Hi everyone. Welcome to this webinar called How Do I Develop my team for Future Leadership. My name is Richard Casey, and I'm the executive director for the World Small Animal Veterinary Association.
I'm also the current president for the Veterinary Management Group based in the UK. So a little bit more about myself to get it started. I like to use this slide when I give a little bit of an introduction about my background because Whilst I may have a a nice impressive title for my role, it hasn't all been a fantastically easy climb to get to to get to the great roles that I've had in my career.
For every success, I can guarantee you there have been many, many attempts and failures. To get that successful project off the ground or to get that next role and that next step in my career as well. Prior to joining the veterinary world in 2011, I spent a variety of years working in large corporate organisations such as Amazon.
First Choice Holidays, T-Mobile as it was then in a variety of customer service, management, but also human resources, more specifically on the learning and development side. Type roles. Then I found myself falling into the veterinary falling into the veterinary worlds in 2011 when I joined PDSA.
I've always been an animal lover, but I'm also always quite upfront as well with that. I didn't actively go choosing or looking for a role in the veterinary sector. It was an opportunity that happened to be available when I was looking for my next step and challenge.
But as it happens, my family historically had used the service of PDSA as well. So it was an organisation that I was familiar with. I had this purse, close personal connection with the organisation.
Through the assistance and support that they provided my family and our pets in the past. Yeah, from PDSA then I then went to I, I, I then joined Blue Cross and earlier this year in 2012 2022, I joined the Muava World Small Animal Association. During that time though as well, I've also, I also got involved with the Veterinary Management Group, which is a membership association in the UK.
We represent the, we represent our members who are typically those in management and leadership roles, and that could be anybody from your hospital or practise manager, your head nurse, clinical director, client care head receptionist, or regional support teams. And one of the areas that we focus on is leadership and management, and non-clinical skills development, which it brings me to how I was asked to, why I was asked to contribute to this lecture today. So you may or may not have heard of this phrase in recent years, the phrase being the great resignation.
So it was a phrase that started in around 2021, during the, during the, I suppose after the first year of the, COVID pandemic, and it's a phrase to use to describe the significant increase in the number of Employees who quit their jobs, hence the term, the great resignation. The, the graph that you can see on the screen is specific to the UK. It's from the Office of National Statistics and as you can see, prior to the pandemic, resignation rates were generally around around this 400,000 resignation mark.
Across the bottom of the axis you can see that it increases in quarters, near quarters of the year. We have this steep drop around Q3 2020, which is, you know, generally around when people, you know, people are, you know, people weren't feeling comfortable leaving the roles, you know, job security, etc. Was worrying, you know, people didn't, didn't know what the future future held.
So people were, you know, weren't actively seeking new employment. And then as we start to enter 2021. There is this significant increase in the amount of individuals that are leaving their roles, but not just in, not just increasing back to the levels that we were seeing pre-pandemic, it starts to exceed that and actually goes above by an extra 100,000 resignations in quarter, between 1 and quarter 3 of 2021.
What's interesting about this graph though is that actually it tells us it it what what it's telling us is what is that whilst those resignations are increasing, those the the like for like . So the volume of people that are moving from 11 job to another similar comparable job remains the same. So people aren't moving to rules that are very different or moving outside of sector.
They go into similar type jobs in different, within the same sector. So what that tells us is that actually people are looking for, looking for the same type of work, but perhaps in a different way to deliver it, delivering it in a different way. Perhaps they're looking for a better a better work-life balance, perhaps they're looking for more variety greater variety of staff tasks and work to get involved in, or perhaps they're just looking for a better cultural effect.
So I'm sure this won't be any surprise to any of you. So the motivations for working in the veterinary sector, and this is taken from the 2019 survey of the veterinary profession, and the top and the top three best things chosen by at least 45% of respondents were working with animals, job satisfaction, and the challenge and stimulus that the work provides. A further 3 best things chosen by at least 20% of respondents then were client relationships, making a difference and workplace relationships and their colleagues.
Although, as you can see, it is quite considerably less, but no, no, those client relationships, workplace relationships are quite considerably less than than those top three. You know the over, over, over half less than client relationships versus the working with animals. And then when we compare this then to a relatively recent survey, it's it's 2018 and I believe it's currently it's a 2018 survey by the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, and I believe it's currently in data, data collection stage for the new version of this.
There's this question, I've been asked participants to answer the question. I've been feeling close to other people and then how often? 45% of those respondents do not feel close to other people often or all of the time.
I find that quite scary, you know, can you, you know, and you know, you may, you may be one of these individuals who is who would respond and answer that question in not often or all of the time. So we've got, for me this is quite a considerate, not not just scary, it's poses a considerable challenge to the UK veterinary professions and actually a challenge that is the responsibility of UK veterinary leaders, practise leaders, business owners, and veterinary organisations to overcome. So when we put this then, I start off with, I started off with talking about that great resignation and how people are moving from one organisation to another, but.
Likely in similar roles, so you could be like moving like, you know, you could be a veterinary nurse moving from one practise where you were a veterinary nurse to another practise in the role of a veterinary nurse and the same for, you know, effective receptionist, etc. And so on. But the important thing is, and if we know we could be we could be setting ourselves up for moving out of the frying pan and into the fire if we don't start to look for what it is that it, you know, what it is that actually will provide us with that greater work-life balance, that greater satisfaction within the, within the workplace, because it isn't necessarily always going to be those.
