senior roles and dealt
with more complicated situations,
is that I'm doing that reflection piece more regularly.
(30:02):
So, it's not uncommon that on a daily basis, I will sort of after my day has
finished, I might reflect back on the day and say, think to myself,
okay, what went really well?
What could have I done better?
And I think that habit of doing that is really important because as we all know, life is so fast paced.
(30:26):
It's complex. everyone is juggling so much with such high intensity that just
to spend a bit of time doing that self-reflection can also build a lot of self-awareness as well,
but then make you more of an effective leader.
Because I think it's, again, like curiosity, it's such an underrated skill, I would say.
(30:49):
I love that, Anita. That's such a great tip number three for everybody.
And yeah, so underrated, so valuable.
So take the time. It doesn't need to take that long.
Yeah, absolutely. Sanna, I've really, really enjoyed the conversation.
You know, you and I are very passionate about leadership development and the
(31:10):
continuous journey of leadership development. So, thank you so much.
Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
What a great discussion about the importance of leadership development and this
concept of curiosity as a key capability that perhaps you never thought about.
I think it's also important to remember that leadership development and being
(31:32):
an effective leader is a continuous learning journey.
And acknowledging as Sana highlighted that barriers such as fear of judgement
and being vulnerable need to be recognised and addressed.
Employees who are aspiring to become leaders, as well as organisations,
need to lean into leadership development as a priority because leaders have
(31:52):
such a significant influence that can make or break an individual team or organisation.
I'll like Sana's details as well as the link to the previous episode I released
on values which we reference in today's episode in the show notes thanks for
joining and until next time stay safe and well.
(32:13):
Music.
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