May 7, 2025 • 51 mins
It's no secret that the world is changing rapidly (perhaps faster than many of us appreciate) and this demands a new kind of leadership. But is your ego holding back your ability to evolve and lead effectively?
In this episode, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are in conversation with business philosopher, consultant and author of ‘Ego Flip: How to Reset Your Leadership Life’, James Woodcock. The conversation goes beyond theory, exploring practical ways to understand your own perspective and offers simple, actionable ideas like the ‘one breath rule’ and ‘noticing thinking’.
If you're interested in understanding how ego shapes not just individuals but also organizations and how leadership can evolve for the future, this episode offers valuable insights on how to potentially reset your leadership life.
Referenced during this episode:
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
Bluesky @evolvingleader.bsky.social
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jean Gomes (00:03):
The journey of The Evolving Leader is to move our
focus between the questions ofself, our inner journey, and the
questions of what the worldneeds from us the outer quest.
By holding these twoperspectives together, we gain
not only a deeper insight andmeaning, but we also tap into
the vast interior resources thatwe all have, but many of us
(00:25):
never fully see or access in ourlives. In this show, we talk to
the business philosopher andconsultant James woodcock, who's
thought deeply about how our egoplays into our capacity to
evolve. Tune in for afascinating conversation On The
Evolving Leader.
Scott Allender (01:02):
Hi, friends.
Welcome to The Evolving Leaderthe show born from the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable, more expansive,
more consistent, more humanleadership to confront the
world's biggest challenges. I'mScott Allender along with my
friend who needs nointroduction, but I'm
contractually obligated to givehim one. He's a leadership guru
and an expert in all things. Andit's my good friend Jean Gomes.
(01:25):
Jean, how are you feeling today,my friend,
Jean Gomes (01:30):
I'm going to check our contract. But yeah, I'm
feeling excellent. Yeah, becauseI don't know what else you're
going to pull out that's in thesmall the fine print. But
anyway, no, I'm feeling reallygood. Had a very fulfilling
week, lots of fun stuff, andlooking forward to the weekend
as well. So great start to theyear. I'm also feeling needing
(01:53):
to kind of slow down, to leaninto the conversation that we're
about to have today, because Iknow it's going to be a really
great conversation, and I wantto get the most out of it so so
that that's how I'm feelingright now, just the need to kind
of really kind of be present.
So, Scott, how you feeling?
Scott Allender (02:14):
I'm feeling a bit of heaviness today, but also
a bit of hopefulness. I'm justfeeling, you know, we're only at
the time of recording this.
We're only a few days into theadministration. Change in the
US, and with it is alreadycoming a lot of complexity and
rapid change and a lot of bigemotions from people. And I'm
just sitting in this sort ofgratitude for this show and this
(02:37):
work that we do, because the Ihave very little influence,
obviously, on what happensacross the country in the world,
but I feel appropriatelychallenged to up my leadership
game in the spheres that Ioperate in, to be everything
that we profess we want, right,more accountable, deeper, more
human leadership, and I thinkthe world needs that more than
(03:01):
ever, potentially. And so I'mtaking this moment as a
challenge to myself to examineways that I can become more like
that and so. And I think thisconversation is going to lend,
lend to that objective, becausetoday, we are joined by James
woodcock, whose passion is theanatomy and philosophy of
(03:21):
leadership. And for the last 25years, James has worked with
leaders across the globe to helpfulfil their unique potential as
an award winning programmedesigner and coach, he works
with executives and teams todeepen their awareness of the
answers that are holding themback and the questions that can
transform their purpose anddevelopment. He's held senior
(03:45):
positions as head of learningand performance innovation for
PA Consulting, trainingmobilisation, lead for the
rollout of England's COVID 19vaccine programme, and head of
agile training and coaching forone of the world's largest banks
today, James is a partner withinKorn Ferry's leadership
(04:06):
development practice in the UK,and he is the author of ego
flip, how to reset yourleadership life. It's a deep
reflection on the question, Whoam I as a leader, and the
implicit paradoxes that must beembraced to live that role
successfully. James, welcome toThe Evolving Leader.
James Woodcock (04:26):
Thank you, Scott, thanks. Thanks for the
intro and yeah, great to meetyou both.
Jean Gomes (04:30):
James, welcome to the show. How are you feeling?
James Woodcock (04:33):
I feel it was Friday. I always feel good
enough Friday. I think, I thinkyou were saying, Jean, you know,
it's a busy week, and so I'mminded to pause and slow down
for this conversation, because Ithink that's, you know, I've
been, I've had no executiveorders this week, but it's felt
like, it's felt that there's abit of you so and, yeah, I'm
(04:54):
kind of grateful to have thisconversation, because I think we
need more of it. And. And weneed to create the space for
that and to provoke, honestly,to provoke and be open to that.
So, yeah, great. Great to behere for sure.
Scott Allender (05:07):
Well, let's start with the origin of James,
the leadership philosopher.
Let's, let's hear some of yourstory, if we could.
James Woodcock (05:16):
Yeah, the origin of James. So, well, stories
perhaps the origin of I'vealways been fascinated by
stories. I was reflecting aheadof this chat about my school
days, because I think when I wasat school, I wanted to make
movies for most of that time,actually, and I made a few and
did plays and all kinds ofstuff. So I've always been
(05:36):
fascinated by stories andcharacters, and I think that led
perhaps in the direction ofwanting to understand people and
how kind of people take whatmakes their stories. I went to
university, did biology, sototally kind of different
branch, but that for me was thiskind of question, you said the
word anatomy, you know, how doesthis all work? Because I've
(05:59):
always enjoyed trying to piecingthese pieces together.
(07:07):
where we've got to reaching abit of a bottom, because,
because I think a lot of us lookaround today, and certainly my
case, I felt a sort offrustration that there is a
regurgitation of some of thesort of explanations and
concepts As to what goodleadership looks like that
doesn't marry with the worldtoday. We see, we see the
challenges in the world today.
Maybe there's a different way todo this. I was kind of keen to
(07:27):
to delve deeply into that, andthat's where ego flip came from.
Jean Gomes (07:33):
So I think you we've got a first here. If I heard you
right, I think you're the firstex bouncer that we've had on the
show. Is that true? I think socharming one as well.Can't place
you in that role, but anyway, weall transform. So I'd like to
help our listeners understandwhy they they should look at
(07:57):
themselves with the ideas andtools in your book ego, Philip
is divided into these three bigsections. Can you kind of talk
us through how it's organisedand the journey that they'll go
on if they, if they grabthemselves a copy?
James Woodcock (08:11):
Yeah, and I think so. To answer that, it's
perhaps to say who's who thebook is for, because I think
that's partly where I was atwhen I started to write, write,
write the thing. And I thinkthere's two sides to the book,
in a way. One is really it's foranyone who's interested in the
world, how the world works,because it is changing so
quickly.
(08:33):
My contention is that weprofoundly underestimate how
quickly it's changing. I thinkwe're seeing signals of that
now, if you look back throughhistory, of course, there have
always been periods of momentouschange, whether it's or societal
or technological. And you know,many purport to the fact that
there's almost a rhythm to that,and that this is just one of
(08:53):
those periods. My contention isthat this this period, this
year, is quite different, andthat there's almost a confluence
of these seismic changeshappening, whether that's
singular events or, as we say,sort of societal or
technological process. It's allhappening together. That's why
it feels so chaotic, and perhapsso many feel so unsafe. The
(09:14):
other side to it, and the otherreason on the road, it comes
back to us and to leadership,but really from a human
perspective, I think weprofoundly underestimate how we
ourselves need to evolve to fitthat future, if it's the future
that we want. If you go intoGoogle and look up a guy called
(09:35):
Jean court, and he producedthese beautiful depictions back
in 1900 of what the year 2000might look like. I think they
were little sort of picture carsput into cigarette boxes at the
time. And so he had to imaginewhat would as a Victorian 100
years hence look like. And it'sfascinating, because in many
(09:57):
ways, he was incrediblyaccurate. And you see these.
Depictions of, you know,hairdressers where there's sort
of automated hair cutting goingon, or farmers with kind of all
kinds of machinery. So in termsthe application is brilliant.
Obviously looks a littledifferent today, but what he
gets wrong in every single oneof those pictures is the fact
that the people stood in thosephotos, on those pictures,
(10:17):
rather, are Victorians. Haven'tchanged this, and that's where
we go wrong. We kind of thinkabout the ourselves world. We
fail to turn that back toourselves and say, Well, what
about us? What is it that weneed to shift? What's that
introspection we need to bringto thinking about the future?
And so in a sense, the book is ajourney through those aspects.
The first part is what I callleading in. It is a provocation
(10:41):
to really look at some of thekind of assumptions we make that
inform our worldview. And theyare worldviews I look, for
example, at quite a lot aboutconsciousness and our sort of
paradigms and models aroundconsciousness and awareness, and
what does that mean in terms ofhow we form our sort of
identity, our sense of identity.
The second part is unpackingthat into a series of tools. So
(11:05):
if we're going to provoke andlook at some of our assumptions,
how as leaders like we need toequip ourselves to do things
differently in a very practicalsense, and then the last part is
saying, well, actually, let's,let's go further and think about
the future of leadership. What'sthe role of leadership in the
future, and again, to provoke aquestion around that, because, I
think particularly with the riseof AI, this is one of the angles
(11:26):
we can take in terms of saying,Well, what is the fundamental,
what's the core of leadershipthat we would need to retain
when AI can do so much else?
It's a good question to askabout leadership today, in any
case. So
Scott Allender (11:41):
there's so much to unpack in that, and I love
your observation. I concurcompletely that, you know,
things are changing more quicklythan most people, or many people
can appreciate. In fact, there'seven seemingly a sort of
movement of actively resistingit, right, even this idea of
kind of idealising a past thatpeople kind of seem to want to
(12:03):
go back to. Can you expand on onthe the implications and the
risks of not fully appreciatinghow fast things are changing?
And I'd love to start hearing alittle bit about the role of ego
in that. How does ego play apart in that,
James Woodcock (12:21):
yeah, I think ego central to this. So probably
the first place is to give adefinition of ego, because
there's different definitions.
So Freud, for example, was thissort of executive function that
was necessary to manage theinstinctive demands of
gratification. So in that sense,it was something you might
strengthen from sort oftherapeutic perspective. So I'm
(12:41):
not talking about that. The egothat I talk about in ego flip is
really the core of our sense ofself, the sense that we have
sort of self, sovereignidentity, and that we're
separate from our experience.