Working with the animals and the challenge and stimulus, that's going to be the key motivated motivators for keeping us within that employment and within that organisation. The you know, there's a likelihood that it is going to be the things that we like less, that feature much more and increasingly more often in our work that are going to influence and shape how we feel about the organisation. So we need to start considering then about, you know, turning an emphasis on about how we resolve these people interaction issues within the organisation.
Hence this topic about how we can develop leadership within the organisation. I'm gonna start off now with a short video, it should hopefully play for you. So, and it's a, it's a video that, I've used in a variety of my talks, lectures and training workshops over the years.
And for me, it is a video that really helps to highlight the importance of leadership and breaks it down into some very simple and easy to understand steps. So. Whilst I get this set up and running for you, Bear with me one moment, please.
If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen. Start to finish in under 3 minutes and dissect some lessons. First, of course, a leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous, but what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional.
This is key. You must be easy to follow. Now here comes the first follower with a crucial role.
He publicly shows everyone else how to follow. Notice how the leader embraces him as an equal. So it's not about the leader anymore.
It's about them, plural. Notice how he's calling to his friends to join in. He takes guts to be a first.
Follower, you stand out and you crave ridicule yourself. Being a first follower is an underappreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.
If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that really makes the fire. Now here's the second follower. This is a turning point.
It's proof the first has done well. Now it's not a lone nut and it's not 2 nuts. 3 is a crowd and the crowd is.
News. A movement must be public. Make sure outsiders see more than just the leader.
Everyone needs to see the followers because new followers emulate followers, not the leader. Now here come 2 more people, then 3 more immediately. Now we've got momentum.
This is the tipping point, and now we have a movement. As more people jump in, it's no longer risky. If they were on the fence before, there's no reason not to join in now.
They won't stand out. They won't be ridiculed, and they will be part of the in crowd if they hurry. And over the next minute you'll see the rest who prefer to stay part of the crowd because eventually they'd be ridiculed for not joining.
And ladies and gentlemen, that is somehow a movement is made. So let's recap what we've learned. If you are a version of the shirtless dancing guy all alone, remember the importance of nurturing your first few followers as equals, making everything clearly about the movement, not you.
Be public, be easy to follow. But the biggest lesson here, did you catch it? Leadership is over glorified.
Yes, it started with the shirtless guy and he'll get all the credit, but you saw what really happened. It was the first follower that transformed a lone nut into a leader. There's no movement without the first follower.
See, we're told that we all need to be leaders, but that would be really ineffective. The best way to make a movement, if you really care is to courageously follow and show others how to follow. When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.
So that's you've learned so that's a a video like I said, I've been using for many years in . In talks, team development and things and so on and you can easily find it on YouTube just just Google or search on YouTube leadership lessons from the dancing guy and you'll find it. So it summarised nicely at the end what it was telling us, but you know, I've got I've just put on the screen some of my own three key take homes from it is that as leaders, we must demonstrate what good looks like.
So there's that showing and telling others what to do and how to do it. We need to break things down into easily replicable steps and be clear on what it is that we stand for and also do not stand for. So throughout this session then how are we going to structure it?
So I'm gonna start off with redefining what leadership looks like in a modern society and in a modern veterinary organisation. And it includes self-leadership because it's important if we're going to develop others, we need to develop ourselves too, and we also need to lead ourselves before we can lead others. So under self-leadership, we'll be looking at personal brand and identifying what we stand for and what are our non-negotiables.
Be using a concept called the belief window, which helps us highlight how our beliefs and beliefs, values and beliefs, sorry, inform our behaviours and results. We look at the importance of self-awareness as a precursor to self leadership. And then we'll go on to how we can lead others, particularly through the emphasis of leading others potentially into developing other leaders within the organisation.
I'll be using a concept called strategic relationship management. I'll touch upon what you need and how much of it that you need, so the use of skills matrices to do so. I'll be using another favourite model of mine that I have used throughout my career called Situational Leadership by .
Kenn Blanchard, you may be familiar with that already. It's one that is just time old classic that I feel really helps bring to life in a simplistic type visual way how you may need to adapt our style dependent on the situation that we find ourselves in. And then we'll end up with like developing an action plan for how we need to move forward.
So we'll get started then with this how we redefining the role of leadership in a modern veary organisation. So, In today's veterinary practise, in today's veterinary organisations, and in the profession as a whole, we have a number of key players, key actors or players, present. They could be the patient themselves, they could be our colleagues and peers.
There's the practise as a practise as a whole as a stakeholder. You may be in a formal leadership and management role where you have people reporting into you. You've also then got the client as a stakeholder.
You know, and dependent on your setup, you may have a vari variety of other stakeholders involved as well, whether that could be local, colleges, universities, particularly your vet schools, if you have a relationship to provide EMS or rotation placements and so on as well. You've also then got the relationships with your suppliers and your, you know, whether that could be the . Yeah, like it's your tax suppliers or your pharmaceuticals, etc.
And so on as well. I'd like you to pause for a moment and just ask yourself this, ask yourselves this question. Have you ever Used the phrase, I am just a, you know, you couldn't say that.
I'm just a vet. I'm just a nurse, I'm just the receptionist or I'm just admin. Or, you know, in another way of saying it is, you know, it's above my pay grade.
