Leading beyond hope and fear

 

Leadership Coaching and Reinvention

As a product of  30 years of research, practice and hands-on experience in leadership development and executive coaching, Dana has developed a unique transformational approach to working with high impact leaders. The work integrates multiple cutting-edge frameworks and modalities including (but not limited to) the Leadership Circle Profile, Otto Sharmer’s Theory U, Adult Development Theory and Polarity Management. Dana calls this way of working a “reinvention” process. The skillful application of these models, combined with time in the natural world, supports leaders to “level up,” in terms of both consciousness and capabilities, in order to meet today’s most complex leadership challenges.

The reinvention process provides practitioners with a methodology for developing their own “reinvention facilitation” mastery. It’s one thing to learn the patterns of this terrain and quite another to be a masterful guide navigating others through the pitfalls of leadership reinvention.

This one-on-one Leadership Coaching and Reinvention Journey consists of four patterns of doing, thinking and being that serve as inflection points along the transformation journey. These four patterns are (I) Reckoning (II) Remembering (III) Reinvention and (IV) Realignment.

It also incorporates meta-polarities of movement between convergence AND divergence, subjective AND objective, individual AND collective, present AND future, whilst recognizing that transformation is THE dynamic, cyclical pattern of life – letting go and letting come, completion and renewal, death and rebirth. 

I. Reckoning: Taking stock and aligning life and work with deepest aspirations

The goal of this reckoning is to discover what a life of full integrity looks like for you. The work starts with the individual executive and often cascades to the top team and eventually the entire organization.

The journey commences with a “deep dive” assessment of your current life context and career arc, from both an “outside in” and “inside out” perspective. Using The Leadership Circle 360 and an immersion in the natural world, you can see your own nature reflected back by your colleagues at work and in the mirror of wild nature. 

We engage with two fundamental questions in these “reckoning retreats”:  What time is it in my life? And what time is it in the world? From this inquiry key subsequent questions arise:  What is my stand?  Who will I choose to be? What will I create?

II. Remembering: The healing alchemy of transforming patterns that limit one’s freedom to act into pathways for future accomplishments

In this stage, we explore the complexities, contradictions and polarities inside you and in your context at work. The pattern of remembering involves working with undigested and un-integrated psychological material that is occluding your capacity to live in the moment from a place of creativity and presence. We begin the work to heal and resolve these blocks in action.

III. Reinvention: Practicing the inner and outer capacities to “be the change we want to see in the world”

In the movement from Reckoning to Remembering there is a sense of “letting go” and “letting come” that is consistent with Otto Scharmer’s Theory U. The Remembering pattern fosters a sense of stillness followed by deep clarity of vision and intent. From this place, the necessary conditions are present for true Reinvention to take place. Reinvention that is born from this fertile soil is robust enough to transcend yet not ignore your past habits of mind and behavior. Service and humility replace grandiosity or shame as you take your rightful place at the table.

IV. Realignment: Making the new way of being and acting irreversible

The Realignment pattern is dedicated to aligning the structures and patterns of your current day with your new future, to strengthen the ability to manifest what you are standing for. In this pattern, real life informs your vision and vice-versa. It is during Realignment when you must conjure your most patient, compassionate, curious and humorous self in order to tweak your personal operating system and conduct “safe to fail” learning experiments.

 
 
 

 Key Operating Principles in the Reinvention process

  1. Go slow in the beginning to determine if the inner and outer relational conditions and contexts are right. If not, find something more appropriate.

  2. The deeply personal work of remembering needs ample time, space, beauty, safety and sufficient cognitive dissonance to both hold and churn the process.

  3. Purpose alone is not enough. The emerging future needs to become vivid and embodied to pull one through difficult places.

  4. When yielding with humility and courage to what is, one gains the inspiration and resilience to powerfully move back into the fullness of life.

  5. Life wants each of us to realize the future that we are here to serve. In realizing this future we need to include our stakeholders’ ongoing feedback in order to translate what could be into effective action.

 

Case study: Tom

Tom is a 39 year old US based Healthcare Executive who is no longer willing to react to every increasingly frequent “fire drill” that his CEO conducts. Tom reached an inflection point on his career path where he realized he no longer had anything to lose or prove. His soul longed for a way of working that was both sustaining AND added real value to the almost 6000 employees and thousands of patients that his organisation served. Tom and I contracted to embark on a Reinvention Journey, designed to raise the quality and satisfaction of his life and work, and to raise his capacity to flourish as a leader in a complex environment. 

We acknowledged upfront that Tom would either carve out a new space to work within his current organization, or he would “go out the top” by making a greater contribution to his current organization whilst creating his next professional position – one that would welcome Tom’s emerging leadership capabilities. 

I. Reckoning

In Tom’s case we conducted a developmental assessment, ran a series of 360 interviews, and spent two days walking in nature and talking. We took our conversations and mapped them so they became “object” to both of us. In so doing there was a relaxation, a palpable sense of a much larger time horizon. In the timelessness of nature, Tom intuitively realized his next sense of purpose in the larger story of his life. There was also a natural movement towards his own “self-authorship” and a deep sense of gratitude at his good fortune to be able to take the time to engage in such a soul enriching activity.

II. Remembering

In Tom’s situation, we worked slowly and deeply with Kegan and Lahey’s Immunity to Change Framework. We began to reveal the deeply embodied and unaware system of commitments that were driving Tom's predisposition towards conflict avoidance, and his seeming lack of capability to speak “truth to power.” One of Tom’s super powers was his ability to look honestly at his “shadow” areas and to bring objectivity and humor to these tender places. Tom had many real time opportunities to visit this difficult pattern, and to iteratively learn from each situation that presented itself. My job was to guide the process with compassion.

III. Reinvention

In Tom’s case, he articulated a simple yet meaningful vision for himself that would guide him through the coming months and years. We began to ground his vision in restorative and regular practices that enabled him to bring his “new self” to day-to-day leadership challenges.

IV. Realignment

Tom and I met for weekly video sessions during this pattern. Together we brought a spirit of genuine inquiry to current work projects and used what was occurring to develop new leadership capabilities that were identified during the Reinvention pattern. Tom was particularly focused on: (I) learning to build political savvy and support for his key projects, (II) preparing great presentations, (III) enhancing his capacity to have fellow executives own a vision that he authored, (IV) empowering his team to exercise greater accountability, and (V) raising his team’s profile and system wide impact.

Each time we worked on a specific project, we reinforced the new expression of Tom’s leadership, in both the way he operated and felt about himself. Tom became happier and more energized, regardless of the fact that the organizational conditions remained consistent with what they had been fifteen months earlier.

Today, Tom leads with new purpose and freedom. He has initiated and energized initiatives that have been lagging for years and is effectively “speaking truth to power” in a way that is truly new for him. His emergent self can also be measured by a profound, two-stage shift in his leadership mindset as measured by the Global Leadership Profile. We are now using the Leadership Circle 360 to have the way he is perceived organizationally match both his own internal experience and his scores on the Global Leadership Profile.