We are all in agreement that many of us are exhausted. As my post titled ‘The Real Fuel Crisis’ suggested a few weeks back, people are out of gas. It is not surprising given everything. And now, to cap it all, the clocks have changed and it’s dark at 4.30pm in the UK. The hotel in which I was staying for work last week (yes, you heard that right and yes, I was rather happy about it) even had its Christmas tree up (and no, I was not happy about that). The week before I had posted my first thoughts on what we can do in response to this ‘crisis’. My suggestion — a simple one yet one that that many find hard to achieve — was to perfect the art of doing nothing and learn how to engage in active, deep rest. Have you bought your bolsters yet?
This week I have been thinking more about the organisational side of things and what leadership can offer to the refuelling challenge. I am not a fan of parental style leadership where responsibility for employee wellbeing and development rests solely with those in positions of authority. I am a fan of cultures of relationship in organisational communities / teams in which everyone ‘leans in’ and plays their part. This requires individuals to recognise what they need and take steps to access it (for example, using their annual leave rather than leaving it to accumulate and go to waste, asking for help when they need it or learning how to rest…). It also requires managers and leaders to pay attention to the reality of their people’s wellbeing and to do what they can to create the conditions in which people can ‘work well’ and bring and give of their best at work.
Most of my work is about relationship. In my 1–1 coaching I am usually helping individuals strengthen their relationship with themselves. In my team coaching work, I am usually helping people develop their relationship with each other. And in organisation development I am usually helping to build more relational cultures in the workplace. In my own experience of the world of employment, when I actually had a boss, I never enjoyed the fact that too many of them only seemed interested in me when they wanted me to do something. And I have always remembered the partner who bought me a birthday gift once, because it stood out as being an unusually kind and thoughtful gesture from someone at that level. I am not, however, advocating that you all start buying presents for your people. What I am advocating is that you do what you can to create cultures of care and cultures of relationship, not transaction. We are humans after all. We are not machines.
Relationships are a tricky business, be they personal or professional but the presence or absence of a quality relationship can make or break a team, organisation or business. I recently did a piece of work with a team under a huge amount of pressure, working incredibly hard in a challenging environment, supporting vulnerable people in the humanitarian sector. Most of the team had never met each other in person. All of them were struggling. None of them were in the habit of talking to each other about their struggle. Their sense of belonging came more from their own individual department than it did from the leadership team of which they were a part (something which is incredibly common in leadership teams, in my experience). Over the space of our time together, they formed a bond, a team identity and a culture of care which changed the nature of their experience at work. It did not immediately transform the nature of their performance. But it did lead to them feeling more seen and more confident in speaking out. It also led to greater collaboration and more sharing of solutions and ideas. And it led to them feeling less alone and better supported in the important work they were doing. I am proud of this result and am convinced that this is a platform from which stronger performance will grow.
This is one example. But it is a relevant one. All that was required to make it happen was a leader who cared enough to invest in those relationships, to share his vulnerability along the way and to invite others to do the same. Everyone with team responsibility can do something like this. You just have to care enough to find the time, energy and resources needed and to keep at it.
Don’t get me wrong. Of course it is not all about sharing how you feel. There is a job to do, deadlines to meet and a challenging schedule to deliver. One of the tricky balancing acts of leadership is perhaps to combine compassion and care, with direction, drive and inspiration. In my view it all comes down to developing the kind of relationship that enables you to do both, having the awareness to judge what is needed and when and the care to do so sensitively and skilfully.
Whoever said it was easy?