You know, I think in some shape, way, or form, everybody's been guilty of using this phrase in, you know, at some, at some point in their careers, relatively recently as well. I know I have on, you know, catch myself sometimes saying it without even realising. Well, I'm challenging the notion that any of us are just a nurse, just a practise manager, just a receptionist, just the vet, and actually, you know, yes, there may be some decisions that are above our pay grade, but there are ways in which we can all go about influencing outcomes as well.
And I like this quote from Brene Brown, which is a a new take on, you know, what a leader is, and she defines a leader as anybody who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes. And if we take the, you know, replace the word responsibility with. Act, you know, like I define a leader as anybody who acts.
Upon finding the potential in people and processes. Then, you know, that could be almost anybody within the veterinary practise, you know, you know, if we, you know, coming back to this, you know, players in the veterinary organisation. If a leader is somebody who can find, is anybody who can get a better outcome for the patient, colleague, the business, your line reports or the client, then in some shape or form, we're we're all leaders.
And there is this under you know and as was mentioned in the As mentioned in the video actually with the, with the dancing guy, an underappreciated form of leadership is actually following is followership and actually showing you're having the guts to stand up and follow and be ridiculed as the video said, the first person who's doing something for the first time, a new act or a new way of working. And you know, another, another description from Brune is, you know, this difference between armoured leadership versus daring leadership. So, armoured leadership is being in nowhere and being right, which, which I would say is more you know, more on the traditional side of what leadership management is, what we perhaps were taught in.
You know, parent to child kind of relationship, you know, the parent knows they're the ones that are always right. The child is developing, is learning, etc. And .
Yeah the And You know, and follows the parent in everything that they do. Whereas they in leadership, yeah from Berney says being a a leader is being a learner and is getting it right. They may not get it right all of the time.
You know, but they are going through this continuous process, continuous lifelong learning of reflecting and adapting their ways of working and their approaches in order to get better outcomes for themselves and for others. And I ask myself this question, if If, as Brune says we should adopt or lean into this this daring leadership approach, what is the impact impact of us not? So what is the impact upon us as leaders, what is the impact upon the people that we lead and our teams, our practises, patients, as well as then the clients of an armoured leadership type.
Like you just take a moment to reflect and then consider then if you, if you recognise this style of leadership, armoured leadership, what are your experiences of that, how has it made you feel? And you know, there are times actually when perhaps an armoured leadership approach where is appropriate, you know, when you when in particularly in times of crisis when people are looking for, looking for somebody to take control and guide us. But actually at other times when When that isn't the case, no.
Could that style of leadership be stifled? Could it be seen as micromanagement? Could it be seen as suppressing, and could it be then as a long term consequence, end up with us resulting in the challenges we are experiencing within our industries today?
So over the last decades or a decade or longer actually, you know, there's there's been emergence, the emergence of new takes on descriptions of what leadership looks like and in the 21st century, there's been this emergence of servant leadership being a type, being a leadership style that is relevant to the workforce of workforce workforce of the 21st century. And it compares servant leader, compares servant leaders to more traditional type, styles of leadership and tradition and in the, in the purpose of this comparison, as you can see, traditional leaders are seen as that. They use power and control to drive performance, they know, they measure success through output and results and Potentially may see things as about them.
Whereas servant leaders see, see their role as an opportunity to help and support others. They share power amongst the team. They measure success through growth and development of their team, and they listen to others, and you know, they recognise that whilst they may be in a former leadership role, they recognise that it's not all about them, and actually it's about the results and the successes of the whole team, of the whole organisation that's that are important.
OK. You know, a few years ago, it was actually at the start of the pandemic, the veterinary management group launched what we referred to as our veterinary leadership standards, and it was a piece of research that looked at, you know, what in what people within the UK veterinary sectors in particular. Deemed as the non-clinical knowledge skills and behaviours that were essential for superior outcomes in UK veterinary practise, to be fair, I think, you know, it's arguable that these knowledge skills and behaviours are quite applicable and relevant regardless of where we are in the world.
And these 6 competencies, you know, whether they are just knowledge or whether they are skills or behaviours that we should be demonstrated, the ability to develop you develop yourself, the ability to develop others. Communicating and influencing, leading change and innovation. Planning and strategy and knowledge of your sector.
I will also then go on to say as well, knowledge of the environment that your organisation is operating in, because it's not just your sector such as like, your veterinary sector. I it goes on to then say, for example, . Knowledge of your community too, so you could have knowledge of you if you're a veterinary practise in.
South West Wales, clearly, let's say, which is where I am based, it's having a knowledge of the forces at play within that community as well, which may result in the challenges that your client base experience. So having a knowledge of that community will help you better serve the needs of your clients. And what VMG then also did was went about setting up this, they set up these leadership standards, you can then go and see much more information about them in a nice very fancy glossy report.
Vetmg.com/ leadership standards. There's also a nice free to take self-assessment to to there as well.
Yeah, but as I mentioned at the start, one of the key things that this, these standards highlight is the ability to develop yourself. And one of the one of the objectives of this webinar is to highlight how we can develop ourselves and lead ourselves to. Which, this graphic by centre for Creative Leadership highlights, highlights us three steps to reimagining servant leadership is we can serve others by starting with our self.
Self-refraction, self-awareness, and self-care. So this next section then is we're going to focus a little bit on self leadership. So when talking about self leadership, I often start with using a model by Stephen Covey called Circle of Concern.
