away from the leadership practice you hope to develop.
Awareness can also be developed through effective feedback processes with colleagues, supervisors, and individuals whom you trust. Having the ability to seek and receive feedback provides a growing opportunity for you to expand your self‐awareness. The best feedback is feedback that is solicited (you have asked for it), based on observation (about your work and/or performance), and nonjudgmental. It is also based on something that the receiver can do something about, it is checked for accuracy, and it is delivered in a way that is both timely and yet sensitive to the when and where. Giving feedback to someone in a large meeting about their performance is clearly less effective than providing the individual with the same information in a one‐on‐one meeting. Similarly, providing feedback in close proximity to the precipitating event or situation is more effective than putting it off.
Giving and receiving feedback can be challenging as it often requires that we work in an antigravitational way. Our culture often says “Forget about it” even though we know that feedback, when it is done well, will help the individual to develop their skills and capabilities. It is important to resist the temptation to put off providing feedback, or worse, to skip it because you have decided it is not worth the hassle. When you avoid feedback, you will soon see that things can go from bad to worse. Think for example of the splinter you have put off removing. It does not take long before you risk infection.
Seventh Practice Perspective: Address Inner Pressures
As you work to develop your self‐awareness it is important to consider how your growing awareness connects to your inner self. From a psychoanalytic perspective we have thoughts and feelings as well as ideas about who we are in the world and how we should be, which all play a role in our leadership practice. If, for example, you believe that you must have things done right and done well 100 percent of the time, then your leadership will manifest itself in a manner that pursues perfection. Similarly, if you feel that you will never get it right, your capacity to develop a balanced sense of confidence will be hampered and your leadership practice will be adversely impacted.
Understanding your inner pressures and how to manage them successfully will help you to advance in your leadership ability. For example, my upbringing was within a White Anglo‐Saxon Protestant family. Emotions were shared, but we largely adhered to the tradition in which one kept a “stiff upper lip.” Angry and upset feelings were frowned upon. This seems innocuous enough, but let me tell you that as a leader I have had to learn how the internal pressure I experienced to avoid situations where people became emotional impacted my leadership practice. As my self‐awareness grew, I began to realize that I would avoid confrontation or difficult situations simply because I found it intolerable to have people upset.
Ways to address your inner pressures start with first becoming aware that they exist. What types of inner pressure do you experience? Once you have taken stock and feel you know what they are, you can begin a process of addressing them. Sometimes this is as simple as being aware that you experience them and other times it may require that you develop a specific strategy to address the issue. In my case I had to practice managing the feelings that come with the expression of emotion by simply sitting rather than jumping into action to fix the situation. Trust me, as a strategy this was extremely hard, but in time I learned that holding fast rather than reacting would allow those involved to express themselves, they would feel heard, and the highly charged emotions would ultimately pass so that we might move the effort forward.
Another strategy that you can and should pursue is the use of supervision to help you work through the challenges that are presented vis‐à‐vis the inner pressures. Effective supervision can be critical in the development of any and all leadership strategies and is particularly helpful when you are working to address inner pressures. The key is to have a strong supervisor, something that is not always a readily apparent option. When this is not an option, I recommend finding a trusted individual to serve as a mentor for your leadership practice journey (see the section on finding a mentor later in this chapter).
Eighth Practice Perspective: Hero Leadership versus Leading Heroes
The eighth and final perspective that I recommend you take on is one more antigravitational effort that possesses enough in the way of dynamic layers to argue that it too meets the definition of simplexity. As you develop your leadership practice for yourself, your team, and your organization, be sure to take a stance that moves against the cultural grain of creating the lone hero leader. Instead, be sure to create heroes at all levels of the organization. Resist the urge to become a hero leader and ensure that each of your team members feels celebrated as a hero for their contribution to the organization's mission and vision.
If you allow yourself to become the hero leader, then, by definition, you will exclude others from having the ability to share in leadership practice. When a team member feels that there is no room for them to play an important role there is a natural tendency for them to stand down rather than take on leadership behavior and engage in action that helps to buoy the work of the organization. Celebrate all the team member contributions and work to give credit away to those who are working on the team. By taking this stance you support the very fabric of your team's commitment and engagement. Grabbing the glory for oneself feels wonderful in the moment, but sadly squanders the value that can come from team members feeling that their contribution has made a difference. It is essential that each team member feels that they, too, can be a leader and have a role to play in helping to advance the organization.
By creating heroes across the organization, you also build your team's capacity to be engaged and responsive to the needs of the organization. Nonprofit organizations that enhance successful leadership practice across and within the organization are agencies that become resilient and find that they are well equipped to be successful in the face of any challenges that occur.
Each of the eight practice perspectives can help you to develop your own efficacy as a leader. In the Appendix of this book, you will find a tool for conducting a self‐assessment of your abilities in each of the practice perspectives. The tool, in addition to helping you conduct a self‐assessment, also makes it possible for you to thoughtfully develop strategies to advance your scoring and ultimately your capabilities in each of the areas. Once you have gone through and scored yourself, take some time to identify specific steps that you will take to heighten your skills within each practice perspective. I recommend using your assessment as a working document and revisiting it from time to time to see how your practice perspectives are developing.
Another option for the use of this tool is to work with your team to have each team member complete an assessment. Once everyone has completed their assessment, take time to share as a group where each individual scores. What strengths do they have and where are the areas for growth? What are some of the strategies that everyone has come up with to move their practice perspectives forward? Often working together as a team on practice perspectives can help leverage your group's ability to exercise collective leadership skills. As a group you will develop a greater understanding of everyone's strengths, how they contribute effectively to the team, and where the areas for growth lie. Most teams quickly realize that they can complement each other and help to support their colleagues as they work to advance their leadership practice.
Strategies for Developing Leadership Practice
Now that we have looked at the eight leadership practice perspectives, our attention turns to some specific strategies for developing leadership practice. The strategies explored in this section of Chapter 2 are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather representative of tried‐and‐true ways to help develop your leadership practice. As with the earlier discourse you should consider each of these strategies as dynamic and as such consider that they apply to your personal leadership practice as well as your team's and your organization's leadership capacity.
