How not to break people

The second in our 'Ordinary Extraordinary Leaders' podcast series, listen to Mike Hickman, Leadership Development & Training Manager at Community First Yorkshire as he explores how the secret to not breaking people is to take care of yourself.

Transcript

How not to break people

[00:00:00] Welcome to the second of our leadership podcasts from Community First Yorkshire. You may have listened to the first, I hope you have which came out not too long ago and was about what I have learned from bad leaders. My name is Mike Hickman and I'm Leadership Development and Training Manager here at Community First Yorkshire and our second podcast, for our second podcast, you get to hear from me again, but there will be guest speakers for the rest of the series and this recording, this session is about how not to break people - which relates, of course, to the bad leaders, Frankenstein monster I talked about last time.

If you haven't heard it, go back, listen to it now. I'll wait for you here. There's a very well known saying from the management consultant, Peter Drucker, culture eats strategy for breakfast. So you can plan for anything. You can strategize anything. You can have improvement plans, business plans, any plans, visions, missions, etc.

But if the culture of the organisation [00:01:00] is not at tip top condition, the strategy will perhaps never be delivered. Because people may be affected by the demands made of them. So building on that first podcast and, in its broadest sense, this podcast is going to consider how and why individuals are impacted by leadership and how, perhaps, a very few adjustments or considerations can lead to greater staff wellbeing.

So we're in wellbeing territory and, to start with, I thought we might do something slightly different from podcast one. Why not? And have a little bit of a countdown. So you've got to imagine, those of you that remember the sign of the swinging symbol and Alan 'Fluff' Freeman doing his countdown on Radio 1 back in the day (I think it was Radio 1).

We've got a top 10 here of things to consider. I could have done a top 40, but we're trying to keep these podcasts to a decent length. So having consulted with people, and I have, some of whom would be willing to go on the record, some of whom a bit [00:02:00] more anonymously. Here are a few of the ways we might be better able to look after those we work with and work for.

So, now you have to imagine the music, okay? At ten, the leader needs to be vulnerable and authentic. Consider what podcast one had to say about authenticity. Consider our Frankenstein's monster, whether they were really presenting their true self or not. If you are authentic, then you become a role model for your team.

You can become a role model for your team. If you are authentic, then others may be more comfortable with authenticity too. It is, of course, about modelling. It is about how you are and perhaps feeling, therefore, empowered to be more authentic yourself. This includes, of course, embracing imposter syndrome and appreciating how it affects others.

I spoke last time of the fact that, many moons ago, I was suddenly catapulted into a role [00:03:00] that I wasn't expecting to take as a head of department. One of the youngest in the country in teacher education, and I had imposter syndrome bar none. Never felt imposter syndrome quite so much. One of the most important things about that for me was having someone above me in the organisation who recognized it and allowed me to say it. So there you are - ten: leader needs to be vulnerable and authentic. 

At nine, provide a safe environment so that issues can be raised and people feel comfortable to come to you. Google talk about psychological safety - the fact that organisations need psychological safety. That's what we're talking about here - a safe environment in which it is not risky, perhaps, to say something as simple as, "I don't understand that." Or it is not risky to talk about things that are happening in your personal life because of course these things affect work. If you can't raise those things, if the environment [00:04:00] isn't safe, well we go back to how not to break people I think- perhaps we're running a big risk. 

At eight, listening. A good listener is more likely to encourage talk. Don't always be the first to talk. I may have mentioned last time, staff meetings that I've experienced in the past where okay, let me do it - let me, let me do it about myself - where I have spoken far too much and other people haven't had the opportunity to do so.

You're not going to find out about the people you're working with. You're not going to find out about their needs if you don't give them the chance to talk. And there's all sorts of rules. You may have heard the one about if you don't speak within the first ten minutes of a meeting, you're not going to speak at all.

This is probably one of those things that would set off Alan Davies' QI alarm as absolutely untrue, but there is a point here. If someone doesn't speak for 40 minutes of the meeting because you have, then they're not terribly [00:05:00] likely to speak in the latter part of the meeting, particularly if there are lots of other people who have been sitting there, listening to you that whole time.

At seven - we're still doing the countdown folks - visibility. You might remember that the Frankenstein's monster actually didn't show up in podcast one, wasn't visible at all. Visible leaders make a difference just through their presence. A culture of visibility also leads to a culture of accountability. And I'm thinking of things, too, like - and these are relevant - things like body doubling, having someone working alongside you makes it more likely that you will work efficiently too. We're all modelling for each other. If the person in the leadership position is visible, is there, is working away, that's going to affect how other people are.

If you never see them, if they don't seem to be doing very much, maybe that's going to encourage others not to do very much either. 

At six, hand in hand with visibility, is [00:06:00] availability. Is it easy to get to speak to you? Are there barriers to communications? What do you not get to know as a result of those barriers?

And what are the risks as a result? I've worked for people who've had very, very open door policies. I've worked with people who have been genuinely extraordinarily busy but have always had office hours or the opportunity to see them when you need to. It doesn't mean, visibility and availability doesn't mean that you are there all the time and available at short notice all the time. But it means that people know they can get hold of you. And when things need to be dealt with, you will more than likely be there. 