And the key take homes from this model are that we need to focus our energies on what we can control and influence. And the circle of control is what we can directly control. The circle of influence then is the concerns we can do something about, and the circle of concern is the wide range of concerns that we may worry about, we may get anxious about.
But what this concept aims to tell aims to teach us is that what we cannot control or influence, we need to let go of. So examples of these are things that may fall within our circle of control, influence or concern may be so, starting in the centre, things that we can control directly our thoughts, words we use, our direct actions and behaviours, how we react to something. Yes, sometimes it may need a little bit of exercise to actually control how we react to something, but it is something we can in with practise control.
We can control our decisions and choices and things, our attitudes and approaches to how we approach our work. From a circle of influence perspective, we can influence, you know, our children's futures. We can influence whether people like us or not through you know through our choice of choice of actions, behaviours, approaches.
We can control who follows us on social media. We can control what we commit to doing and not doing. We can influence whether we get promoted, we can influence where we work.
What we can't control law things like the weather. We can't control our past past decisions and choices and behaviours. We can't control the economy.
And you know, prices can't control traffic. So these are all examples of things of things that you know based upon this concept, it would suggest that we should try and Not worry about these because the things we can't control, we can't influence, therefore we should spend less time worrying about them and more time emphasis focusing on what we can control and influence. And this concept of the circle of control, influence and concern tells us that in order to in order to Increase your circle of control and increase your circle of influence, which is the areas we should in theory spend most of our time and effort.
We do so by becoming more self-aware and through expanding our network and relationships. And through the next few slides, I'm gonna focus on, you know, focus on becoming more self-aware. I will start on, start, before we come on to that though, I will cover off a little bit around expanding our network and relationships.
I'm not going to go into detail on this during this session, but one thing I would strongly recommend any colleague, friend up here. If you are looking for an effective and structured way to expand your network and relationships, get involved with your professional associations, and that could be VMG Veterinary Management Group, if you are a, A veterinary leader or manager. It could be getting involved with your national veterinary associations like BVA BVNA.
Beaver, BCVA and so on. It could also it could also as well be mean getting involved with global associations if you want to try in, if you want to play a part in influencing global policy, veterinary policy, you know, and Musava has a variety of committees that you can get involved with too. So back to becoming more self-aware.
So there are a variety of tools that people can use for becoming more self-aware, and some of these I have used, some of them I haven't. So, meditation and mindfulness is something that you may wish to explore. Variety of people like to document plans and Use that plan then as like as like a living tool or living document to tick off and monitor progress.
Something I strongly believe in is psychometric testing, and we'll come on to that in a little bit more time in a little, a little bit more shortly now. You can ask trusted friends and colleagues about, about how you may come across. You know, asking for regular feedback from your line manager, from your line reports, from your peers.
Active reflection and journaling as well, and that may not necessarily take the form of a traditional dear diary type journal, but, one thing that I personally do is I keep my, I keep my work notebooks for a period of time and, you know, I, I wouldn't say, you know, I go back multiple years, but you know, 12 years is generally the time period I tend to keep them for. And then, After a period of time, I would generally then look back through the notebook, particularly if it's been a period where I've had a challenge or I've found something difficult, I would look back then kind of consider what else work wise was going on at that period, so I'll then be able to see whether or not there were any particular triggers or challenges that I was . That, you know, that that contributed to that period of difficulty.
And then once you identify that, you're able to then find ways to strategize to prevent or minimise that from occurring again. So when it comes to self-awareness. One that I would always say start off by asking yourself this question is, what do you want to be known for?
And then flip the question on its head. And what do you not want to be known for? Because that's you know the answers to those two questions should really help, help guide you in your self-leadership quest, and how you lead yourself moving forward should all be designed around getting you to this point of everybody in your professional network, you know, if they were to ask, they ask, if somebody was to ask them.
You've described, you describe Richard, you know, then describe Richard's approach to work. In theory, you you know you've done your job well and you've led yourself effectively if their answer is gonna be what you want to be known for. And one of the concepts I like to use when I'm talking about self leadership and how And how we can lead ourselves is a is a concept called the belief window.
I refer to as the belief window. It's academically known as Hiram Smith's reality model. And in this and in this model, it talks about how we all have our basic human needs to be loved, needed, you know, .
How you know, food, water, etc. And then, you know, above that, then we have our own, you know, professional needs, you know, that, you know, unless those those these are individual teacher of us, but unless those professional needs are met, then. You know, then that contributes to how we feel about ourselves, our work, how fulfilling it is to us.
And then I will be the beliefs that we have about any given any given thing inform the rules that we have for ourselves, which will then inform how we. Think, behave and act, and our behaviours then determine the results that we get. And those results that we get.
Then determine how well our needs are satisfied. So I'll give you a work example using one of using something for myself for myself. So, as I mentioned earlier, psychometric testing is something I am, you know, I'm a big fan of.
I like psychometric testing because it kind of gives you a little bit of a snapshot of yourself. It, and the one I, one that you can use for free actually, you can do a free personality test online, 16Ppersonalities.com is the website.
And this is the one I'm gonna use as an example I saw through that website and psychometric testing, my personality type is something called ENFJ. And EMFJ characters are well in are referred to as protagonists, and they are individuals with extroverted, intuitive feeling and judging personality traits. And a descriptor that a description of a protagonist is that they are somebody who are thoughtful and idealistic.