And of course, that's common.
That's a will of you. I'm a me.
There's only one of me and Ihave autonomy and control, and
(13:05):
there lies the rub, and it's allabout control, the sense that we
have control, in fact, that weneed control fundamentally to
change events and experiences inthe world around us, in The
belief that those events, thoseexperiences, can make us happy.
It's a materialist paradigm.
It's the one that we all liveon. It's a consumer society
(13:26):
where we believe that we havethe ability or responsibility to
change the world, and it's thatthat can give us happiness. And
there's a problem with that. Andthe problem is that you often
can't that's the first problem.
The second problem is, if youlook deeply into control and ask
(13:46):
the question, do you really haveit, you find a lot of evidence
to show that actually you don't,you don't have control. This
locus of control that weperceive that we have, that in a
sense, is a very role ofleadership isn't necessarily
there. I mean, what would therole of leadership be if you
didn't have control? Didn't havecontrol? It's one question we
could ask. So what ego is, in asense, one way to break it down
(14:09):
is to say that it's a way ofthinking, it's a system of
beliefs through which we arehave that real sense of self
solving autonomy. But let mejust give you one tiny, little
example of where we could startto poke at this, because this
because this is what I'm tryingto do with the book, is to sort
of unpick this. So as I'mtalking to you now, I'm stood
up, and I'm standing on my feet,and so I would say quite openly
(14:30):
that, of course, I have theability to stand on my own two
feet, and so I have someautonomy to do that, but that
autonomy is owed in part to theground that I'm standing on,
obviously. So you might say,okay, so yes, well, then what?
What is holding up the ground,or the world's holding up the
ground? So you start to teaseout, okay, so do I have autonomy
(14:55):
to do these things? We tend tothink of our ability to con.
Control is, well, we tend tothink that there's things that
are outside of our control, butthen certainly things that
should be. So I like to think ofthe example of a heartbeat, for
example, as a really simpleexample of our heartbeat,
because most of the time wedon't really pay attention to
(15:15):
that. But it, you know, it's100,000 beats a beats a year,
beats a day out. Is there? Ithink we don't consciously
control that yet. If I had toask both of you, okay, so
consciously now, see if you canchange your heart rate. So
Australia, where you'll thinkabout, okay, so how might I do
that? I could do it by holdingmy breath, or I might, you know,
jump up and down the spot. Butit appears that there's
(15:36):
something you could do tocontrol it. So the moment you
kind of give attention to that,you gain the sense that there's
an agency through which youcould control, that appears a
sense of control. The questionmight be, well, in that moment
you have any more control thanthe moment prior, there's
certainly an appearance ofcontrol. Now I'm not just
(15:58):
talking about this, just to kindof get, you know, this is
interesting stuff, but this hasfundamental implications for how
we relate to the world, for whenwe seek to gain control, the
sense that we have either thatwe are in control, you know,
sometimes refer to this internalequity and control, that I have
control of events, of worldaround us, or, in fact, that the
(16:21):
World controls me in a sensethat I'm a victim of that,
therefore I might shy back from,you know, my experience, I might
be passive in that regard. Andwe see so many examples of that
based on this assertion that webelieve that control is
necessary and that we have it,we have responsibility for that.
Jean Gomes (16:38):
So this is a really challenging idea in a world
where we have hiring calls forleaders to take more
responsibility, to take moreperceived control, where we have
descriptions of accountabilitysyncs, where nobody's in
control, nobody owns things, andthat leads to systemic failures,
(17:01):
people dying, people beingabused, people being neglected,
unethical behaviour and so on.
So let's kind of take this ideaand think, how does this play
into the notion of stronger ordiminished accountability? Yeah,
I mean this
James Woodcock (17:19):
is, this is where we need to be careful, and
we have to careful. We have tocareful is the language that we
use. Because what we're notsaying is, you're not in
control. You don't need to doanything. It's just going to
happen. But of course, that'snot the case. The sense is that
we have it. And so theappearance of control is
undeniable. I guess what we needto be careful of it is, you
know, a lot of it is aboutlooking deep at your intent.
(17:41):
What is your motivation thatdrives what you're seeking in
every interaction that you have,whether it's relationships, what
is your intent? And what I meanby that is, what do you need
from that? How is it fulfillingyou? And can you act without
that need? Is there somethingelse that you can do? I think
when we think of examples ofleaders where ego is less
(18:05):
present, one of the things that,one of the simple things that we
see is openness, for example,such a simple thing for the
openness to ideas, the opennessto for example, have deal with
paradox, I mean, or dilemmas, sothat we're not automatically
having to form a judgement,because we need to be in a
position where we feelstrengthened by that, but to be
(18:27):
open. And therefore, I oftenthink of those people who've, as
they say, sometimes take time tosit down with their enemies, you
know, and to see the other side,the other sort of side of the
fence, and gain differentperspectives, and not be fixated
on your own at the expense ofanother. So there's something
about recognising that theintent that you have to gain
(18:51):
control. You know, it's notabout not taking part in the
game. In fact, in that sense, interms of the appearance of
control, it may look like youcan gain more control in that
way.
Jean Gomes (19:02):
That's a helpful starting point. And I think
where, you know, peoplelistening here have a very high
degree of a sense of needing tobe in control, and their jobs
also are constantly pointing to,I mean, I'm thinking of a sales
director, for example. You know,then where the pressures every
(19:24):
day, every month, or it's like,what are we doing to seize every
ounce of opportunity and controlover closing sales or creating
new leads and so on? So whatyou're talking about from a
philosophical point of view isthat it's not it's not about
losing responsibility for it.
It's about how you think aboutthe influence you put into this
(19:48):
and where you can stay open tothe answers of being able to
deliver accountability.
James Woodcock (19:58):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean. The ego creates fear.
Let's put it another way. Itcreates fear because we're
concerned that we're going tolose something. So if you take a
sales person, for example, iftheir activity is driven by the
fear that they need to achievetheir targets, they're going to
behave in a certain way. Butthat fear that's created is not
(20:20):
about the sales. Is it somethingthat is created through our own
sense of what we think we needto fulfil ourselves to be happy.
So we think happiness looks likehitting a sales target, and that
is how we're going to fulfil whowe think we need to be. If it's
dependent on that, we're goingto act accordingly. You can have
somebody who's equally or evenmore accomplished at hitting
(20:42):
their sales figures, but there'sa different intent as to why
they want to get those figures.
And if they don't hit thosefigures, it doesn't necessarily
form a judgement that they putupon themselves. So part of it
is looking very closely, again,as I said, intent and what is it
that you need from yourexperience? And unfortunately,
we live in a world where theworld is telling us very
frequently what it is we shouldwant. You know, organisations
(21:03):
measure us on that basis andrecognise from all performance
on the basis. So part of it isjust noticing, but there's a lot
of noise out there that willtell you again, this is,
unfortunately, a fixation, anexternal fixation that tells you
what you should be thinking,creating the space to step back
from that and ask yourself, Isthat actually what I want?
(21:24):
Sometimes it's as simple as thatkind of question, is that what I
really want? Is that what I, youknow, want in the long term? I
think partly this, what happensfrom a mindset perspective, is
we tolerate this fear on theassumption that it's short term,
and that's how targets oftenwhere we motivated. To get over
line to do that. What if thatwasn't the case? What if? What
(21:44):
if there's something you had todo for years and years now? Is
that what you want? What if yousuddenly weren't getting paid
for your job anymore? Do youstill do it if you're in a place
of fear? It's unlikely. Itdoesn't have to be that way.
Scott Allender (22:03):
This is super fascinating. We're equating a
lot of the ego conversation intointo control. So I and I love
the framing you've got, you'vegiven. Do you see any other
types of egos at play, you know?
So I guess I'm thinking ofpeople that I've coached and
worked with where, you know,part of their ego is trying to
(22:26):
usurp control, and they might dothat even more in a world that's
feeling more uncertain. But I'vealso worked with leaders whose
ego is one where theydesperately want to be liked and
popular and pleasing to people,and part of their issue is that
they don't, they don't influenceoutcomes enough. They sort of
(22:47):
are more passive, and they haveto sort of almost assert
themselves more. And do you seethat playing out as well in
terms of the way that ego getsin the way, or kind of a
different angle on thischallenge of control or
influence. Yeah.
James Woodcock (23:06):
So we tend, we tend to think so I kind of draw
scale, and at one end, I'd havewhat I call kind of faster ego,
and then the other end, passiveego. We tend to think of the
former, and that is because thisis an individual who believes
that they have control of eventsin the world around them, and
they have this sort of internalecosystem control, so they act
on impulse. If something goeswrong, they'll blame somebody,
(23:27):
and they make a lot of noise.
But that that exists, you know,in politics, in media and
organisations, alongside passiveego, and that's those
individuals, as you say, whofeel that they aren't in
control. They'll be hesitant,they'll be risk averse, they'll
step back, and they'll, ineffect, create space for for
that faster ego, that they'reboth forms of ego. The
difference is their locus ofcontrol. They both believe that
(23:48):
control is necessary and isevident, and that they need it,
but the way they relate to ithas different ways. And of
course, for each of us, youknow, there may be situations
where we're one and situationswhere the other it's not that
you're predominantly onenecessarily, although we tend to
play a role within anorganisation, you know, we'll
find a way to become effective,and we'll set up power dynamics
(24:09):
and organisations in order toassert that authority, you know.
And that is how you createhierarchies and organisations,
because you create these powerdynamics to allow ego to kind of
manifest in that sense, butthey're two ends of a spectrum.
In a sense you get both.
Scott Allender (24:27):
Yeah, it's helpful. Thank you.
Jean Gomes (24:34):
What so once we've started to become more aware of
the fear and the way in whichour ego will adapt to these
situations. How do we flip it?
What are the practical thingsthat we now need to start
talking about? Yeah,
James Woodcock (24:48):
there's lots of things you can do, and also you
can make it overly complicated.
In a sense, the problem startsthe moment you start to create a
process for this, because egoloves a process. Another way of
just. Loving ego is, it's thisbelief that you need to become
something going
Jean Gomes (25:04):
wrong all these years. Yeah,
James Woodcock (25:08):
and that. But it is, it is, you know, it's sort
of addicted to the search,whatever that search is, you
know, whether it's, I need to,you know, get a better at this.
