The top leadership capacity for 2022 & how to develop it
A common question is 'What is the most important skill or characteristic of a leader?'
Whilst there is no shortage of blogs outlining the most important leadership skills and traits, one that is often missing from the list, and the one we believe is one of the most important to thrive in today's context, is the power of perspective.
What is perspective?
Perspective is the way we see the world. It is the view we hold and it is shaped by our life experiences, values, state of mind, and a bunch of other things. And it matters because it shapes our behaviour.
Think of a rainy day….one perspective is "it's a cold and depressing day outside, I'll stay inside by the fire". Another is "what a beautiful day, I'll put on a raincoat and bask in the glorious rain". Each perspective creates a different decision and behavioural choice.
Perspective also impacts how we feel about a situation. A client once walked past the CEO in the corridor and said hello, however the CEO didn't respond. The client's perspective was "the CEO deliberately ignored me, he doesn't like me" which made them feel fearful and undervalued. However, when discussed with the CEO, he wasn't aware of what had happened, he was stressed about the meeting he was walking to, and he didn’t recall hearing this person say hello to him. The CEO was sorry and remorseful, and mortified that a member of the organisation thought he had (intentionally) ignored them.
How perspective can limit effectiveness
As a leader, do you believe your own perspective is reality? More times than not, the answer is yes. Often when we run workshops on this topic, leaders are shocked that not everyone sees the world as they do, and that other perspectives exist outside of their own.
Often our minds also convince us our perspective is right, and others are wrong. However, a perspective is neither right nor wrong - it is just what it is - a point of view, which is only ever partial.
The research also shows that the more 'right' we think our perspective is, the less open we are to seeing other points of view. (For more on mindtraps, see Jennifer Garvey-Berger’s book "Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps: How to thrive in complexity." )
How to develop perspective for greater impact
To maximise leadership effectiveness, leaders need to take a perspective that meets the demands of their context. In today's environment of uncertainty and complexity, most leaders need to be able to integrate multiple perspectives - to see things from multiple sides.
As a leader, this ability to view and hold multiple perspectives is what will provide you with an edge. As you begin to see the world through the eyes of others, you realise there is more than one way to view a problem or situation (which often leads to more than one way to solve it), you appreciate the diversity of experience of others, and you build your understanding of others that was not possible before. Here’s some steps you can take to expand the perspectives you hold.
Step 1: Step Back
We can have our perspective or it can have us. Often leaders are so consumed in their work, they aren't able to step back and question the perspective their holding. Even more challenging is that patterns of perspective taking become habitual and therefore unconscious - we can get 'stuck' in our perspective which can limit our choices.
This step is about stepping back in the moment to see your perspective for what it really is: your own personal point of view. It is about putting your lens of the world aside to be able to see things from another point of view.
The next time you feel your perspective is true, correct, and right, write down your answers to the following questions on a piece of paper:
What is the perspective I'm holding about this situation? What am I paying attention to externally? Internally (feelings etc)?
How small or wide is my perspective? (one-dimensional? multi-dimensional?)
What assumptions am I holding? How do I know them to be true? What am I not seeing?
How could I be wrong? (*If you can't come up with an answer for this step, try harder! Your mind is trying to convince you that you're right) :)
Place the paper somewhere, so you have captured your perspective, but put it away so that you are symbolically suspending your current thinking so you can start to explore alternatives in the next step.
Step 2: Seek Out
The more perspectives we gather, the more holistically we see a situation, the better decisions we make, and therefore better actions we take.
Perspectives can:
Be inside-out (point of view is internal, inside the experience) and outside-in (point of view is external, observing from the outside). Many clients undertake strategic planning from the inside only, without considering an external outside-in (customer) perspective;
Emerge from different vantage points ie at the top (ie at the Board-level) and at the bottom (frontline workers) or the side (stakeholders). Often the reason so many policies and decisions made at board-level are so far removed from reality at the front-line;
Be from the view of an individual (myself, other) or from the view of the collective (a whole, a culture, a group, team);
Be time-related (present/past/future) - and anchored in time.
To seek out new perspectives, look at the situation from a different vantage point - look at things top-down, bottom-up, outside-in, inside-out. The more angles, the greater perspectives you will obtain. For example:
How would a customer see this issue?
What is the experience of those most impacted by this?
Whose perspective are we mostly hearing from/Whose perspective has been ignored?
What is the collective experience on this now/in the past/in the future?
As you do this, pay attention to your habitual ways of perspective-taking - and what perspectives feel harder and easier to take.
Step 3: Integrate
This step is about integrating all perspectives into a coherent view of the situation. What have you learned from multiple perspectives? What does that tell you about the situation, and any decisions you need to make? How do you have an ‘and’ mindset rather than an ‘either/or’ view of the situation? What will be the impact on others?
Conclusion
Perspective taking develops over time, with an expanding capacity to take and empathise with multiple perspectives. Perspectives evolve from simple to complex, from static to dynamic, and from ego-centric to socio-centric to world-centric. Consciously developing your perspective using these steps will expand your possibilities as a leader and improve your performance, and that of the organisation you lead.
(Internal reflection: I wonder what your perspective is about our perspective on perspective) :)