These personality types strive to have a positive impact on other people on the world around them. They rarely shy away from an opportunity to do the right thing even when doing so is far from easy. And I would say that's kind of fair, descriptive for me, you know, I choose, you know, for the vast majority of my career, I have chosen to work in the charity and not for profit sector.
So I like to use my knowledge, skills and experience to influence, better outcomes for people, and, you know, influence change within the world. So if we use like kind of these beliefs, you know, so so if we use this descriptor from this personality profile that I've completed, I mean if we say and that for argument's sake, that this describes my personal needs, and I think they're a fair reflection of my personal needs, and then we use this then to . To underline the belief window concept.
So based upon my personality profile, I have a need to witness the positive effects of my work. So I'd like to see the impact and change that others are able to experience as a result of me working in an organisation, me carrying out a project. So I have a personal belief, you know, if you've seen me speak I speak before, I often use the phrase have courage and be kind.
So I have a belief it's important to have courage in what we do. You know, sometimes it's not always easy to do what we do. And regardless of the outcome, regardless of the circumstances I'm in, I will always to the best of my ability endeavour to be kind.
I am human after all, so I don't, I, you know, I will hold my hand up and say I don't, I don't always get it right. So I have a rule for myself that is that if I share my experiences, both good and bad experiences, and when I talk about experiences, I'm also referring to my failures and my successes, that others will see that it's also OK to do so. And one behaviour that you may see me do then to demonstrate that, you know, to live by that rule of sharing my experiences.
I often talk about my own personal experience of poverty, you know, I was brought up by a single mother in a very underprivileged part of Wales, . You know, we lived, you know, we were supported by, you know, the welfare benefit system. And You know, I am, and I've got lived experiences of poor mental health as well.
I've had anxiety and depression, the vast majority of, of my life. And in recent years I've I've, you know, I've had considerable highs and I've had considerable lows and in particularly in recent years, I've been able to identify the types of things that trigger a, you know, trigger a bad spell for me as well, and I've been able to identify and seek help, in order to manage that anxiety and depression too. So the result of me sharing my experiences and sharing and sharing my lived experience as somebody who is in a visible veterinary leadership role.
The result is then the others will begin to feel, oh I hope others begin, will begin to feel more comfortable to schools and when they aren't OK. And that then links into this meeting of my needs. So like, you know, if others are able to see that they're able to talk about when they're not OK, and then are therefore able to share that with us and be able to manage and strategize and get a better outcome and minimise the effects of it, then I know that that we've in some shape, way, or form, been able to have a positive effect.
So, when it comes to the strategic self leadership, what I would encourage you all to do is look at how you lead yourself in this, in these simple steps. Determine your ultimate goal. And then spend some time reflecting on what that look feels and sounds like.
Remember those two questions that I said, what is it that you want to be known for and what is it you do not want to be known for? What enabling activities are going to help you get there. So that could be training, it could be coaching, it could be, you know, getting involved in a new network, it could be building relationships with a new type of stakeholder.
What are your non-negotiables, you know, so what is it that you're absolutely not prepared to give up? And you know, I would say these non-negotiables are the are the things that would for, you know, for some people be the what is it that you don't want to be known for. They may not be a it may not go as far as that though, but you could say is a non-negotiable for you is is that you may not, .
You know, you're not prepared to give up a certain type of work or a certain level of work, work life balance, or you're not prepared to compromise on and carrying out certain acts within your, within your role or within your organisation that go against your personal values and belief. And then, as always, reflecting after a period of time and reviewing, is your strategic self leadership plan still relevant, is it up to date? Do you need to adjust it?
I would say as well at this point is then there's this concept of professional courage, you know, like I, you know, as I've alluded to, I like to use this phrase, have courage and be kind. And in many ways, we have to be courageous on almost on a daily basis, you know, I can be upfront and honest for myself. Sometimes it's it takes courage just to get out of bed in the morning, particularly when I'm not at my most resilient.
So, you know, professional courage can take a variety of guises. It can be. You standing with somebody, you know, you know, like, as you saw in the video earlier, being a follower of somebody else, standing with them and, you know, having their back that you know when they're doing something that you know is difficult or not easy for them.
It could be standing up for somebody else. It's also about standing down and recognising, you know, when enough is enough, and now I, I don't, you know, I think it's OK to say, you know, I've had enough of this now, I'm not going to continue with it. I've given it my best shot, and that is OK.
Sometimes that is more than OK. Sometimes that is actually exactly what is needed. There's this what is it that we stand for, you know, I'm being very clear around what it is that our beliefs are, what our motivators are.
Again, that's a nod to that what is it that you want to be known for and, what is it that you don't want to be known for. And then finally, still standing, it can also be very courageous, you know, it takes a lot of courage to be, continue with your goals, when, when our, after all of what life throws at us and particularly so in recent years as well.hings have been pretty crap for all of us in recent years.
I think we all should give ourselves a little round of applause for still being stunned in after what the world has presented to us. So at the end of this section then, so key points I would like you to just take home are defining your personal brands, so what is it that you want to be known for within your community, within your professional community, or is it you don't want to be known for? Become more self-aware.
And then create that strategic self leadership plan. So now we're gonna move on then to the final section of this of this webinar, and that is leading others. And I'm gonna start off with then an overview of what I call strategic relationship management.