It's a belief that I needsomething more than I have.
It's, it's a lack of acceptancethat doesn't mean that we
wouldn't go and be passionatelylearning about something, but
we're not in terms of how wevalue our self dependent on
that. So we have to be carefulabout getting a kind of a
(25:30):
process. There are a few thingsthat are important, and the
first is knowing who you are. Soif you if you want to flip the
ego. When we talk about flippingego, for example, stepping
outside of ego, it's aboutshifting your perspective. So we
all have particularperspectives, and they get fixed
(25:50):
when we have that sense of self.
So how do we change that? Thefirst thing is to to understand,
what is that perspective thatyou're starting with? What is
that point of view? In the book,I have created a model called
ego dynamics, where I've triedto break that down into a level
of detail, to say, actually, inany one situation, we have what
I call a governing thought. Andit is this governing intent, and
it's defined from an egoperspective, in terms of what is
(26:13):
it that I need to fulfil meright now in the situation? And
it's how we form ourrelationships, it's how we
interact with others. That's howwe build trust, that governing
thought creates that focus ofattention, that perspective.
Jean Gomes (26:27):
So an example of a governing thought might be what?
James Woodcock (26:31):
So it could be that I need, I need you to get
what I want. In this situation,I need you to get what I want,
what I want could be different.
I could flip it around, and Icould say, actually, my belief
is that you need me to get whatyou want. And there's a whole
different array of these, andthey're quite they have quite
precise egoic emotions attachedto each of those egoic emotions
(26:51):
being a little bit differentemotions in general, because
there are not enough words todescribe, let's say emotions
generally, because we feeleverything. That's one thing to
say. You go, emotions are quitedefinitive and specific, and
it's about how we how theyinform our perspective. So,
yeah, the first step is toreally understand, Okay, so who
(27:13):
am I in this situation? In asense, it's another way to say
it is. It's almost like steppingoutside of our story, because we
get lost in our narratives, inour heads, in our thinking. So
if you can step outside of thatand notice what's going on, it's
much easier to sort of see whoyou are being in that moment.
Now the temptation when you cansee how you are is to react to
that, and in a sense, ego isbasically always resisting how
(27:39):
we're feeling in any givenmoment. That's what it is. It's
resisting an emotion. So itcould be, for example, that
we're feeling anger, and thatanger could be in resistance to
a feeling of guilt that'sunderlying that the moment you
surface, that there could besome guilt there, the temptation
is to shy away from that. Sothere's an element here which is
(28:01):
about simple acceptance. If youcan look upon who are on seeking
not to change it, that's themost important thing. And again,
that sounds paradoxical. We'retalking about changing it, but
actually is not almost be happywith that. So that's the first
part, that there's alsosomething about just coming back
to this process aspect of thecase. But what could I do? What
could I do differently? And thebook's got lots of examples of
(28:24):
things you can do. I'll justpick two that I think are
important because they're sosimple, and I use them quite a
lot. One of them is and itrelates back to what we said
there about sort of fast ego andpassive ego. So let's take the
example of somebody who haspassive ego, somebody who finds
themselves in situations holdingback or they don't step forward,
(28:45):
for example. And one of thepractices is a really simple
practice, involves breath, andit evolves, involves getting
outside of thinking. So I'llgive a simple example. It's not
so much a work example, but weare in January now, so you might
find that it's quite hard to getout of bed in the morning
because it's dark and cold andyou might have to get up early.
(29:08):
How do you do that? So if younotice that when you're in bed
and you want to get out of bed,the moment you start thinking
about it, it becomes almostimpossible to do unless there's
a huge compulsion to do it themoment you give it too much
attention and thinking, ofcourse, all you'll do is you'll
come up with the reasons why youdon't. The reasons why you don't
have to do that, and I can dothat later. So the trick, the
hack, in a sense, is to breakthat thinking. And so the way to
(29:29):
do that is to act quickly. Sothe technique I talk about in
the book this, this one onebreath rule, is very simple. So
if you find yourself in asituation where you find that
you need to act, and habituallyyou're used to not acting, you
take a breath in, and you say toyourself the word one in your
head, and then you breathe out.
(29:54):
So you think the word breath,and then the moment you breathe
out, you act. And the reason.
This such simple process as awork. And work is because the
first thing it does, it takesyou out of thinking. You have to
think, to think one in breath.
You're, in effect, creating acue. So next time you do it,
you've remembered this, so yourattention goes to it more
(30:16):
easily. And the third thing is,it's quick. You haven't got time
to work it through. You don'tget stuck in thinking. One
breath you set in your head andyou act and it sounds so simple,
but, but the moment we try andmake it more complicated is a
moment we tipping to as aprocess, and you're not ready.
And half the problem is thisbelief that we need to be ready.
(30:40):
I love who you always quotethat, you know, there's no such
thing as ready. There's athere's only now. And that's the
truth of it. Many books sellthemselves by telling me there's
a there's a process you have tofollow. Often it's not get rid
of the process, just do
Jean Gomes (30:52):
it. Where did you come across this? Where does
this come from?
James Woodcock (30:56):
The idea comes from realising that we are
addicted to thinking and wedon't notice it. Say more about
that. Yeah, so we can get lostin thinking. And I think it's
easy, an easy habit to do. And agood example of that, and one of
the recognising myself is almosta pursuit of understanding and
(31:18):
thinking that actually that, youknow, the more understanding,
the more can solve it. And wecan get lost in that. In same
ways we can kind of get lost inin stories. And so one of the
important things of ego is tobetter notice how you're
thinking. Notice how you'rethinking. Thinking is obviously
(31:39):
an incredibly useful cognitiveability. The challenge with ego
is when it can hijack ourthinking, when we are creating
judgments about ourself. Whenthat happens, obviously, then
that affects how we lead, andhas lots of ramifications in
terms of how we show up and howwe relate to others. But it's
(32:00):
very easy when you're inthinking not to notice that. So
there's a practice of juststepping out and stepping back
and noticing what's goingthrough your head. I mean, we
could talk about mindfulness.
One of the ways that people dothat, the challenge is to do
that in the flow of day to day.
You know, it's not going in aroom and finding a moment to
kind of have calm. How do you dothat in the many moments of your
day and be able to step out. Oneof the ways I think about it is
(32:24):
almost notice the heaviness, thestickiness of thinking, because
if you can be conscious, whetherit's in conversations with
people, what is your freedom ofthought? How free do you feel in
that moment? Or do you feelyou're getting stuck and taking
as a practice to just to stepoutside of that and allow
yourself to notice how you'rethinking, rather than letting it
(32:49):
hijack you.
Scott Allender (32:51):
What does that unlock for you personally, when
you do that, what have younoticed in your own leadership
and your own approach to things?
James Woodcock (32:59):
So for me, the unlock has been that we tend to
think that we can control whatwe're going to think, and we've
formed judgments around that. Myexperience of being able to
often what happens with thetrain of thought is it can
almost get stuck in a certaingear, being able to step outside
(33:20):
of that and create a space forthat. And it is simply probably
a space of pause that can comefrom going to different places.
Sometimes it's often a case ofjust going going for a walk. I
mean, just talking in practicalterms, putting your head into a
kind of a different area offocus, and then going back to
what you're doing. Suddenly youbring a different idea. So we
(33:42):
can get caught up in almost aloop of thinking, and we don't
realise it. So the importantthing for me is almost to build
it as a bit of a practice, totake time in the day, for
example, to to allow yourself tonot get on that kind of
treadmill of constantly havingto solve stuff. I think we all
feel responsibility for solvingthings, you know, and if we're
(34:05):
not solving something, if wedon't understand something, then
somehow we're not sort of livingup to the expectation, or we
could be doing more. There's ahuge amount of productivity
that, in my experience, it comesfrom stepping back from that and
allowing yourself a break sothat when you come back again,
you have new ideas. I mean,that's, in many ways, we think
about the creative processabsolutely essential to create
(34:25):
space for that. At the sametime, what it's doing is it's
it's saying, You know what? Idon't know what it's going to
come up next. And I'm happy withthat. There's a value to me just
stepping back from this
Scott Allender (34:39):
that's super practical and useful. You
outlined sort of eight practicaltools to build a leadership
manifesto. Could you touch on? Iknow we don't have time to go
into depth across all of them,but maybe you could just sort of
hit on them, and we could maybepick one or two to go deeper
onto.
James Woodcock (34:58):
Yeah, the manifest. So in the book is is
very much about what are thedifferent things we need to dial
up as leaders to be able to leadoutside and beyond ego. And so
one of the things I talk aboutof the 80s is this idea of
radical transparency. And I talkabout it both in terms of how an
(35:20):
organisation might demonstratethat, but also, and importantly,
what that would mean for you. Soat an organisational level, of
course, this has many differentkind of ramifications. In terms
of, how does it decide to shareinformation with its employees?
How does it sort of entrust thatinformation to employees? What
(35:42):
does it kind of decide that it'simportant to hold back? I mean,
the EU directive around paytransparency, for example, is a
good example of something that'scome up relatively recently. We
decided that actually, if we canallow people to see with that
greater transparency, you knowwhat people are getting paid,
(36:04):
then there's an opportunity totry greater equity within that
organisation, whereaspreviously, that information was
locked away. The more importantaspect, in a way, when we talk
about radical transparency, ison an individual level, and it's
about how you prepared to showup. And then it starts to dip
into things like, you know,authenticity. So when you show
(36:27):
up to organisation, how much doyou show of yourself? How much
you prepared to show others?
Now, when I think of, you know,examples of great leaders that
have really connected withpeople, it's been those who have
almost been open book in thesense of presenting themselves
as being verbal and human, andthe inviting effect that that
has on other people. The powerof that is immense. Another
(36:50):
aspect of this and transparencythat's come up, actually,
relatively recently is aroundfeedback. There is an example of
you know, process wheretypically feedback is something
that's closed book. It's doneperhaps as a one to one
conversation. It's not somethingthat tends to get shared, and
yet, it's a really importantprocess. The question is, well,
what's it driving? And so I wasreading recently, you know, that
(37:15):
the CEO in the video was talkingabout how he didn't do one to
one feedback. He does it ingroups, and doesn't believe a
that it has capacity to do it,but actually the value of having
feedback in groups and openforums is that, of course, then
the opportunities that anybodygets to learn from that
conversation. Of course, thatrequires a huge amount of trust.
