Leadership Rehearsals

Stepping up to being a better leader means rehearsing on the job. Rehearsing means knowing the play, your character, the scene and most importantly your intention and not necessarily getting it word perfect. Sometimes you have to improvise and it will not be perfect. It may mean rehearsing some new behaviors in a meeting or in front of your team. Growing as a leader asks you to maintain spontaneity like an actor. It may mean:

1. Take time out to reflect on your play (could you?)
2. Improvise and try out new behaviors (scary)
3. Run with a brave new idea (pants on fire)

Time out to reflect

Reflecting on who you are within your organisation and what behaviours are required for you to expound further on your vision is part of a leader’s job. Punch your way out of a paper bag with “Dear Diary”. It is perfectly ok to keep it private. Just get it off your chest and out of your head.

Strategy: Time out to think and feel

There’s a little story that goes:

A student is talking to her very sexy professor about her up and coming exams.

She says: “I will do anything to get good marks”

Professor: Anything?

Student: Anything.

Professor: Really? Anything?

Student: Anything.

Professor: Really….Will you study?

Will you reflect?

“And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total? Tillie Olsen.

An executive said to me the other day that he does a lot of personal development outside of his organisation. He knows it’s an inside-outside thing. I was really impressed. Self-development is hard work and I think fun. We ask ourselves the hard questions:

How do I come across for other people? Ask your diary, “I wonder dear diary….

How does my behaviour affect x when I do Y?

What works with it? What does not work?

Does that behaviour get me the results I am looking for?

Improvise and try out a new behaviour

When you learn to improvise you learn to use the “YES AND” technique to move the conversation forward, VERSUS “NO, WHAT ABOUT THIS….” The rule of thumb is you are not allowed to stop. You have to be a builder of the conversation not a blocker. You have to keep the conversation going no matter what otherwise you’re out.  So what I advise in this context, is to try on some new behaviours with the YES AND. It may feel scary putting on a new “costume” for the meeting and it may be pleasantly surprising.

Ask yourself:

What new behaviour could I improvise on?

Is it having the right effect on others?

Ask your team how they think it worked. What you could have done better? Hopefully, they will have noticed because you didn’t just dance in the shadows.

You probably will feel self-conscious. You don’t have to tell anyone you are improvising.  Just stay with what it is that you are committed to. It will work. If not that’s ok, you will have learned something new for yourself.

Or you could try a brave new imaginative and playful idea:

How did all this sternness get in here?  We let it in. Heaviness and seriousness is a sure killer for imagination. I recently watched the movie “The Italian Job”. My one liner takeaway was “no imagination”. In the movie, the “baddie” gets done over for not having much of it.

No imagination in leadership is a sure killer for everyone involved. Brave ideas live in the imagination. Be playful, bright and light:

• Speculate with a strong sense of potential; how could that be done?
• Stay in the curiousness of the idea
• Put your idea forward with confidence. You will be surprised at the conversation it sparks

People will respect and value your efforts. No brilliant idea was brought to market without inquisitiveness.

Feeling like a laugh? Click here for my entertaining E-Book on Leadership Vignettes to improve your leadership. Or to speak with me about my Executive coaching program email me at jayne@jayneleslie.com