At five, appreciate the work and the efforts of others. Recognise what people have done. Celebrate their work when appropriate. I am reminded of the Ofsted inspection many moons ago with a huge number of people involved in which a person who should not be named [00:07:00] decided to celebrate with a single bottle of champagne. I think we had a thimble full each. The idea was there, the spirit was willing, but he hadn't quite thought this through. Nonetheless. There was the opportunity to celebrate and it was clear that he meant it. Maybe buy more than one bottle of champagne for such an event in future though. 

At four, remember that people work with you and not for you. This comes down to the difference between leadership and management. More of which might be said later. 

At three, do what you say. Do what you say you're going to do.

Make sure to keep your promises. Again, this is part of being a role model, or just modelling in general. If you say something is going to happen on a particular date, and it doesn't, okay - maybe on one occasion people will let that go. If that's a regular occurrence, it's going to affect how other people are.

Two, recognize what [00:08:00] someone's job means to them in their life. 

And at number one, uh, remember dignity, respect and duty of care. Our top ten then. Hopefully you've been also playing the tune - Sign of the Swinging Cymbal - in your head all the way through that, because that should have made it even more entertaining.

Now obviously there's an awful lot here. Some of this relates, as I said, to the difference between management and leadership. And you might have had time to think about the distinction between the two. That managers manage tasks and leaders lead people. And there's the caveat to be added here that there is a lot of academic work about this and my background as an academic means that I am absolutely going to avoid going overboard with it.

So no footnotes for this one and no references. But again, managers manage tasks, leaders lead people. Management is task orientated and transactional. It relies on authority and instruction. [00:09:00] Leadership is people orientated and transformational. It's about doing the right things. It's about attitudes and behaviours. It's inspirational or can be, and it's visionary. 

Management tells and leadership asks. And if we go back to how not to break people and we think about this quite simplistic, I'll admit, distinction at the moment, (and people will debate this) but if we think about managing. tasks and treating people more like tasks and telling people what to do and instruction rather than asking and maybe also the distinction between managing, telling and a more coaching mindset in which people are asked questions about what they themselves wish to do and take more ownership of their work - you can perhaps see why it might be that a more management orientated approach to people might run greater risks in [00:10:00] terms of how they will perform. So, to summarise, if we accept that treating people as things is more likely to run the risk of breaking them, big if, because there's nothing wrong per se with management and good management is possible, of course, then it becomes apparent that the qualities inherent in strong leaders are more likely to avoid some of these risks. Aspects such as inspiration, for example, to inspire someone to do their best requires perhaps a coaching approach - an awareness of individual strengths, which you can only get by getting to know that individual. It requires an appreciation of Dweck's growth mindset - very difficult to say with your teeth in, let me tell you. And a belief in common with all good coaches that the individual can do it. If you start off with the presumption that someone won't be able to do a thing, then perhaps we shouldn't be surprised when they can't. If you go back to podcast [00:11:00] one, I had a head teacher I spoke about there who had appointed one of his teachers as English leader.

And she had said, "I'm a fraud. I can't do this. This is something for [it was classic imposter syndrome] this is something for somebody else who doesn't look like me and doesn't have my experience." And he said to her, "That's exactly why you're the right person for this job." He embraced her vulnerability. He shared some of his own, which is not my place to share with you here, and he allowed her to see that they were basically imposters together. But the understanding that there was room for growth and understanding that you don't know everything is actually a brilliant place to start from. 

So there we are. It's arguable that you can't do this without a degree of visibility and authenticity.

You need to listen to what people tell you. You need to make yourself more vulnerable to other people taking on the task set to them and essentially taking risks rather than being tightly controlled. [00:12:00] Think about the situations in which you or someone you were working with felt empowered to share vulnerabilities or concerns.

Who do you go to? Why do you go to them? And is it likely that you would risk sharing something of that nature with someone you did not trust or you had not built a rapport with? 

And that then brings us to our key point. We had our top 10, just to remind you. 10 was vulnerable and authentic. 9 was safe environment. 8 was listening. 7 was visibility. 6 was availability. 5 was appreciating the efforts of others, celebrating them. 4 was remembering people work with you, not for you. 3 was do what you say you will do. Two was remember what someone's job means to them in their life, and one was remember dignity, respect, and duty of care.

Well, all of those things are true, and I'm now going to add another number one, because our existing number one, brilliant as it is, has been knocked straight out of the charts by this observation. [00:13:00] You'll know this quote, probably. This is one version of it. It comes from Gabrielle Bernstein. Putting your wellbeing first, like putting your oxygen mask on before you help the person next to you, really benefits all relationships. It isn't possible, arguably, to do any of these things as a leader, to inculcate the psychological safety that Google and others talk about, if you yourself are not looking after your own wellbeing. I run the risk of being massively hypocritical here because we all struggle sometimes with managing our own wellbeing.

But it is about being aware that if you yourself are not well and not looking after yourself and not giving yourself time away from the job and not thinking about all of those things as they affect you as a human being, then it makes it so much harder to look after other people and I'm going to use that term, 'look after other people'. [00:14:00] 

We started with how not to break people. Let's think about looking after them and having teams that work well together. So, the thesis for this (sorry, I'm an academic, you get the word once), is that you avoid breaking people by taking every care not to break yourself. 

As before, do have a listen to the other podcasts in this series. There are a number of titles coming up in the near future with a series of speakers and a series of provocations, some of which I can't wait for you to hear. If you have any thoughts about themes for future editions, if you have any comments on everything I've said here, then please get in touch by all usual routes. Our email is info@communityfirstyorkshire.org.uk. That is info@communityfirstyorkshire.org.Uk. 

Thank you for listening.