Sounds like a great idea, butyou do have the trust, because
(37:36):
feedback is ultimately personal,so it can prove
counterproductive if you don'tkind of hold it in that sense. I
mean, my view is that that'sthat's great, and you still need
to have one to oneconversations. Because I think,
again, coming back to the roleof a leader, there's a critical
role of a leader to be able toconnect on an individual,
personal basis with somebody, tobuild that trust, which is more
(37:58):
than just feedback has to be atwo way conversation. So, yes,
absolutely, but there are a lotof opportunities for
organisations to increasetransparency. The question is,
you know, in some ways, what doyou need for that? What you
know? What's the bold move thatit's going to take to open that
up? Because, you know, there's arisk that if you try and do and
(38:19):
it can have the wrong effect,if, if the leadership is not
there to support it in the right
Jean Gomes (38:26):
way, and that that, that is the very question that
comes to mind with all of thesethings. Because if you're going
to be a progressiveorganisation, you have to know
where to start first, to createthe safety or to create the
means. Because, as you say, ifyou if you did a you know, some
of the things that otherorganisations are trying, like,
like open feedback that couldjust become hostage to the
(38:50):
existing culture and powersystems. And you describe how
that ego works at large. And youyou talk about the evil genius
organisation. Can you expand onthat?
James Woodcock (39:00):
Yeah, the evil genius organisation. If we think
about when we've been talking alot about ego, the sort of
individual level, how ego playsout on a sort of macro scale,
what we see are these sort ofdynamics, these pattern that
makes it I mentioned earlier.
And when you look at anorganisation as in a
hierarchical system, it createsthese axes of control that I
(39:22):
talk about in the book. Forexample, on one end, you could
have predictive power, so anorganisation absolutely needs to
be able to predict the futurecome up with the right answers.
On the other end of the scale,it also needs to have what you
could call disruptive power. Youknow, the power to envision
(39:45):
vision changes and disruption inthat organisation. You need both
of those and these axes. What'sinteresting is they sort of tend
the organisation between orderand chaos. And this is a dilemma
that every organisation. Andfaces that it needs to create
control within that system andat the same time that will also
kill it. So it has to evolve atthe same time. And so this sort
(40:08):
of tension between this, youknow, ordering, chaos, and the
competing, almost powers thatyou can create, creates this
dilemma in many ways. It's therole of leadership to reconcile
that, but it creates a space forego to play. You know, we think
about predictive power peopleoften form here as a great
authority by the information andknowledge that they have in
(40:30):
their organisation. So they canchoose to allow the free flow of
that, or they can choose toleverage that, and similarly,
from a disruptive powerperspective. You know how they
might create sort of authorityand organisation to create
change, to build networks to doso. So the evil genius
organisation is saying, well,actually, we need to pay
attention to where these powerdynamics can establish
(40:52):
themselves, and the role thatleaders play. And of course,
across each of these dilemmas,there's an opportunity to do
things differently, and reallywhat, what the book is
encouraging us to do is to say,actually, well, how do you
support the organisation best toallow the free flow of value
through those different axes ofcontrol. How do you give control
away? Is often one of the waysto do that. Often think from a
(41:14):
leadership perspective, thegreatest actor leader can have
is to work out how, how do yougive give power to others, which
is the opposite of of egoleadership, which is always
seeking to gain greater controland greater power.
Jean Gomes (41:30):
Where are you seeing examples of organisations
embracing this or being good atdoing this?
James Woodcock (41:38):
I think one of the one of the interesting ones
is when we look at B Corps, BCorp organisations, and these,
obviously organisations whichare really thinking about not
just the benefit of what they doto their organisation, but the
greater societal impact. And Ithink in many ways, it's
(42:02):
challenging for an organisation.
Are your goals? Are the goals ofyour leaders? Big enough? I
think what's interesting is, andwe find this in politics, I
think as well as well, sometimeswhen we look at organisations
actually to be successful, tokind of harness that greater
(42:23):
level of control, the goals arefar too small. And you can see
that in different parts of anorganisation, this idea of when
we have these bigger goals,sometimes seemingly impossible
goals, that we're trying toface, the only way to solve
those goals is is to work acrossa bigger system that could be
(42:44):
within an organisation,obviously different parts of
organisation, or within anecosystem of other
organisations. And so thatrequires a certain type of
leader to do that, to workacross the whole kind of network
of the enterprise or beyond. Italso requires such a leader to
have courage to kind of gofirst, because that's a brave
(43:07):
place you have to play and whenyou're trying to achieve these
bigger goals, because itrequires more than yourself, the
value of that is obviouslythese, these sometimes called
impossible goals bring hugepurpose to those who work to
them. I think about the exampleyou mentioned in the intro when
(43:27):
I worked on the COVIDvaccination programme, and that
was what I would call one ofthese impossible goals. It was a
challenge that we'd never reallyhad to face before, and working
in that organisation, working inthe NHS, we quickly realised
that the only way to solve thiswas to bring all the different
(43:48):
organisations that wouldn'tnormally work closely together,
all the way together so we couldwork extremely collaboratively.
The only way that that that waspossible, ultimately, was this
recognition that there was apurpose far bigger than
ourselves that just drove awayso much the bureaucracy.
Everybody just said, Yep, wejust have to find a way to make
(44:09):
this happen. Had our goal beennarrow, that would not have been
possible. So it's interesting tosee how some of those barriers
dropped away when we could workacross a far bigger system to
get that done. I mean,ultimately, I think the UK was
the first Western nation todeliver the vaccine nearly 2020
and it was for that reason, forthat reason, that recognition of
this bigger goal. Soorganisations that do this well,
(44:30):
I think are ones who have thatand have bigger aspirations.
Sara Deschamps (44:38):
If the conversations we've been having
on The Evolving Leader havehelped you in any way. Please
share this episode with yournetwork, friends and family.
Thank you so much for listening.
Now let's get back to theconversation you
Scott Allender (44:52):
You closed the book with some thoughts about
the future. Can we talk aboutthese?
James Woodcock (44:58):
Yeah, I think so. Am I an optimist or
pessimist? It's one way toanswer that I'm an optimist. I
mean, I think you've met as thisis kind of a recording
obviously, Trump has recentlybecome president, and that's
brought his own sense ofturbulence. I think there is a
(45:18):
route in the world right now ofincreasing polarisation, there's
a concern that we're going tosee the emergence of bigger
superpowers. I think, actuallythink that's sort of inevitable.
My optimism lies in the factthat I think, first of all, from
a technological perspective, andthe progress of technology, and
I mentioned at the start, thepace of that, I think
(45:40):
fundamentally, technology isprobably our only way out of
this. The challenge that wehave, on a sort of global level,
is obviously the scarcity ofresources, the plundering of
those resources and thisconsumer society is creating has
a threshold in the course that'screating greater competition
(46:01):
when we need greatercollaboration. Because the
bigger goal in all of this isobviously the planet, and then
it just appears that we haven'trealised that yet. So the
question is, will we, at somepoint come together to solve
that? I think we will, but Ithink it's going to come through
technology. Technology is adouble edged sword, because for
everything it helps us solve, italso creates the risk of it
(46:22):
being weaponized in some othersort of aspect. But I am
optimistic, and ultimately I'moptimistic for the simple reason
that I think when we come backto who we think we are, I think
we all have an innate sense ofconnection, I think where we see
polarisation and, you know, sortof entrenched nation states, it
(46:44):
appears that we've retractedfrom that. But actually, I
believe for all of us, there's asense that, actually, you know,
we are part of something bigger,intimately part of something
bigger. I think that that innatesense will ultimately drive us
in a positive direction.
Scott Allender (47:00):
Well, I'm glad you're optimistic. I need that.
I need that optimism to washover me.
Jean Gomes (47:06):
We definitely do.
And I think it's not about justsort of being pragmatic and
trying to, just trying to pickout the best of what's actually
happening. It's it's abouthaving vision for what can come
next. And you know, I thinkwhat's great about your work is
that it provides some reallypractical things about how to
evolve yourself with therealities that we face. So I'm
(47:28):
interested to know what's nextfor you. James, what do you what
are you into inventing orworking on next?
James Woodcock (47:38):
Yeah, I mean, the work that I'm doing at the
moment is kind of at two ends ofa spectrum. Again, I do coaching
work, and so I think there'ssomething that I enjoy deeply
around one to win interactions.
The other side of the work thatI do is looking at a great with
organisations and looking at thesystem, and how can we unlock
leaders in that system to reallyactivate the organisation. So I
(48:02):
think again, coming back to therole of leaders, the role that
they play, my work as aconsultant in leadership
development has really beenthinking about the formal side
of leadership. How do we takeleaders, how do we develop
leaders to drive anorganization's strategy? And
what's fascinating now and isthe opportunities to actually
(48:23):
work on a broader level, so thatleaders really are in a position
to activate organisations. Everyorganisation is going through
transformation. This is reality.
How can you place leaders in aposition where they can really
drive that? We need to think abit differently about,
therefore, how we support themin that and so the work that I'm
(48:47):
helping with, and hope to bemore involved in the future, is
to help organisations thinksystemically about how we
support leaders in that role.
Because I think historically,when we think of digital
development, it's often in smallpockets and small places. What
we really want to do is createsort of flywheel effect. How can
we create something over here inthe system that has an effect
(49:08):
over here that creates anamplification, that creates an
energy and activation fromleadership as a whole, and that
that that's necessary, again,because of the pace that
organisations are moving, weneed to quit leaders to play the
role that we need.
Jean Gomes (49:24):
So I'd like to ask you a quick question about if
there was a if there wassomething you could place in
people's mind, a question thatyou could place in leaders mind
right now that they think aboutin their downtime at the weekend
or whenever they're travelling.
What might that be okay.
James Woodcock (49:41):
So I think a question that I've so as a
little seed would be the one wementioned earlier, which is,
what do you need to be ready andto really challenge yourself?
Around that most of the growthand opportunity comes when you
(50:03):
realise actually you will neverreach that point.
And so the other question is,what if you're ready now? So my
sense is, many of us put thingsoff. I'm
sure we could probably all writea list of things that we want to
achieve. What What if you justdid it now, what if you kind of,
it's actually, I'm gonna, I'mgonna give that a go. You know,
(50:26):
that may be the source ofgreatest learning to do that. So
that might be the question. Anduse this weekend and try it out.
