I don't know before you became a leader, did you or as you became a leader, did you think about that in terms of Oh, I'm starting on this journey and this is gonna be something that I'm going to learn and work out and get better at over time? No, but I started leading people and I didn't even know that I was doing it. You see, I'm really bossy. So I have lots of imagination.
So I my first like experiences of getting people together to do something I was seven so it's but I I know that I've been doing it and I think I've always been aware of the tension for me between wanting to Lead from the front and and get everyone to do what I want to do and bringing everyone with me in a collaborative manner It's been a real real tension. It was a huge tension when I was actually direct in place, which is oh, yeah because in fact I once had Someone we used to do because we had a very strong education focus in the company and I worked with people who really were very Happy and enjoyed very much sharing our process with young options, bold and stuff like that We really that was part of the company that that was the strength is that it was a genuine Interesting that and we so used to do post-show discussion sometimes with like 16 year olds who were also creating plays And we used to we had a couple of shows that we devised together Which meant that we didn't have a script or a strong idea when we went into the creation process and as we rehearsed and played with the material We come up with the play so the play was devised by that specific ensemble And there was basically Even though we never got the play to be as good as I would have liked it There was nothing in that play that hadn't gone in that I didn't approve of Basically, so I had a very I had quite strong grips on what had gone in But in such a way I managed to do it that at the end in one of these conversations Someone said so so who was directing wow and one of the actors said oh we directed it all ourselves Oh, okay, and I thought you don't know I've been so Sneaky and so careful with not pulling and heading that actually you think that there was no deliberate attempt to guide the content No, because I wasn't Yeah, well, no, I think I think it's a very um, I think it's a very good term also for what we're talking about as it's spot on Given the context as well And I think that's around when I've come very aware I mean I've come also across then when I decided to Study what I was doing and use it as a business because that's actually what I what got me into Teaching in a way so training in leadership and looking at it in a more analytical point of view I've also analyzed a lot of what I'm doing so I mean and now I understand that what I like is facilitative leadership now I've got a word for it. So that I thought I'd become aware of what I was doing quite late in my practice in fact What should we should we bring in the listeners because I think it's an interesting topic to listen into is this idea of Developing relationships are how people can sit down and have a cup of coffee with us as we dig into it Yeah, and now you see I completely forgot it just happens when I go back into my days In my stories I forget where we are. Yes, so welcome to the management cafe where we've already been talking for a while with the Thank you for asking me to lift up my head and see the bigger world Like I've had not the same experience but the similar sort of realization and evolution That was something I didn't expect coming into being a leader or in my mind It was just a job and You would just do it like a job and you know, they're a leader's all over the place and they just they just do what they do I didn't realize and that it was going to be a personal journey for me You know, I wouldn't have a things I was initially drawn to and patents that I tried to limit some of them works and it didn't work You know a lot of self reflection around when things didn't go well Like you actually think you can get to a point where you feel like you sort of master one style Evoborating and then you get into a situation where that style doesn't doesn't work as well or or you realize that you know You've gotten good at it, but it's not actually what you have you want to do or what you want to do And so it's a really fascinating journey that way.
I wish I had of I wonder I'm grateful for how it went But I I wish I had had that awareness earlier that I had gone off This is going to be something I'm going to be doing for a while And it's there's gonna be things that I just won't be able to know Until I go through them and maybe I would have had a bit more compassion for myself and the mistakes that I made and maybe I would have been a bit more open-minded about situations that I was in because I would have acknowledged or would understood that this complexity that I just Could quite grasp. So when we go into leading people, it's usually because we want to achieve something Either it can be for me some people becoming a manager is just a natural progression of a career So that's one thing the other is that we want to go into opposition where we can make things happen And I think that it's only when you are very consciously trying to develop yourself that you realize how much of a self-awareness exercise it is When I share with the team leaders with managers the concepts of visible teamwork and how to run that remote team I always ask that they think of two things one is a team practice that they can do that they can change And then one is their leadership practice that they can do and I think that the 50-50 for me They're especially when you are Discovering who you are as a manager is really important is to have 50% You're making out these percentages But most some of your time on what the team needs from you And then the other half of your time on how you connect how you come to up in the team How you shop in your one-to-one how you live and love your relationships or you are in the organization how you manage your work And It's only certain kind of probably the people around this cafe This kind of people who really realize actually if I want to do this in a way that makes me happy and that serves everyone as best as possible I need to really look at how I'm showing up Yeah, I think there's an opportunity I think it's somewhat unique opportunity Through being a leader To learn a lot about yourself as a person Just because of the range of situations that you will find yourself in that you have to deal with And you know you have to deal with conflict you have to deal with people who need help You know you have to deal with people who are underperforming And then you need to build confidence You have to train people and support them when they've made mistakes like there's lots of opportunities there to learn about yourself And learn about people and so I think it's a really valuable gift if you view it that way the difficulty I think is that when you start You know, you know, it passes syndrome you need to get it right. You won't keep your job, you know So there's there's a lot of pressure at the beginning to get it right and Yet, I feel like there's so much that you might only discover with time and practice and your repetitions I don't think a lot of organizations. I don't know.