Well, let me, let me ask you a question then first of all. So if you take a moment then to consider the relationships you have in your professional life. If you want to as well, you could also use this concept, you know, the same principles apply for this in your personal life as well.
But you know as this is a a workplace. Webinar, let's focus, let's focus on workplace relationships. And I'd like you to pick out some examples of relationships, and these could be A stakeholder group, so people that have similar roles.
Or it could be a specific individual. So think of some, think of some rela workplace relationships that you have got that are great. Think of some relationships that are, you know, they're they're OK, you know, there there's nothing, there's nothing about them that sets the world on fire.
But there's nothing bad about them either. And then, you know, are there any relationships that are tedious, you know, they're difficult. It's that, you know, perhaps you get anxious when you have to meet or communicate with this particular person, or it can be a bit like pulling teeth.
It's, it's difficult because you just don't get any response. So this concept of strategic relationship management then is a way in which you can go a way in which you can use to help structure how you approach improving relationships within the workplace. It starts off with shortlisting who, so you should always like, you know, and I would suggest that you know a maximum of 3 here because you know, and as you'll see later, you in time you will get to adjust to your shortlist, who your shortlist, who's on your shortlist, sorry.
So 3 people who you want to, who Have a great influence or perhaps interest in your in in your work life. Assess those relationships right now. Are they great?
Are they OK, or are they challenging? And then for each of those relationships, consider what what are the needs of that individual and what is it that you need from that relationship. And then you need to decide on an action for each relationship and and in this example, I'm I'm I'm saying that the actions could be you either maintain that relationship, you either need to boost it, so perhaps it's OK right now, but you want it to be a bit better, you wanted to go to that great relationship, or does it need fixing?
And once you've then determined, you know, once you've determined the action that you're going to be taking, you need to then compare and contrast that then with what it is that that individual needs from you and what you need from that individual. And is it a case then how can you flex your approach in order to better meet their needs in order for you to get a better outcome for yourself as well and for your needs to be met? What I will then say is as well is if you're, if you're you know, if you, if you're thinking of somebody perhaps who's let me start again.
So if you're perhaps in a formal leadership role where you line manage others and you are perhaps not getting outcomes from a particular member of your team that you require. How you flex and adapt your style is is something that we're gonna come round to shortly now. I would say as well is in any relationship, there's particularly if there's a if there's a relationship that isn't going so well, and after you adapt in your style and after you've tried a variety of different things, and perhaps you've had courageous conversations with this individual and things haven't changed, there's an element of needing to be real.
And accepting that actually. Perhaps you've gone from challenging to OK and actually you've stalled there, perhaps OK is something that you need to accept it's the best of something that something is going to be. If you're able to go through the motions of what a task or process and work relationship, you know, of what of what is required of you in that workplace relationship, just perhaps accepting that that is the best outcome for this is, is in a nod to what slide that we saw earlier, is an act of professional courage.
And as, as always, review and reflect from time to time as well. Do you need to update your shortlist? Who's gonna be on your next list in your next shortlist of people that you're gonna target in your relationship management strategy?
So when it comes, when it comes to leading others and when it comes to our relationship management approaches as well, there are 3 models that I like to use that kind of. Help to guide my approach my my approach in these areas and the first is transactional analysis. The second is how you can get to how you can go about identifying common ground between you and one other, and also the non-violent communication.
And we start with introducing transactional analysis, and this is a Psychology model. You, commonly, you know, it's, it's used quite commonly in counselling and things, and it's based on it's, it's based upon the principles that are or the thought that. Every individual has the ability to act in one of these three ways, and they're referred to as ego states in transactional analysis.
So the first ego state is parent-like behaviour. The second is adult-like behaviour, and the 3rd is childlike behaviour. So I'm gonna play a short video for you now, just for a minute or so, that gives a very nice rounded introduction to this concept and how and and how you may see these different ecostats at play.
Mhm. Have you ever found yourself in a situation with someone where you seem to repeat the same uncomfortable or even destructive patterns with them every time you meet them? For instance, you might feel you're never able to say no to a particular person or that someone in your life always puts you on the defensive with a constant stream of criticism.
Maybe there's someone who always relegates you to the role of listener, never taking an interest in what's happening with you. And each time you might think, never again, next time it'll be different, but it never is. Transactional analysis or TA is a theoretical framework used in therapy and counselling, which suggests that one of the overriding factors in the perpetuation of these situations is not the other person's behaviour, but our own state of mind.
TA suggests we shift between three distinct ego states parent. This is a state in which you think, feel, and behave in ways based on how your parents and other authority figures acted. Add on.
Here you think, feel and behave in response to the here and now, you're able to draw on your full life experience and generally you're geared to a realistic objective appraisal of your experiences. Child In this state, you think, feel and behave just like you did in your childhood. So there are the three ego states.
But what might they look like if you saw them in action? For instance, what if you suddenly. Mhm.
OK, so, that is a much longer video which you can find on YouTube as well. So if you just go onto YouTube, search transactional analysis, and you'll be able to see that video. It goes on to explain a little bit more detail around what each of those egostats looks like, and.
And also as well, the aim of transactional analysis is to. It it it teaches us, teaches us that to get better outcomes, our goal should be to remain in the adult state as much as possible because that's the state in which we're acting and thinking logically and rationally. So what can we do then?