Jean Gomes (50:36):
Yeah, I'm going to.
Scott Allender (50:38):
I love it.
James, thank you for joining ustoday and sharing a bit of your
work. Really appreciate yourDear listener, thank you for
joining us, and please do orderinsights.
your copy of ego flip if youhaven't already. And until next
(50:58):
time, remember the world isevolving. Are you?
The journey of The Evolving Leader is to move our
focus between the questions ofself, our inner journey, and the
questions of what the worldneeds from us the outer quest.
By holding these twoperspectives together, we gain
not only a deeper insight andmeaning, but we also tap into
the vast interior resources thatwe all have, but many of us
(00:25):
never fully see or access in ourlives. In this show, we talk to
the business philosopher andconsultant James woodcock, who's
thought deeply about how our egoplays into our capacity to
evolve. Tune in for afascinating conversation On The
Evolving Leader.
Scott Allender (01:02):
Hi, friends.
Welcome to The Evolving Leaderthe show born from the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable, more expansive,
more consistent, more humanleadership to confront the
world's biggest challenges. I'mScott Allender along with my
friend who needs nointroduction, but I'm
contractually obligated to givehim one. He's a leadership guru
and an expert in all things. Andit's my good friend Jean Gomes.
(01:25):
Jean, how are you feeling today,my friend,
Jean Gomes (01:30):
I'm going to check our contract. But yeah, I'm
feeling excellent. Yeah, becauseI don't know what else you're
going to pull out that's in thesmall the fine print. But
anyway, no, I'm feeling reallygood. Had a very fulfilling
week, lots of fun stuff, andlooking forward to the weekend
as well. So great start to theyear. I'm also feeling needing
(01:53):
to kind of slow down, to leaninto the conversation that we're
about to have today, because Iknow it's going to be a really
great conversation, and I wantto get the most out of it so so
that that's how I'm feelingright now, just the need to kind
of really kind of be present.
So, Scott, how you feeling?
Scott Allender (02:14):
I'm feeling a bit of heaviness today, but also
a bit of hopefulness. I'm justfeeling, you know, we're only at
the time of recording this.
We're only a few days into theadministration. Change in the
US, and with it is alreadycoming a lot of complexity and
rapid change and a lot of bigemotions from people. And I'm
just sitting in this sort ofgratitude for this show and this
(02:37):
work that we do, because the Ihave very little influence,
obviously, on what happensacross the country in the world,
but I feel appropriatelychallenged to up my leadership
game in the spheres that Ioperate in, to be everything
that we profess we want, right,more accountable, deeper, more
human leadership, and I thinkthe world needs that more than
(03:01):
ever, potentially. And so I'mtaking this moment as a
challenge to myself to examineways that I can become more like
that and so. And I think thisconversation is going to lend,
lend to that objective, becausetoday, we are joined by James
woodcock, whose passion is theanatomy and philosophy of
(03:21):
leadership. And for the last 25years, James has worked with
leaders across the globe to helpfulfil their unique potential as
an award winning programmedesigner and coach, he works
with executives and teams todeepen their awareness of the
answers that are holding themback and the questions that can
transform their purpose anddevelopment. He's held senior
(03:45):
positions as head of learningand performance innovation for
PA Consulting, trainingmobilisation, lead for the
rollout of England's COVID 19vaccine programme, and head of
agile training and coaching forone of the world's largest banks
today, James is a partner withinKorn Ferry's leadership
(04:06):
development practice in the UK,and he is the author of ego
flip, how to reset yourleadership life. It's a deep
reflection on the question, Whoam I as a leader, and the
implicit paradoxes that must beembraced to live that role
successfully. James, welcome toThe Evolving Leader.
James Woodcock (04:26):
Thank you, Scott, thanks. Thanks for the
intro and yeah, great to meetyou both.
Jean Gomes (04:30):
James, welcome to the show. How are you feeling?
James Woodcock (04:33):
I feel it was Friday. I always feel good
enough Friday. I think, I thinkyou were saying, Jean, you know,
it's a busy week, and so I'mminded to pause and slow down
for this conversation, because Ithink that's, you know, I've
been, I've had no executiveorders this week, but it's felt
like, it's felt that there's abit of you so and, yeah, I'm
(04:54):
kind of grateful to have thisconversation, because I think we
need more of it. And. And weneed to create the space for
that and to provoke, honestly,to provoke and be open to that.
So, yeah, great. Great to behere for sure.
Scott Allender (05:07):
Well, let's start with the origin of James,
the leadership philosopher.
Let's, let's hear some of yourstory, if we could.
James Woodcock (05:16):
Yeah, the origin of James. So, well, stories
perhaps the origin of I'vealways been fascinated by
stories. I was reflecting aheadof this chat about my school
days, because I think when I wasat school, I wanted to make
movies for most of that time,actually, and I made a few and
did plays and all kinds ofstuff. So I've always been
(05:36):
fascinated by stories andcharacters, and I think that led
perhaps in the direction ofwanting to understand people and
how kind of people take whatmakes their stories. I went to
university, did biology, sototally kind of different
branch, but that for me was thiskind of question, you said the
word anatomy, you know, how doesthis all work? Because I've
(05:59):
always enjoyed trying to piecingthese pieces together.
(07:07):
where we've got to reaching abit of a bottom, because,
because I think a lot of us lookaround today, and certainly my
case, I felt a sort offrustration that there is a
regurgitation of some of thesort of explanations and
concepts As to what goodleadership looks like that
doesn't marry with the worldtoday. We see, we see the
challenges in the world today.
Maybe there's a different way todo this. I was kind of keen to
(07:27):
to delve deeply into that, andthat's where ego flip came from.
Jean Gomes (07:33):
So I think you we've got a first here. If I heard you
right, I think you're the firstex bouncer that we've had on the
show. Is that true? I think socharming one as well.Can't place
you in that role, but anyway, weall transform. So I'd like to
help our listeners understandwhy they they should look at
(07:57):
themselves with the ideas andtools in your book ego, Philip
is divided into these three bigsections. Can you kind of talk
us through how it's organisedand the journey that they'll go
on if they, if they grabthemselves a copy?
James Woodcock (08:11):
Yeah, and I think so. To answer that, it's
perhaps to say who's who thebook is for, because I think
that's partly where I was atwhen I started to write, write,
write the thing. And I thinkthere's two sides to the book,
in a way. One is really it's foranyone who's interested in the
world, how the world works,because it is changing so
quickly.
(08:33):
My contention is that weprofoundly underestimate how
quickly it's changing. I thinkwe're seeing signals of that
now, if you look back throughhistory, of course, there have
always been periods of momentouschange, whether it's or societal
or technological. And you know,many purport to the fact that
there's almost a rhythm to that,and that this is just one of
(08:53):
those periods. My contention isthat this this period, this
year, is quite different, andthat there's almost a confluence
of these seismic changeshappening, whether that's
singular events or, as we say,sort of societal or
technological process. It's allhappening together. That's why
it feels so chaotic, and perhapsso many feel so unsafe. The
(09:14):
other side to it, and the otherreason on the road, it comes
back to us and to leadership,but really from a human
perspective, I think weprofoundly underestimate how we
ourselves need to evolve to fitthat future, if it's the future
that we want. If you go intoGoogle and look up a guy called
(09:35):
Jean court, and he producedthese beautiful depictions back
in 1900 of what the year 2000might look like. I think they
were little sort of picture carsput into cigarette boxes at the
time. And so he had to imaginewhat would as a Victorian 100
years hence look like. And it'sfascinating, because in many
(09:57):
ways, he was incrediblyaccurate. And you see these.
Depictions of, you know,hairdressers where there's sort
of automated hair cutting goingon, or farmers with kind of all
kinds of machinery. So in termsthe application is brilliant.
Obviously looks a littledifferent today, but what he
gets wrong in every single oneof those pictures is the fact
that the people stood in thosephotos, on those pictures,
(10:17):
rather, are Victorians. Haven'tchanged this, and that's where
we go wrong. We kind of thinkabout the ourselves world. We
fail to turn that back toourselves and say, Well, what
about us? What is it that weneed to shift? What's that
introspection we need to bringto thinking about the future?
And so in a sense, the book is ajourney through those aspects.
The first part is what I callleading in. It is a provocation
(10:41):
to really look at some of thekind of assumptions we make that
inform our worldview. And theyare worldviews I look, for
example, at quite a lot aboutconsciousness and our sort of
paradigms and models aroundconsciousness and awareness, and
what does that mean in terms ofhow we form our sort of
identity, our sense of identity.
The second part is unpackingthat into a series of tools. So
(11:05):
if we're going to provoke andlook at some of our assumptions,
how as leaders like we need toequip ourselves to do things
differently in a very practicalsense, and then the last part is
saying, well, actually, let's,let's go further and think about
the future of leadership. What'sthe role of leadership in the
future, and again, to provoke aquestion around that, because, I
think particularly with the riseof AI, this is one of the angles
(11:26):
we can take in terms of saying,Well, what is the fundamental,
what's the core of leadershipthat we would need to retain
when AI can do so much else?
It's a good question to askabout leadership today, in any
case. So
Scott Allender (11:41):
there's so much to unpack in that, and I love
your observation. I concurcompletely that, you know,
things are changing more quicklythan most people, or many people
can appreciate. In fact, there'seven seemingly a sort of
movement of actively resistingit, right, even this idea of
kind of idealising a past thatpeople kind of seem to want to
(12:03):
go back to. Can you expand on onthe the implications and the
risks of not fully appreciatinghow fast things are changing?
And I'd love to start hearing alittle bit about the role of ego
in that. How does ego play apart in that,
James Woodcock (12:21):
yeah, I think ego central to this. So probably
the first place is to give adefinition of ego, because
there's different definitions.
So Freud, for example, was thissort of executive function that
was necessary to manage theinstinctive demands of
gratification. So in that sense,it was something you might
strengthen from sort oftherapeutic perspective. So I'm
(12:41):
not talking about that. The egothat I talk about in ego flip is
really the core of our sense ofself, the sense that we have
sort of self, sovereignidentity, and that we're
separate from our experience.
And of course, that's common.
That's a will of you. I'm a me.
There's only one of me and Ihave autonomy and control, and
(13:05):
there lies the rub, and it's allabout control, the sense that we
have control, in fact, that weneed control fundamentally to
change events and experiences inthe world around us, in The
belief that those events, thoseexperiences, can make us happy.