Maybe they do I don't feel like it's common that an organization would say like you're developing here. We're gonna give you some Some some latitude around that Maybe they do what do you think it's tricky it's tricky because I'm thinking so my experience is that in organizations especially large ones Some of the development like the training management development tries to push everyone towards a similar Style in a way or by especially by giving specific kind of training in this kind of thing for example and There's I suppose there's one. I don't know. I don't know There might be value in that unified approach to how will it our teams so that the culture is unified I don't know and so that if you move around the teams Yes, of course, it's different from one team to another and from one manager to another, but it's not huge There's still certain stuff, but I wonder whether it's worth thinking about what team processes we follow and what a management processes We follow and then helping to develop the leadership style of each person at the same time So I don't have any answers.
I'm just going in circles in my mind But at the same time a lot of managers who work in organizations develop their leadership style in that context And as you're saying it's through through doing it that we start to understand one who we are But also we are developing how we lead in a specific context Even just by just by having the context in the organization, you're already providing a path Yeah, and you're probably a different kind of manager in one organization versus another organization But I think it's crucial it is through having those experiences that you discover what works best for you in that situation Yeah, you touched on something really valuable in that like I've experienced this in my old organization where We thought the leadership was inconsistent and that was super concerning as the owners because if you know the idea being that a manager two or three steps removed from me was managing a very different style They make different decisions. They value people differently That that was worrying so we needed some consistency And so that was one of the reasons why you want to introduce Some core attributes that you want leaders to exhibit and training so that there's a baseline of skill around Certain aspects that you that you decided most valuable But within that it's almost like there should be this big box, which is How leadership behave within this organization? And then there's the box of how do I as a leader want to practice which is smaller box And as long as it sort of fits within the big box It's okay, you know like the idea being that there's gonna be all these sort of polarities around, you know Are we authoritative or are we supportive? Are we uh?
Direct or are we you know Whatever aspect you can think of whatever continuum it might be uh that The organization should give some space for people to Find their own path within some pretty broad boundaries You know to your point that gives people scope to try and cultivate Their own sort of unique interpretation of it, but it's not outside of the organizational Boundary if that makes sense. Yeah, it's bringing me back to our earlier coffee about authenticity as well that sometimes as we Discover who we are we might discover that the current environment is not the right way for us As in it starts to clash as we understand more the more and more situations we put ourselves in and a story is coming to mind of I know someone who was working with a team leader who Was really good like a nurturer gave the team a lot of autonomy and the team was very competent So rightly so was championing for flexibility as in location of flexibility Great person and suddenly at one point someone said to them that how they were managing their people wasn't right because they were not having Some meetings with them And that really really was I hang on my team is gray with great results They're all happy and you're having a go at me because you don't like the processes I'm using actually I think that was because that was about process and that person left not very long after this happened I mean, I think it's also that thing of Allowing people to develop their style and some of their processes when we have very clear what they need to achieve And not shoehorning them into what we think management is which is you know, you have to have the meetings because you're a manager Yeah In this example, yeah So I guess the tricky part here is for a manager in that situation and part of this is in a managing up Yeah, he's setting he's just saying respect or maybe it's setting your your manager's expectations Of what's the result that I need to achieve and how much latitude do I have in terms of getting to that result And try to try to do that in advance because again, I think as an early manager You've got to play it safe You do to an extent have to you know have to act as you view You know as you view other managers in the organization because you need to buy yourself enough time and enough credibility That you can start to start to show me if you become a manager and you Instantly go, oh, you know what? I'm gonna manage in a totally different style. It's my authentic style You know, this is how I believe it should run you're playing the fire, you know, it's a pretty strong chance It's not gonna work out.