Or what what tools and models and approaches can we use to strengthen that adult's ego state and remain in that and remain in that frame of mind. Well, one approach that I like like to use is kind of common ground or get into common ground, and you may often . I like this diagram, which kind of highlights, highlights the concept of common ground because you may have my interests may be like over here, your interests may be over there.
But the reality is that we're gonna to have common interests which may not be. Exactly the same, but in some shape or form, there's going to be some common ground that we know we both have the same best interest or a we, we both have, we both want to get the same outcome, sorry, is what I was trying to what I was trying and failing to say. Another way to look at this as well is from the perspective of my perspect I mean my perspective may be here, but your perspective may be over there.
The reality is perhaps somewhere in the middle. And the way in which we go about getting to that reality or getting to understand what those common interests are, is by using these 4 different approaches. Curiosity, disclosure, inquiry, and managing ego.
So from a curiosity perspective, it's expressed genuine interest in the other person's position. You could be asking questions as to, you know, tell me more about how you got involved in that, or tell me more about, you know, what it was that you've done to get to your position, current position. There's disclosure, exchanging views with openness and transparency, you know, one such way may be to you know, an act of professional courage of disclosing challenges and failures that you've had in your career.
You know they could be appreciative inquiries, asking questions with the intention of finding out more and not looking for holes in the argument. And finally managing eagle, which is sometimes again not something that we necessarily do too well in our profession. And it's another act of professional courage, you know, and it's about understanding that we may not always have all have all the best ideas and have all the right answers, and being prepared to accept that somebody else's answer or somebody else's idea may be the one that is most suited to the current situation.
So one way, one way in which you can demonstrate curiosity is by just a slight adjustment to your ques the questions that you ask. So when it when you're asking people for information, whether that's a line report or whether it's a colleague of yours, it could even be a client if you know if you're if you're in clinical practise, try try this approach with your consultations. So, and it's it's just about when you're asking open questions and tell, explain or describe to the start of them.
So it's a concept called TE questions. So instead of . Or what have you done today?
Describe to me what you've done to, you know, perhaps the best, best example. So . So, So what did you do to get to that outcome?
Describe to me the steps you took to get to that outcome. So explain to me the process that you the process that you went on. And I I started using these que, you know, adopting my open questions usingel explain how describe many years ago when I was strengthening and strengthening my coaching skills.
And I was quite amazed by the amount of greater information that I was getting by just adding one word to the start of my questions. So, yeah, so, that's, that's a task for you. Go around your try try adjusting your questions with these just by the addition of these words and see if it expands or enriches the information that you get back.
Another model then that we may use when approaching challenging conversations with individuals may be to use the non-violent communication model. And it's a concept by Marshall Rosenberg. And I personally use it when you're having conversations with individuals that perhaps I have a history of having an unproductive conversation with or a child or a Or perhaps it's a I have a history of.
Come having challenging conversations with, with an individual where we both revert to perhaps parent or childlike childlike responses and then the whole conversation ends up being a big mess. So one way in which you can remain in an adult-like state here is to use this non-violent communication process. And basically it's to put it in short, it starts, you know, you start the conversation with giving an observation of what you've seen or heard.
You then go on to explain how that makes you feel. You highlight the, you know what it is that you need that that you need from that . You know, in your professional career, in your, you know, personal, personal life, and then you go on to end it with a request.
So what it is that you need from that individual for your needs to be met. So, Stages to strategic team development. So when you look, when it comes to then how you then develop your developing your developing your team, and this could be and include developing your teams to be, have, you know, have greater, have greater greater leadership skills and ability, then start off with this approach.
So what is it, you know, first of all, I need to define what is your team or organization's goal. And then what knowledge, skills and behaviours are going to be essential to your organisation or team getting to achieving that goal? We then need to do a gap analysis on assessing what our current state is, and I'll come on to more that I'll come on to this a little bit more shortly.
And then we develop an action plan on how we're gonna go about getting there and what we're gonna do and when. As always, we review and reflect. When it comes to the current state piece.
My advice is to use a simple and effective tool called a skills matrix matrix. And you know, the, the one on the screen is just an example that I've quickly, quickly drawn up in Excel for you know, for, for this PowerPoint, and you would just have a list of all your team members down one side. Across the top, you would have a list of all the skills or the knowledge, knowledge that are behaviours that are required in order to get, in order to be effective at what it is that your organisation or practise does.
And then you go about assessing the competence of that individual at demonstrating that knowledge, skill, or behaviour. And here I've got a simple key so you can have 0 for no competence, 1 low competence, 2 good or 3 advanced artists, perhaps somebody who's been upskilled or trained in training that that that that that knowledge skill or behaviour. One car you actually here though is, I would say is just an emphasis on you may want to consider the word that you use.
Competence can perhaps be a trigger word for some. I've used it here just because it does as it says on the tin, but you know, in the I would advise using a word that is in line with the perhaps the values and principles and the the the tone of voice that your organisation wishes to use. So, I mentioned earlier on that there I was going to be referring to another leadership model that I've used regularly throughout my throughout my working life, and that is the Hircy Blanchard situation leadership theory.
And it's a . It's a great model that is actually available to read in more detail in a very accessible and easy to follow and easy to read actually. It's quite a short book with big words, what big words in big text, called Self Leadership on the One Minute Manager.