It's a materialist paradigm.
It's the one that we all liveon. It's a consumer society
(13:26):
where we believe that we havethe ability or responsibility to
change the world, and it's thatthat can give us happiness. And
there's a problem with that. Andthe problem is that you often
can't that's the first problem.
The second problem is, if youlook deeply into control and ask
(13:46):
the question, do you really haveit, you find a lot of evidence
to show that actually you don't,you don't have control. This
locus of control that weperceive that we have, that in a
sense, is a very role ofleadership isn't necessarily
there. I mean, what would therole of leadership be if you
didn't have control? Didn't havecontrol? It's one question we
could ask. So what ego is, in asense, one way to break it down
(14:09):
is to say that it's a way ofthinking, it's a system of
beliefs through which we arehave that real sense of self
solving autonomy. But let mejust give you one tiny, little
example of where we could startto poke at this, because this
because this is what I'm tryingto do with the book, is to sort
of unpick this. So as I'mtalking to you now, I'm stood
up, and I'm standing on my feet,and so I would say quite openly
(14:30):
that, of course, I have theability to stand on my own two
feet, and so I have someautonomy to do that, but that
autonomy is owed in part to theground that I'm standing on,
obviously. So you might say,okay, so yes, well, then what?
What is holding up the ground,or the world's holding up the
ground? So you start to teaseout, okay, so do I have autonomy
(14:55):
to do these things? We tend tothink of our ability to con.
Control is, well, we tend tothink that there's things that
are outside of our control, butthen certainly things that
should be. So I like to think ofthe example of a heartbeat, for
example, as a really simpleexample of our heartbeat,
because most of the time wedon't really pay attention to
(15:15):
that. But it, you know, it's100,000 beats a beats a year,
beats a day out. Is there? Ithink we don't consciously
control that yet. If I had toask both of you, okay, so
consciously now, see if you canchange your heart rate. So
Australia, where you'll thinkabout, okay, so how might I do
that? I could do it by holdingmy breath, or I might, you know,
jump up and down the spot. Butit appears that there's
(15:36):
something you could do tocontrol it. So the moment you
kind of give attention to that,you gain the sense that there's
an agency through which youcould control, that appears a
sense of control. The questionmight be, well, in that moment
you have any more control thanthe moment prior, there's
certainly an appearance ofcontrol. Now I'm not just
(15:58):
talking about this, just to kindof get, you know, this is
interesting stuff, but this hasfundamental implications for how
we relate to the world, for whenwe seek to gain control, the
sense that we have either thatwe are in control, you know,
sometimes refer to this internalequity and control, that I have
control of events, of worldaround us, or, in fact, that the
(16:21):
World controls me in a sensethat I'm a victim of that,
therefore I might shy back from,you know, my experience, I might
be passive in that regard. Andwe see so many examples of that
based on this assertion that webelieve that control is
necessary and that we have it,we have responsibility for that.
Jean Gomes (16:38):
So this is a really challenging idea in a world
where we have hiring calls forleaders to take more
responsibility, to take moreperceived control, where we have
descriptions of accountabilitysyncs, where nobody's in
control, nobody owns things, andthat leads to systemic failures,
(17:01):
people dying, people beingabused, people being neglected,
unethical behaviour and so on.
So let's kind of take this ideaand think, how does this play
into the notion of stronger ordiminished accountability? Yeah,
I mean this
James Woodcock (17:19):
is, this is where we need to be careful, and
we have to careful. We have tocareful is the language that we
use. Because what we're notsaying is, you're not in
control. You don't need to doanything. It's just going to
happen. But of course, that'snot the case. The sense is that
we have it. And so theappearance of control is
undeniable. I guess what we needto be careful of it is, you
know, a lot of it is aboutlooking deep at your intent.
(17:41):
What is your motivation thatdrives what you're seeking in
every interaction that you have,whether it's relationships, what
is your intent? And what I meanby that is, what do you need
from that? How is it fulfillingyou? And can you act without
that need? Is there somethingelse that you can do? I think
when we think of examples ofleaders where ego is less
(18:05):
present, one of the things that,one of the simple things that we
see is openness, for example,such a simple thing for the
openness to ideas, the opennessto for example, have deal with
paradox, I mean, or dilemmas, sothat we're not automatically
having to form a judgement,because we need to be in a
position where we feelstrengthened by that, but to be
(18:27):
open. And therefore, I oftenthink of those people who've, as
they say, sometimes take time tosit down with their enemies, you
know, and to see the other side,the other sort of side of the
fence, and gain differentperspectives, and not be fixated
on your own at the expense ofanother. So there's something
about recognising that theintent that you have to gain
(18:51):
control. You know, it's notabout not taking part in the
game. In fact, in that sense, interms of the appearance of
control, it may look like youcan gain more control in that
way.
Jean Gomes (19:02):
That's a helpful starting point. And I think
where, you know, peoplelistening here have a very high
degree of a sense of needing tobe in control, and their jobs
also are constantly pointing to,I mean, I'm thinking of a sales
director, for example. You know,then where the pressures every
(19:24):
day, every month, or it's like,what are we doing to seize every
ounce of opportunity and controlover closing sales or creating
new leads and so on? So whatyou're talking about from a
philosophical point of view isthat it's not it's not about
losing responsibility for it.
It's about how you think aboutthe influence you put into this
(19:48):
and where you can stay open tothe answers of being able to
deliver accountability.
James Woodcock (19:58):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean. The ego creates fear.
Let's put it another way. Itcreates fear because we're
concerned that we're going tolose something. So if you take a
sales person, for example, iftheir activity is driven by the
fear that they need to achievetheir targets, they're going to
behave in a certain way. Butthat fear that's created is not
(20:20):
about the sales. Is it somethingthat is created through our own
sense of what we think we needto fulfil ourselves to be happy.
So we think happiness looks likehitting a sales target, and that
is how we're going to fulfil whowe think we need to be. If it's
dependent on that, we're goingto act accordingly. You can have
somebody who's equally or evenmore accomplished at hitting
(20:42):
their sales figures, but there'sa different intent as to why
they want to get those figures.
And if they don't hit thosefigures, it doesn't necessarily
form a judgement that they putupon themselves. So part of it
is looking very closely, again,as I said, intent and what is it
that you need from yourexperience? And unfortunately,
we live in a world where theworld is telling us very
frequently what it is we shouldwant. You know, organisations
(21:03):
measure us on that basis andrecognise from all performance
on the basis. So part of it isjust noticing, but there's a lot
of noise out there that willtell you again, this is,
unfortunately, a fixation, anexternal fixation that tells you
what you should be thinking,creating the space to step back
from that and ask yourself, Isthat actually what I want?
(21:24):
Sometimes it's as simple as thatkind of question, is that what I
really want? Is that what I, youknow, want in the long term? I
think partly this, what happensfrom a mindset perspective, is
we tolerate this fear on theassumption that it's short term,
and that's how targets oftenwhere we motivated. To get over
line to do that. What if thatwasn't the case? What if? What
(21:44):
if there's something you had todo for years and years now? Is
that what you want? What if yousuddenly weren't getting paid
for your job anymore? Do youstill do it if you're in a place
of fear? It's unlikely. Itdoesn't have to be that way.
Scott Allender (22:03):
This is super fascinating. We're equating a
lot of the ego conversation intointo control. So I and I love
the framing you've got, you'vegiven. Do you see any other
types of egos at play, you know?
So I guess I'm thinking ofpeople that I've coached and
worked with where, you know,part of their ego is trying to
(22:26):
usurp control, and they might dothat even more in a world that's
feeling more uncertain. But I'vealso worked with leaders whose
ego is one where theydesperately want to be liked and
popular and pleasing to people,and part of their issue is that
they don't, they don't influenceoutcomes enough. They sort of
(22:47):
are more passive, and they haveto sort of almost assert
themselves more. And do you seethat playing out as well in
terms of the way that ego getsin the way, or kind of a
different angle on thischallenge of control or
influence. Yeah.
James Woodcock (23:06):
So we tend, we tend to think so I kind of draw
scale, and at one end, I'd havewhat I call kind of faster ego,
and then the other end, passiveego. We tend to think of the
former, and that is because thisis an individual who believes
that they have control of eventsin the world around them, and
they have this sort of internalecosystem control, so they act
on impulse. If something goeswrong, they'll blame somebody,
(23:27):
and they make a lot of noise.
But that that exists, you know,in politics, in media and
organisations, alongside passiveego, and that's those
individuals, as you say, whofeel that they aren't in
control. They'll be hesitant,they'll be risk averse, they'll
step back, and they'll, ineffect, create space for for
that faster ego, that they'reboth forms of ego. The
difference is their locus ofcontrol. They both believe that
(23:48):
control is necessary and isevident, and that they need it,
but the way they relate to ithas different ways. And of
course, for each of us, youknow, there may be situations
where we're one and situationswhere the other it's not that
you're predominantly onenecessarily, although we tend to
play a role within anorganisation, you know, we'll
find a way to become effective,and we'll set up power dynamics
(24:09):
and organisations in order toassert that authority, you know.
And that is how you createhierarchies and organisations,
because you create these powerdynamics to allow ego to kind of
manifest in that sense, butthey're two ends of a spectrum.
In a sense you get both.
Scott Allender (24:27):
Yeah, it's helpful. Thank you.
Jean Gomes (24:34):
What so once we've started to become more aware of
the fear and the way in whichour ego will adapt to these
situations. How do we flip it?
What are the practical thingsthat we now need to start
talking about? Yeah,
James Woodcock (24:48):
there's lots of things you can do, and also you
can make it overly complicated.
In a sense, the problem startsthe moment you start to create a
process for this, because egoloves a process. Another way of
just. Loving ego is, it's thisbelief that you need to become
something going
Jean Gomes (25:04):
wrong all these years. Yeah,
James Woodcock (25:08):
and that. But it is, it is, you know, it's sort
of addicted to the search,whatever that search is, you
know, whether it's, I need to,you know, get a better at this.
It's a belief that I needsomething more than I have.
It's, it's a lack of acceptancethat doesn't mean that we
wouldn't go and be passionatelylearning about something, but
we're not in terms of how wevalue our self dependent on
that. So we have to be carefulabout getting a kind of a
(25:30):
process. There are a few thingsthat are important, and the
first is knowing who you are. Soif you if you want to flip the
ego. When we talk about flippingego, for example, stepping
outside of ego, it's aboutshifting your perspective. So we
all have particularperspectives, and they get fixed
(25:50):
when we have that sense of self.