You're not gonna be a manager for very long But also if you are a new manager you're taking your cues from what it seems to be working for other people in that context So it makes one pleads sense to it's consciously also consciously to role model and what else is going on Like you say before you really really understand well, I think it's like with all jobs is this idea of uh, particularly when you start a job, so There's a great analogy I heard from Michael lot he called it the blue tape We'll take something around it. So basically he's got to put when you started a new job to do as a manager for the first like 90 days He's an algae was like he had someone like Renovate's house and the builder said look when you move in You're gonna spot lots of little things and I want you to just go around and put a piece of blue tape on them And then we'll come out and we'll look at all the blue tape and we'll work out what are we gonna fix what we're gonna fix So he's only job was just to notice it notice it put the tape on and then we'll do it later on And I think particularly as new managers you see this a lot of time I managed to join organizations is they they want to make impact from day one And so they want to go oh team doesn't mean to sort of get change that, you know, oh the goals are wrong You know they're trying to build this thing that should be building that thing straight away They want to do the one like all these changes and then I have the context that I understand the history that I understand that might have been tried before it doesn't work or whatever else And so this blue tape analogy I found was really helpful on the idea that you you note down Oh, why do we have executive leadership team meetings? Why do we have to have these meetings, you know on Wednesday? So when we don't want to do it, you know, why is the team, you know, looking at this metric and not this I thought like you know them down and then you sit on them for a bit And so this was advice I would give people as they as they join because what would happen is after, you know, 38, 60 days, 90 days Some things would still bug them.
They'd say I thought this was a problem on day one. It's still a problem now You really need to fix this. Yeah, and other things they go. Oh, yeah, that thing.
Oh, I get it now Understand why you're doing it that way. You know, I thought it was wrong, but you know, I understand you can't change it or what it rolls And so I wonder whether in terms of developing your leadership style Particularly as a new leader, you know, some some version of that where you You're trying to know things as you go and then come back to them and reflect on them and go, okay No, I wanted to do this differently. I still feel like that I wonder whether this would be a really nice new way of having a leadership development program in an organization Is rather than say, okay, this is what you need to know I get the point that you were saying about being some consistency throughout but just that to one side for the moment And you help people to notice and you divide that learning between the noticing face where everyone is noticing things about themselves that they're like Oh, I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure.
So the blue blue tape analogy and then at some point then Is when you help them and you help them with what they've noticed with what they want to be working on because I think that That's something we're missing is and I think it might be because I'm reading a book at the moment called mind management not time management Which is about how the creative process has lots of different stages And I've noticed that I want to do all of them at the same time So I'm trying to explore an idea at the same time as I'm trying to do research and the same time as I'm going to try to consolidate my thoughts So they're abuse to someone else So they might be valued really separating the reflection and the noticing bits for for someone who's learning And actually they don't have to be at the beginning of their management career But just something that they're noticing day to day without the pressure of day to day having to address what they're noticing And then having a chunk of time at some point so you stop you notice and then you explore what it is you need and then you have your So Really chunking the stages of learning. I love it. I love it. Yeah I think as a leader who's trying to develop your own practice It's a great idea that oh, I'm gonna go through the first You know I'm going through performance managing somebody how am I going to approach that?
And then you know fog of war is you going to and maybe think about a little bit but then coming back to it afterwards Trying to unpack it and if you're a manager trying to develop leaders I think super valuable to talk about things in advance and then also in retrospect because they look different and The thing I really love to continue because they're often when you talk to people afterwards It's what they take away that everybody will have their interpretation Oh, I learned this this was the lesson that you know that I'm taking away from it and there's opportunities to help people Mold that you know to for the lesson to be one that's gonna be valuable to them going forward Whether it means they're gonna repeat the behavior or do it differently or whatever else Yeah, so it I guess a lot of it is around that unpacking situations and interpreting them So I'd like to ask those around the table Because the conversation's gone. It's it's gone from developing your leader It is about developing your leadership style But the first question I'd like to ask anyone around the table Is this something you think about at all or actually you just become trying to become a better manager and that's it And you're not concerned on really understanding how it is you're doing it Is that important to you? I'd love to hear around that or have you deliberately been keeping an eye out on your style and fine tuning it shifting it Is this something you've been paying attention to? I would love to hear about that So management cafe podcast at gmail.com and management cafe podcast.com If you want to send us a message through our contact form Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on your podcast app or you can also subscribe to the weekly blog post from the blog But team before we get out and of course, I don't even think that some people here know who I am My name is Pilar.
This is team Management cafe colleague team anything else before we get up and carry on with our day I'd love to know how people How people view this but particularly this concept of you know, ruminating on On things you've dealt with as a manager and has that has your interpretation changed at the time But for me, it happens all the time all the time. So I'm wondering how to try people's one Excellent. Well, there's a very specific question for you coffee drinkers coffee is over for us now. It's over to you Thank you for joining us at the management cafe Remember you can subscribe to the show on what other forecasts are you used to make sure you get your weekly dose of reflection Our website is management.cafe and on Twitter we are at management cafe That's all for this episode from myself Pilar Orte and our fellow co-host team Burgess Thank you for listening