So the concept of situational leadership tells us then that when any, when when we are asking somebody to do any given task or objective, we need to assess that individuals. Competence and commitment. So the competence is their knowledge, skills and behaviours.
So do they have the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are required to do that task? And what is their commitment to carrying out that task. Now, competence is based up of like we, like we said, knowledge, skills and behaviours, commitment can be made up of motivation and confidence.
So the principles of, you know, as you can see on the screen, this model has, is based on a kind of a graph quadrant. There are 4 quadrants, and somebody then let's say, who's never done a, who's never carried out a who's never done a particular task before is gonna have low competence at doing it. So therefore, what they require is a, is the, what's called the directing style.
Somebody then who is who has some competence at doing something, you know, they may have done it, you know, a couple of times, but haven't always got it right. And as a result of that, and as a result of perhaps not getting it right, they are not confident that doing it, then you know they're gonna, they're gonna require a different approach from you. In this case, it calls for the coaching style.
When somebody then has, you know, has, you know, become much, you know, they, they've reached the stage of getting better outcomes more times than not, then, and we deem them as having high confidence to carrying out something, but they may have perhaps a variable commitment that could be because perhaps they don't understand the importance of the task and therefore don't really, you know. Their motivation for carrying it out isn't the best. Then perhaps a a supporting style from the line manager is, is, is needed.
And then when somebody has high competence, high commitment, it's just about delegating, getting it on by letting them get on with it. Now, the principle of, you know, one of the principles of the of this model is highlighting that you need to give the correct mix of of of leadership and management skills to what that individual requires at that point in time. But that mix of management and leadership skills can vary, can and most likely will vary.
Depending on what it is you're asking them to do, because somebody could be a fantastic expert at one activity, but then asking them to do something else, it could be like, it could be like a fish, fish water. Until you teach them how to do it, they're not going to know how to do it effectively. So you label people on their label, you don't label people, you label people on their ability to do a particular task.
So the types of skills used in situational leadership are are management and leadership skills, you know, I categorise some of them here in and what are traditional management type skills and more traditional leadership type skills. And then for example, you know, when, when, when we've got somebody in who has got, you know, in this bottom right hand corner, they're in the enthusia what's called the enthusiastic beginner category. They've got low they've got low skill or knowledge on a task, but they're highly commitment, highly committed to it because perhaps they're really enthusiastic about learning something new.
Then they're gonna need a what's called the directing style. They, you know, they may, they're gonna need you to show and tell them very clearly what it is that needs to be done in what order. You're gonna ask them then to perhaps observe you.
You're then going to observe them, you're gonna be stay very close watching what it is that they're doing to ensure it's done in the correct order. You're then gonna give feedback and then you're gonna monitor what they do over a period of time. You know, that is very different then from somebody who is in this, let's say, perhaps self self-reliant achiever stage where they've got high competence and high commitment.
You know, what that person in that stage doesn't need is is the is the directing style. They don't need you to show and tell them what to do in exactly the right order. They don't need you hovering over their shoulder, monitoring what they do.
And that is when they get that kind of micromanagement, micromanagement feeling. What that individual needs is just, it's just for you to say, oh, hi, you know, hi Matt, I've got this task that needs to do it. I know, I know it's, I know it's something that you're able to do.
I would love you to get, I'd love it. I would love it if you could pick it up for me. Would it be all right if you could do it by this time next week?
You know, you've just, you've delegated them the objective of the task, and you've asked them when you, you've asked for their input and when it is you need it by. They've confirmed that, and that's all that's the extent of that relationship. And then the supporting and coaching styles are kind of in between, you know, the in-between stages between directing and delegating is when you're adjusting the level of hands-on management versus the building trust and leadership skills, such as, you know, perhaps asking questions and coaching that help move somebody along this curve with the ultimate goal of being able to get them to that stage where you're able to just delegate something to them.
So what? So we've come to the end of the webinar, so what does all of this mean for us? So I'm gonna, I would summarise the key take homes of this session in in Info.
To develop others, we must also develop ourselves in 21st century leadership skills. I would recommend developing a competence matrix and use this to inform the areas you need to develop in your team. Be flexible in your approach.
I just, I remember that you, you know, when you're when you're developing a team, you're gonna have individuals who are at various stages on that situational leadership grid. So if you need to introduce a new skill or new piece of information to your team, there may be individuals in that team that are at delegation stage already. There may be people in the team that are at directing stage and need a lot of hand holding.
So what does that mean for you? My advice, if you've got somebody in the team that already knows it, delegate the task to upskill the team to them. That allows you to get a time back to focus on other areas that only you can do.
And as always, have courage and be kind. Thank you very much for your time, everyone. I hope this has been insightful.
I hope this has given you some tools that you may find useful and able to implement in your day to day roles. Like one thing I would say is that nothing that I've said here is is an absolute must. Everything, if there's anything I've learned in leadership and management, it is about that that is that.
You know, there are, there's an awful lot of stuff out there, and it's, I know, but, but, but it's, it's down to us to pick and choose the tools, the models and approaches that help us get better outcomes. So some of what I said today may be helpful for you, some of it may, may not, but hopefully it's given you food for thought. If you would like to get in touch, please do.
I'm always up for a conversation, and my email's on the screen, [email protected].
Have a great day, great evening, great weekend. If you're watching this before Christmas, have a great holiday period. If you're watching this afterwards, I hope to, I hope you have a great 2023.
Take care. Bye bye.
