How To Lead Differently

We live in times that are different from all those that have gone before us. So it’s hardly surprising that these times require a different kind of leader.

This kind of leader is agile, collaborative, inclusive and mentally tough. This kind of leader understands the need for continuous improvement, at both a personal and an organisational level. This kind of leader finds a way to drive positive change through the actions that he or she completes on a daily basis, no matter how mundane those actions are.

That was the thinking behind the recent Leading Differently conference, hosted by the UK Institute of Leadership & Management. So what does leading differently mean in practice? According to the conference speakers, it means:

1. Being neuro-agile.

To thrive in today’s fast-moving world, we all need to be able to do things simpler, faster and better. So ‘leading differently’ is linked to the speed at which we can process information. At the conference, Carole Gaskell, a life coach and founder of the Full Potential Group, described neuro-agile people as those who have the flexibility to rapidly learn new skills, attitudes and behaviours and quickly unlearn old behaviour patterns.

Fundamentally, neuro-agility involves using different parts of the brain simultaneously. Examples of activities that promote mental agility are chess, dancing, martial arts and doing puzzles. It takes quite a lot of work to become truly neuro-agile, but fortunately there are exercises that can help you to develop this skill (use Google to search them out). As a starting point to find out how neuro-agile you are today, try taking Full Potential’s brain fitness test.

2. Being resilient and mentally tough.

Life throws unwelcome surprises at us constantly and these surprises will only intensify as we advance into the unknown. That’s why resilience is a crucial skill for leaders to have. The key to resilience is understanding that pressure is an internal force, not an external one. How we react to fear and pressure is determined by our brains’ limbic systems, which regulate our ‘fight or flight’ mechanisms. So if we want to build resilience, we need to train our own limbic systems, and those of our teams, to associate challenge with intensely positive emotional experiences, according to physiologist Professor John Neal. Reward, recognition and acknowledgement are all good ways of doing this. So is doing something that pushes you out of your comfort zone in a positive way.

3. Taking an entrepreneurial approach to leading diverse talent within organisations.

We know that many organizations are not getting the best out of their talent, especially their diverse talent. This is often because they are so steeped in formal policies and processes that they don’t know how to respond to the fluid and subtle realities of today’s workplace environment. Businessman Joel Blake OBE has his own solution to the talent problem, which is based on taking an entrepreneurial approach to diversity. This involves setting diversity goals, taking risks on people and being committed to understanding what success really looks like for the employees you’re trying to support. For example, promotions might not be their biggest concern; they may be more worried about the fact they’re not being included in conversations around the water cooler.