Purple Sky Thinking for Leaders - May 2022
Welcome to the May 2022 edition of Purple Sky Thinking for Leaders, your monthly leadership learning blog.
Purple Sky Thinking for Leaders takes a deeper look into each of the Friday Shares from LinkedIn and builds on them, as a supportive learning resource for all leaders.
As a Purple Sky Consulting subscriber, you get first access to Purple Sky Thinking for Leaders. You can access previous Purple Sky articles and resources through the open access Purple Sky Thinking pages or through these members only pages.
A big thank you and welcome to the new subscribers…here goes some #purpleskythinking
Friday Share 32 - “The 3 C’s of Effective Change Leadership” - The Center for Creative Leadership
Change is constant, it can be challenging and it can be planned or unplanned. Your role as a leader is critical to how well the change is experienced by your team but also how well the change is embedded.
I’m fairly sure you’ll be able to recall experiences of change you have had yourself – think about a positive example and a poor example, what were the key factors of those experiences for you?
Now consider that reflection how does that relate to the 3 C’s of Effective Change Leadership from the Center for Creative Leadership.
https://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/infographic-effective-change-leadership-center-for-creative-leadership.jpg
How will you now consider approaching a piece of change that you are leading or receiving with your team?
The article form the team at the Center for Creative Leadership may help your thinking too: Be a Successful Change Leader: The 3 Cs of Change Initiatives | CCL
Activity:
Consider all 3 C’s for the approaches you’ll take to leading change
Collaborate
Who will you need to collaborate with?
Why might that be important?
How do you think that will work best for you and your team?
Communicate
Who will have the information you need?
Why will this change matter to them? What do they need to understand?
How will it be best to communicate? Will you give key messages directly and more detailed information in a follow-up? How will you keep communicating?
Commit
What will be important for you to demonstrate commitment to the change?
How will you demonstrate this?
Consider talking to your team about how they have experienced change and what is important to them too. Commit to taking action and implementing some of these new ways of working the next time you are leading or experiencing change.
Friday Share 33 - “The Key to Inclusive Leadership” - Julia Bourke and Andrea Titus
The value of inclusion is well understood, but sometimes it can feel unclear as a leader in terms of what it means for you. It is not just the right thing to do but increasingly, and quite rightly so, your team will expect this of you. Be ready, take action and be an example of inclusive leadership.
Juliet Bourke and Andrea Titus have put this great article together that highlights the 6 signature traits of inclusive leaders and it is really helpful place to help you to understand your thoughts and leadership approach: The Key to Inclusive Leadership (hbr.org).
As a prompt and summary of their work, Dr Hayley Lewis has created this great Sketchnote.
Now that you’ve considered the article and the 6 traits complete this Activity.
Activity
Take each trait and score yourself from 0-10 in terms of how successfully you demonstrate these traits. I’d consider 10 you being an exemplar, 5 is when you have an appreciation and some application of that trait and 0 when you have not started yet.
Consider how you have rated yourself:
What action do you want to take?
Consider the priorities for you to ensure that you are developing your capability as an inclusive leader.
Decide on an aim for the next 12months (or the timescale that works for you)
What improvement to you want to see, do you want to get to an 8 or even a 10?
What will it take to get you there?
Make a plan for developing these traits and ensure you are truly an inclusive leader
Ideas for you may want to consider:
Would a mentor help?
Do you have any knowledge gaps?
What conversations am I not having?
Friday Share 34 - “How to Handle Frustration like the Best Leaders” - John Eades
How often do you feel frustrated and how often to you recognise frustration in your colleagues and your team?
Sometimes, I’ve found frustration helpful as its led me to take action or recognised the need to change something. Maybe the source of frustration is something you can control or influence to reduce or remove future frustration for yourself or others.
Consider the article from John Eades, for some insights from how some great leaders handle this impactful feeling: How to Handle Frustration Like the Best Leaders - (learnloft.com)
Activity
Based on this article, what would you like to try out next time you become frustrated or someone else does? Try and then consider:
What was the impact of doing that?
How can you build that into your ways of working to have a wider impact on the frustration you feel?
Consider how you will work with others who demonstrate frustration. How can you build in the ideas from John’s article to support your development conversations.
Friday Share 35 - “10 Leadership Skills for Effective Leaders” - Acesence
This final activity for this edition is thinking more broadly about your approach to leadership.
Here, I’d like you think about how much you enjoy the skills outlined for effective leaders by the team at Acesence.
https://i0.wp.com/blog.acesence.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Infographics-10-Leadership-Skills.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1
I’ve always found that the things I enjoy will get a lot more of my time, and therefore developing the capacity to enjoy the things that are necessary is really important.
You may find that you already enjoy most of these, I hope so as they are the key skills for being an effective leader but it would be useful to really challenge your thinking – how do you really feel about it, how much do you really enjoy it?
Activity
When you’ve consider how you feel about the 10 skills, pick 1 or 2 that you feel maybe aren’t the skills you enjoy most. Have a think about what you could do to increase your enjoyment of that skill.
For example, “Manage Attention” is one of the key skills.
How much do you enjoy truly being present with someone? Do you like the distraction of calls or emails popping in and how do you really hold your attention, especially with others?
What could you try here? How could you be more deliberate about your attention? You could try putting your phone away and closing your emails? You could go for a walk with the person you want to focus your attention on so that limits distractions and creates a different environment.
Alongside the use of this Leadership Learning blog, have you considered Coaching?
I offer Individual or Group Leadership Coaching and these are a great way to build your leadership skills and behaviours. Coaching is a safe and confidential space to explore your goals for leadership, enabling you to feel more empowered and confident.
If you would be interested in considering Coaching, please get in touch for a free and no obligation chat at anwen@purpleskyconsulting.co.uk.
See you in June
I hope you’ve found the topics and resources shared in this month’s Purple Sky Thinking for Leaders useful.
I’d love to hear how you are using it and if you’d like me to cover a particular topic in future editions.
If you do have any feedback or ideas you’d like to share please email me at: anwen@purpleskyconsulting.co.uk