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BY LISA HUGHES, EXECUTIVE COACH AND FACILITATOR | 2019

VUCA

Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous; VUCA is originally a military term coined to describe hostile environments. In a world of stability and security, command and control leadership is the order of the day; in a world of constant change, globalisation and increasing risk, collaboration and agility are the skills that win out. An ever changing world can be deeply uncertain but it can also be the birthplace of creativity, innovation and growth. 
The leadership we need to not just survive but thrive in the VUCA environment is one that has the courage to seek out and work in the discomfort of many moving parts by bringing everyone’s voice to the table to co-create and execute solutions together. The skills of emotional intelligence, making sense of information overload, novel and adaptive thinking and communicating with diverse groups become increasingly important to lead and flourish in a changing economy.
Transformational Leadership
This is where we look to the transformational model of leadership.  Transformational leaders work with teams to identify needed change, create an inspiring vision to guide the change and execute in partnership with teams.
Transformational leadership has 4 elements:

• Individualised consideration – recognising and harness the unique talents of each member of the team
• Intellectual stimulation – asking questions, challenging assumptions, bringing curiosity – not providing solutions, encouraging the team to think for themselves
• Inspirational Motivation – co-creating and impactfully communicating a vision for the outcomes the team are looking to achieve.  What the military call ‘commanders intent’; how will the organisation look, feel, operate when the transformation is complete
• Idealised Influence – role modelling the behaviours and standards that are aspired to by all the team members. The transformational leader needs to not just talk the talk but walk the walk.

Self-awareness

How do we build these leadership skills in our ourselves, in our teams and in our organisations? As with so many things we have to start with self-awareness. As leaders we may think we already possess many of these skills or are doing many of these things. We judge ourselves by our intention – we show up wanting to do a great job by our people – but in reality others judge us by our impact. Others only see our behaviour and the impact of our behaviour may not always match what our intention was.

We need to build our internal self-awareness: What are our values? What kind of leader do we want to be? How do we want others to perceive us and what behaviours will support that? This is built through time for reflection and self-assessment. Taking time to notice what we did and the impact we created, what worked and how it might have worked even better. And we also need to build our external self-awareness – how are we landing with others?  Are we coming across in the ways in which we intend? This is where trusted 360 degree feedback from team members, peers and managers can be invaluable. We all have blind spots and we cannot change what we don’t know about. When our eyes are opened we have choices. When we build our self-awareness we know where we are starting from and we move forward from there.

Overcoming fear & uncertainty

Transformation and change bring with it the emotions of fear and uncertainty. Our human system likes homeostasis – things in balance and staying the same. Your brain is a prediction machine in order to keep you safe so when that safety is threatened (or perceived to be threatened), emotion kicks in to move you to action (avert, avoid, ignore, resist). With so much emotion in play, the importance of emotional intelligence comes to the forefront of transformation. Your ability as a leader to recognise emotion in yourself and others, and to manage that emotion in yourself and others, is absolutely key to transformational leadership.  This is where the intellectual stimulation piece comes in. Framing the work as learning, asking questions rather than making statements, admitting your own mistakes and bringing curiosity will build psychological safety and convey a sense of trust to bring team members back to a place where novel thinking and adaptability can be accessed. If team members are not safe they cannot think. Using intellectual stimulation rather than providing simple solutions builds capability, buy-in and crucial safety in a team.

Communication is key

Communication is fundamental to inspirational motivation. Conversation and communication create meaning for the team and meaning is what moves us to action. 93% of all communication is non-verbal, so while we agonise over the words we use, learning to communicate with voice and body language will increase the impact of our communication exponentially. How do we create communication plans that include the team, originate messages that really resonate with key players and deliver the meaning with impact? Our ability to connect is about listening first and asking insightful, relevant powerful questions. 
Our greatest communication tool of all is our own behaviour, the idealised influence element of transformational behaviour. As humans we learn primarily by mimicking, by doing as our caregivers do. As leaders through transformation we need to cultivate our own mindfulness so that we can show up with purpose and intention every day and certainly in crucial conversations with others. We need to cultivate our ability to stop, pause and take others perspective so that we can respond in a considered and reflective way in line with our integrity. 

Building others' adaptability is about cultivating our own. Our own capacity to stay in the discomfort of change, to listen actively, to integrate others ideas and voice, to ask uncomfortable questions, to challenge assumptions.   From this crucible of change comes the opportunity to lead, to create a sense of urgency to action and communicate a vision for change. To identify and harness the strengths of each player on the team and to encourage and motivate through constant communication and adaptation towards the collective goal.

Transformational leaders need humility above all else.  They move from I can do it, to WE can do it, to YOU can do it. That requires a relinquishing of ego.  Transformational leaders know that they need to step up and step in when things are in crisis to take responsibility, and to step back and away when thing are going well to let others take the credit and grow their confidence.
Transformational leaders own the why, the team owns the how.  They lead not by doing but by being.  Transformational leaders lead themselves and invite others to do the same, gaining commitment to create real and lasting ever-changing organisations.  The leader’s personal journey of transformation is at the heart of successful change for the organisation.

About the author

Lisa is an Executive Coach and Facilitator who works with individuals and teams around Leadership, People Management, Resilience Building and Successful Change Management.

Lisa is passionate about identifying and activating people’s unique strengths, skills and values to enable and embed real and sustainable behavioural change. Taking an inside-out approach, Lisa unlocks potential and supports people in shifting mindsets and changing gear in work and life.