So how do we change that? Thefirst thing is to to understand,
what is that perspective thatyou're starting with? What is
that point of view? In the book,I have created a model called
ego dynamics, where I've triedto break that down into a level
of detail, to say, actually, inany one situation, we have what
I call a governing thought. Andit is this governing intent, and
it's defined from an egoperspective, in terms of what is
(26:13):
it that I need to fulfil meright now in the situation? And
it's how we form ourrelationships, it's how we
interact with others. That's howwe build trust, that governing
thought creates that focus ofattention, that perspective.
Jean Gomes (26:27):
So an example of a governing thought might be what?
James Woodcock (26:31):
So it could be that I need, I need you to get
what I want. In this situation,I need you to get what I want,
what I want could be different.
I could flip it around, and Icould say, actually, my belief
is that you need me to get whatyou want. And there's a whole
different array of these, andthey're quite they have quite
precise egoic emotions attachedto each of those egoic emotions
(26:51):
being a little bit differentemotions in general, because
there are not enough words todescribe, let's say emotions
generally, because we feeleverything. That's one thing to
say. You go, emotions are quitedefinitive and specific, and
it's about how we how theyinform our perspective. So,
yeah, the first step is toreally understand, Okay, so who
(27:13):
am I in this situation? In asense, it's another way to say
it is. It's almost like steppingoutside of our story, because we
get lost in our narratives, inour heads, in our thinking. So
if you can step outside of thatand notice what's going on, it's
much easier to sort of see whoyou are being in that moment.
Now the temptation when you cansee how you are is to react to
that, and in a sense, ego isbasically always resisting how
(27:39):
we're feeling in any givenmoment. That's what it is. It's
resisting an emotion. So itcould be, for example, that
we're feeling anger, and thatanger could be in resistance to
a feeling of guilt that'sunderlying that the moment you
surface, that there could besome guilt there, the temptation
is to shy away from that. Sothere's an element here which is
(28:01):
about simple acceptance. If youcan look upon who are on seeking
not to change it, that's themost important thing. And again,
that sounds paradoxical. We'retalking about changing it, but
actually is not almost be happywith that. So that's the first
part, that there's alsosomething about just coming back
to this process aspect of thecase. But what could I do? What
could I do differently? And thebook's got lots of examples of
(28:24):
things you can do. I'll justpick two that I think are
important because they're sosimple, and I use them quite a
lot. One of them is and itrelates back to what we said
there about sort of fast ego andpassive ego. So let's take the
example of somebody who haspassive ego, somebody who finds
themselves in situations holdingback or they don't step forward,
(28:45):
for example. And one of thepractices is a really simple
practice, involves breath, andit evolves, involves getting
outside of thinking. So I'llgive a simple example. It's not
so much a work example, but weare in January now, so you might
find that it's quite hard to getout of bed in the morning
because it's dark and cold andyou might have to get up early.
(29:08):
How do you do that? So if younotice that when you're in bed
and you want to get out of bed,the moment you start thinking
about it, it becomes almostimpossible to do unless there's
a huge compulsion to do it themoment you give it too much
attention and thinking, ofcourse, all you'll do is you'll
come up with the reasons why youdon't. The reasons why you don't
have to do that, and I can dothat later. So the trick, the
hack, in a sense, is to breakthat thinking. And so the way to
(29:29):
do that is to act quickly. Sothe technique I talk about in
the book this, this one onebreath rule, is very simple. So
if you find yourself in asituation where you find that
you need to act, and habituallyyou're used to not acting, you
take a breath in, and you say toyourself the word one in your
head, and then you breathe out.
(29:54):
So you think the word breath,and then the moment you breathe
out, you act. And the reason.
This such simple process as awork. And work is because the
first thing it does, it takesyou out of thinking. You have to
think, to think one in breath.
You're, in effect, creating acue. So next time you do it,
you've remembered this, so yourattention goes to it more
(30:16):
easily. And the third thing is,it's quick. You haven't got time
to work it through. You don'tget stuck in thinking. One
breath you set in your head andyou act and it sounds so simple,
but, but the moment we try andmake it more complicated is a
moment we tipping to as aprocess, and you're not ready.
And half the problem is thisbelief that we need to be ready.
(30:40):
I love who you always quotethat, you know, there's no such
thing as ready. There's athere's only now. And that's the
truth of it. Many books sellthemselves by telling me there's
a there's a process you have tofollow. Often it's not get rid
of the process, just do
Jean Gomes (30:52):
it. Where did you come across this? Where does
this come from?
James Woodcock (30:56):
The idea comes from realising that we are
addicted to thinking and wedon't notice it. Say more about
that. Yeah, so we can get lostin thinking. And I think it's
easy, an easy habit to do. And agood example of that, and one of
the recognising myself is almosta pursuit of understanding and
(31:18):
thinking that actually that, youknow, the more understanding,
the more can solve it. And wecan get lost in that. In same
ways we can kind of get lost inin stories. And so one of the
important things of ego is tobetter notice how you're
thinking. Notice how you'rethinking. Thinking is obviously
(31:39):
an incredibly useful cognitiveability. The challenge with ego
is when it can hijack ourthinking, when we are creating
judgments about ourself. Whenthat happens, obviously, then
that affects how we lead, andhas lots of ramifications in
terms of how we show up and howwe relate to others. But it's
(32:00):
very easy when you're inthinking not to notice that. So
there's a practice of juststepping out and stepping back
and noticing what's goingthrough your head. I mean, we
could talk about mindfulness.
One of the ways that people dothat, the challenge is to do
that in the flow of day to day.
You know, it's not going in aroom and finding a moment to
kind of have calm. How do you dothat in the many moments of your
day and be able to step out. Oneof the ways I think about it is
(32:24):
almost notice the heaviness, thestickiness of thinking, because
if you can be conscious, whetherit's in conversations with
people, what is your freedom ofthought? How free do you feel in
that moment? Or do you feelyou're getting stuck and taking
as a practice to just to stepoutside of that and allow
yourself to notice how you'rethinking, rather than letting it
(32:49):
hijack you.
Scott Allender (32:51):
What does that unlock for you personally, when
you do that, what have younoticed in your own leadership
and your own approach to things?
James Woodcock (32:59):
So for me, the unlock has been that we tend to
think that we can control whatwe're going to think, and we've
formed judgments around that. Myexperience of being able to
often what happens with thetrain of thought is it can
almost get stuck in a certaingear, being able to step outside
(33:20):
of that and create a space forthat. And it is simply probably
a space of pause that can comefrom going to different places.
Sometimes it's often a case ofjust going going for a walk. I
mean, just talking in practicalterms, putting your head into a
kind of a different area offocus, and then going back to
what you're doing. Suddenly youbring a different idea. So we
(33:42):
can get caught up in almost aloop of thinking, and we don't
realise it. So the importantthing for me is almost to build
it as a bit of a practice, totake time in the day, for
example, to to allow yourself tonot get on that kind of
treadmill of constantly havingto solve stuff. I think we all
feel responsibility for solvingthings, you know, and if we're
(34:05):
not solving something, if wedon't understand something, then
somehow we're not sort of livingup to the expectation, or we
could be doing more. There's ahuge amount of productivity
that, in my experience, it comesfrom stepping back from that and
allowing yourself a break sothat when you come back again,
you have new ideas. I mean,that's, in many ways, we think
about the creative processabsolutely essential to create
(34:25):
space for that. At the sametime, what it's doing is it's
it's saying, You know what? Idon't know what it's going to
come up next. And I'm happy withthat. There's a value to me just
stepping back from this
Scott Allender (34:39):
that's super practical and useful. You
outlined sort of eight practicaltools to build a leadership
manifesto. Could you touch on? Iknow we don't have time to go
into depth across all of them,but maybe you could just sort of
hit on them, and we could maybepick one or two to go deeper
onto.
James Woodcock (34:58):
Yeah, the manifest. So in the book is is
very much about what are thedifferent things we need to dial
up as leaders to be able to leadoutside and beyond ego. And so
one of the things I talk aboutof the 80s is this idea of
radical transparency. And I talkabout it both in terms of how an
(35:20):
organisation might demonstratethat, but also, and importantly,
what that would mean for you. Soat an organisational level, of
course, this has many differentkind of ramifications. In terms
of, how does it decide to shareinformation with its employees?
How does it sort of entrust thatinformation to employees? What
(35:42):
does it kind of decide that it'simportant to hold back? I mean,
the EU directive around paytransparency, for example, is a
good example of something that'scome up relatively recently. We
decided that actually, if we canallow people to see with that
greater transparency, you knowwhat people are getting paid,
(36:04):
then there's an opportunity totry greater equity within that
organisation, whereaspreviously, that information was
locked away. The more importantaspect, in a way, when we talk
about radical transparency, ison an individual level, and it's
about how you prepared to showup. And then it starts to dip
into things like, you know,authenticity. So when you show
(36:27):
up to organisation, how much doyou show of yourself? How much
you prepared to show others?
Now, when I think of, you know,examples of great leaders that
have really connected withpeople, it's been those who have
almost been open book in thesense of presenting themselves
as being verbal and human, andthe inviting effect that that
has on other people. The powerof that is immense. Another
(36:50):
aspect of this and transparencythat's come up, actually,
relatively recently is aroundfeedback. There is an example of
you know, process wheretypically feedback is something
that's closed book. It's doneperhaps as a one to one
conversation. It's not somethingthat tends to get shared, and
yet, it's a really importantprocess. The question is, well,
what's it driving? And so I wasreading recently, you know, that
(37:15):
the CEO in the video was talkingabout how he didn't do one to
one feedback. He does it ingroups, and doesn't believe a
that it has capacity to do it,but actually the value of having
feedback in groups and openforums is that, of course, then
the opportunities that anybodygets to learn from that
conversation. Of course, thatrequires a huge amount of trust.
