Last week I was delighted to participate in the Thomson Reuters Synergy event exploring “How Tech Impacts the Way we Work’.

What do I know about tech you may ask? And you’d be right to ask because the answer is not that much!

What I do see is the impact tech has on the way my clients work and lead because the ever-accelerating pace of change challenges us in new ways.

I see four primary traps leaders can fall into:

1. The ‘I must become an expert’ trap
2. The ‘overwhelmed to the point of paralysis’ trap
3. The ‘technology will fix all our productivity issues’ trap
4. The ‘shiny new toy’ trap

Let’s unpack what each of these mean for leaders:

1. The ‘I must become an expert’ trap

This trap captures you when you believe that to introduce new technology you must become an expert in it so you spend inordinate amounts of time researching and learning, driven by the belief that you must know more than your team members.

Warning: there is simply too much out there for you to be an expert in everything!

2. The ‘overwhelmed to the point of paralysis’ trap

This can be driven by the ‘I must become an expert’ trap or can be when you realise that you need new solutions and add that to your ‘to do’ list without a plan for how to move forward, or you have reached a decision point and the choice is overwhelming.

3. The ‘technology will fix all our productivity issues’ trap

You or your team have identified a wonderful solution to a particular problem and are implementing it with great gusto, followed by great disappointment when users don’t embrace it.

4. The ‘shiny new toy’ trap

As a leader you are super excited about tech and keep alighting on new projects, creating a culture of anxiety about what is going and what is staying and confusion around the purpose of the technology.

All of these traps can be addressed by reconnecting to two things:

1. Your purpose

What is the North Star you are working towards? What is the big picture in terms of your strategy and what will move you in the right direction?

Your role as a leader is to ensure that your team is connected to this purpose and that they are inspired and empowered to move in the same direction.

2. The human element

Tech is a tool to enhance our work experience, not replace human critical thinking skills. It can offer a powerful advantage over human capabilities when it comes to processing large amounts of data or automating laborious tasks, but we must not lose sight of the humans involved. Humans are essentially social animals and connection is key to engagement at work.

Being a leader means inspiring, influencing and empowering your peers and your team members around the adoption of tech. For this your leadership presence is critical.

It means reassuring people about what will stay the same in the future and their value to the organisation. It means exciting them about what new higher-level work they will be able to take on once tech has freed up capacity. It means leaning into their development by upskilling them and trusting them to become experts. It means being vulnerable enough to not always have the answer but to lean into asking questions. It means inviting the contributions of others and collaborating more to make wise decisions.

Are you ready to focus on becoming the leader you want to be? Leading and innovating without getting caught in these traps? Then let’s have a conversation.

Or are you interested in improving your team’s ability to communicate and work through their challenges without getting stuck in their day-to-day tasks? Then let’s chat about a workshop.

With love,
​
Sue

When you look at this image above what do you see?

And when you think of an anchor what does that bring up for you?

One member of the CFO Women’s Circle described being in the group as ‘an anchor which keeps me grounded’. For her an anchor suggests stability and security, a way to find your centre when everything around you may be tumultuous, a place of safety when surrounded by uncertainty. If you have ever been boating, you will appreciate the value of being able to drop anchor and sleep soundly in the knowledge that you are securely tethered.

However, another client when faced with the same image saw a heavy load, weighing him down and preventing him moving forward in the way he wanted. It represented the limiting belief that he did not deserve to step up into a bigger role and take on a larger team and more responsibility – after all he did not go to ‘the right school / university’ and was no longer scoring perfect A’s in his work. He needed to untether from this belief to find the courage and the freedom to focus on what was needed to elevate him in the new role, because perfectionism was not going to help him!

It has been said that;

‘We do not see things are they are, we see them as we are.’

Everything we see we are interpreting through the lens of our own experiences, education, cultural background, societal expectations and our current stage in life.

Bringing awareness to the lens through which I view a subject is a key element of my development as an adult. Once I start to see what is shaping my response, I can interrogate it and push back on assumptions I was previously holding unconsciously. This can enable me to see new perspectives and explore new possibilities for how to move forward. It can also help me connect with other people by understanding that the way I see the world is not the only way to see the world.

My daughter is 23 years old and she works in a retail store in Bondi Junction – what she experiences when she walks into the Westfield shopping centre there now is very different from what it was just a few weeks ago and is also very different from how I or my husband experience the same place.

You will have members of your team who are impacted by the news and current affairs in significantly differently ways to you so it can be helpful to ask ourselves;

“What if what I am seeing is not the full picture?”

As leaders in organisations our ability to not only see multiple perspectives but hold multiple perspectives simultaneously is critical to our growth. It shapes our ability to demonstrate that we care and to enhance our executive presence as we seek to influence and shape organisational strategy and growth.

If you are a leader ready to challenge yourself to grow and increase your capacity to deal with uncertainty and complexity, then let’s chat about how coaching can support you to do that.

With love,
​
Sue