Sounds like a great idea, butyou do have the trust, because
(37:36):
feedback is ultimately personal,so it can prove
counterproductive if you don'tkind of hold it in that sense. I
mean, my view is that that'sthat's great, and you still need
to have one to oneconversations. Because I think,
again, coming back to the roleof a leader, there's a critical
role of a leader to be able toconnect on an individual,
personal basis with somebody, tobuild that trust, which is more
(37:58):
than just feedback has to be atwo way conversation. So, yes,
absolutely, but there are a lotof opportunities for
organisations to increasetransparency. The question is,
you know, in some ways, what doyou need for that? What you
know? What's the bold move thatit's going to take to open that
up? Because, you know, there's arisk that if you try and do and
(38:19):
it can have the wrong effect,if, if the leadership is not
there to support it in the right
Jean Gomes (38:26):
way, and that that, that is the very question that
comes to mind with all of thesethings. Because if you're going
to be a progressiveorganisation, you have to know
where to start first, to createthe safety or to create the
means. Because, as you say, ifyou if you did a you know, some
of the things that otherorganisations are trying, like,
like open feedback that couldjust become hostage to the
(38:50):
existing culture and powersystems. And you describe how
that ego works at large. And youyou talk about the evil genius
organisation. Can you expand onthat?
James Woodcock (39:00):
Yeah, the evil genius organisation. If we think
about when we've been talking alot about ego, the sort of
individual level, how ego playsout on a sort of macro scale,
what we see are these sort ofdynamics, these pattern that
makes it I mentioned earlier.
And when you look at anorganisation as in a
hierarchical system, it createsthese axes of control that I
(39:22):
talk about in the book. Forexample, on one end, you could
have predictive power, so anorganisation absolutely needs to
be able to predict the futurecome up with the right answers.
On the other end of the scale,it also needs to have what you
could call disruptive power. Youknow, the power to envision
(39:45):
vision changes and disruption inthat organisation. You need both
of those and these axes. What'sinteresting is they sort of tend
the organisation between orderand chaos. And this is a dilemma
that every organisation. Andfaces that it needs to create
control within that system andat the same time that will also
kill it. So it has to evolve atthe same time. And so this sort
(40:08):
of tension between this, youknow, ordering, chaos, and the
competing, almost powers thatyou can create, creates this
dilemma in many ways. It's therole of leadership to reconcile
that, but it creates a space forego to play. You know, we think
about predictive power peopleoften form here as a great
authority by the information andknowledge that they have in
(40:30):
their organisation. So they canchoose to allow the free flow of
that, or they can choose toleverage that, and similarly,
from a disruptive powerperspective. You know how they
might create sort of authorityand organisation to create
change, to build networks to doso. So the evil genius
organisation is saying, well,actually, we need to pay
attention to where these powerdynamics can establish
(40:52):
themselves, and the role thatleaders play. And of course,
across each of these dilemmas,there's an opportunity to do
things differently, and reallywhat, what the book is
encouraging us to do is to say,actually, well, how do you
support the organisation best toallow the free flow of value
through those different axes ofcontrol. How do you give control
away? Is often one of the waysto do that. Often think from a
(41:14):
leadership perspective, thegreatest actor leader can have
is to work out how, how do yougive give power to others, which
is the opposite of of egoleadership, which is always
seeking to gain greater controland greater power.
Jean Gomes (41:30):
Where are you seeing examples of organisations
embracing this or being good atdoing this?
James Woodcock (41:38):
I think one of the one of the interesting ones
is when we look at B Corps, BCorp organisations, and these,
obviously organisations whichare really thinking about not
just the benefit of what they doto their organisation, but the
greater societal impact. And Ithink in many ways, it's
(42:02):
challenging for an organisation.
Are your goals? Are the goals ofyour leaders? Big enough? I
think what's interesting is, andwe find this in politics, I
think as well as well, sometimeswhen we look at organisations
actually to be successful, tokind of harness that greater
(42:23):
level of control, the goals arefar too small. And you can see
that in different parts of anorganisation, this idea of when
we have these bigger goals,sometimes seemingly impossible
goals, that we're trying toface, the only way to solve
those goals is is to work acrossa bigger system that could be
(42:44):
within an organisation,obviously different parts of
organisation, or within anecosystem of other
organisations. And so thatrequires a certain type of
leader to do that, to workacross the whole kind of network
of the enterprise or beyond. Italso requires such a leader to
have courage to kind of gofirst, because that's a brave
(43:07):
place you have to play and whenyou're trying to achieve these
bigger goals, because itrequires more than yourself, the
value of that is obviouslythese, these sometimes called
impossible goals bring hugepurpose to those who work to
them. I think about the exampleyou mentioned in the intro when
(43:27):
I worked on the COVIDvaccination programme, and that
was what I would call one ofthese impossible goals. It was a
challenge that we'd never reallyhad to face before, and working
in that organisation, working inthe NHS, we quickly realised
that the only way to solve thiswas to bring all the different
(43:48):
organisations that wouldn'tnormally work closely together,
all the way together so we couldwork extremely collaboratively.
The only way that that that waspossible, ultimately, was this
recognition that there was apurpose far bigger than
ourselves that just drove awayso much the bureaucracy.
Everybody just said, Yep, wejust have to find a way to make
(44:09):
this happen. Had our goal beennarrow, that would not have been
possible. So it's interesting tosee how some of those barriers
dropped away when we could workacross a far bigger system to
get that done. I mean,ultimately, I think the UK was
the first Western nation todeliver the vaccine nearly 2020
and it was for that reason, forthat reason, that recognition of
this bigger goal. Soorganisations that do this well,
(44:30):
I think are ones who have thatand have bigger aspirations.
Sara Deschamps (44:38):
If the conversations we've been having
on The Evolving Leader havehelped you in any way. Please
share this episode with yournetwork, friends and family.
Thank you so much for listening.
Now let's get back to theconversation you
Scott Allender (44:52):
You closed the book with some thoughts about
the future. Can we talk aboutthese?
James Woodcock (44:58):
Yeah, I think so. Am I an optimist or
pessimist? It's one way toanswer that I'm an optimist. I
mean, I think you've met as thisis kind of a recording
obviously, Trump has recentlybecome president, and that's
brought his own sense ofturbulence. I think there is a
(45:18):
route in the world right now ofincreasing polarisation, there's
a concern that we're going tosee the emergence of bigger
superpowers. I think, actuallythink that's sort of inevitable.
My optimism lies in the factthat I think, first of all, from
a technological perspective, andthe progress of technology, and
I mentioned at the start, thepace of that, I think
(45:40):
fundamentally, technology isprobably our only way out of
this. The challenge that wehave, on a sort of global level,
is obviously the scarcity ofresources, the plundering of
those resources and thisconsumer society is creating has
a threshold in the course that'screating greater competition
(46:01):
when we need greatercollaboration. Because the
bigger goal in all of this isobviously the planet, and then
it just appears that we haven'trealised that yet. So the
question is, will we, at somepoint come together to solve
that? I think we will, but Ithink it's going to come through
technology. Technology is adouble edged sword, because for
everything it helps us solve, italso creates the risk of it
(46:22):
being weaponized in some othersort of aspect. But I am
optimistic, and ultimately I'moptimistic for the simple reason
that I think when we come backto who we think we are, I think
we all have an innate sense ofconnection, I think where we see
polarisation and, you know, sortof entrenched nation states, it
(46:44):
appears that we've retractedfrom that. But actually, I
believe for all of us, there's asense that, actually, you know,
we are part of something bigger,intimately part of something
bigger. I think that that innatesense will ultimately drive us
in a positive direction.
Scott Allender (47:00):
Well, I'm glad you're optimistic. I need that.
I need that optimism to washover me.
Jean Gomes (47:06):
We definitely do.
And I think it's not about justsort of being pragmatic and
trying to, just trying to pickout the best of what's actually
happening. It's it's abouthaving vision for what can come
next. And you know, I thinkwhat's great about your work is
that it provides some reallypractical things about how to
evolve yourself with therealities that we face. So I'm
(47:28):
interested to know what's nextfor you. James, what do you what
are you into inventing orworking on next?
James Woodcock (47:38):
Yeah, I mean, the work that I'm doing at the
moment is kind of at two ends ofa spectrum. Again, I do coaching
work, and so I think there'ssomething that I enjoy deeply
around one to win interactions.
The other side of the work thatI do is looking at a great with
organisations and looking at thesystem, and how can we unlock
leaders in that system to reallyactivate the organisation. So I
(48:02):
think again, coming back to therole of leaders, the role that
they play, my work as aconsultant in leadership
development has really beenthinking about the formal side
of leadership. How do we takeleaders, how do we develop
leaders to drive anorganization's strategy? And
what's fascinating now and isthe opportunities to actually
(48:23):
work on a broader level, so thatleaders really are in a position
to activate organisations. Everyorganisation is going through
transformation. This is reality.
How can you place leaders in aposition where they can really
drive that? We need to think abit differently about,
therefore, how we support themin that and so the work that I'm
(48:47):
helping with, and hope to bemore involved in the future, is
to help organisations thinksystemically about how we
support leaders in that role.
Because I think historically,when we think of digital
development, it's often in smallpockets and small places. What
we really want to do is createsort of flywheel effect. How can
we create something over here inthe system that has an effect
(49:08):
over here that creates anamplification, that creates an
energy and activation fromleadership as a whole, and that
that that's necessary, again,because of the pace that
organisations are moving, weneed to quit leaders to play the
role that we need.
Jean Gomes (49:24):
So I'd like to ask you a quick question about if
there was a if there wassomething you could place in
people's mind, a question thatyou could place in leaders mind
right now that they think aboutin their downtime at the weekend
or whenever they're travelling.
What might that be okay.
James Woodcock (49:41):
So I think a question that I've so as a
little seed would be the one wementioned earlier, which is,
what do you need to be ready andto really challenge yourself?
Around that most of the growthand opportunity comes when you
(50:03):
realise actually you will neverreach that point.
And so the other question is,what if you're ready now? So my
sense is, many of us put thingsoff. I'm
sure we could probably all writea list of things that we want to
achieve. What What if you justdid it now, what if you kind of,
it's actually, I'm gonna, I'mgonna give that a go. You know,
(50:26):
that may be the source ofgreatest learning to do that. So
that might be the question. Anduse this weekend and try it out.
Jean Gomes (50:36):
Yeah, I'm going to.
Scott Allender (50:38):
I love it.
James, thank you for joining ustoday and sharing a bit of your
work. Really appreciate yourDear listener, thank you for
joining us, and please do orderinsights.
your copy of ego flip if youhaven't already. And until next
(50:58):
time, remember the world isevolving. Are you?
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