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Leading in Turbulent Times: What are International Leaders Saying?

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Leading in Turbulent Times: What are International Leaders Saying?

 

As I write this article, I’m excited to reflect on the 2017 ILA global conference theme, Leadership in Turbulent Times, and share wisdom gleaned from 12 Voice America interviews I conducted in Brussels at the conference last October. This is the second year I have interviewed keynote presenters, top speakers, political leaders, board members, and organizers in the role of media partner. The interviews resulting from this collaboration began airing  January 9, 2018 (See sidebar for complete schedule).

With a necessary focus right now on terrorist attacks and geopolitical instability across continents, and with the increase of populism as well as the impact of the rapid pace of technological advances, the logical theme of the conference was “Leadership in Turbulent Times.” It sounds ominous, right? The word turbulence typically creates anxiety and fear because it is never associated with something promising or hopeful. It is defined as conflict, confusion, and unsteady movement. I’d like, however, to offer a new way to think about turbulence. Change is never a result of stagnation, and only by churning ideas and challenging old schemata can we evolve. Turbulence, therefore, offers new opportunities across a broad range of sectors. While the challenges are more complex, and the world feels less safe, we have greater opportunities to make positive change than at any other time in recent history.

Turbulence is an ongoing condition to be managed, not a problem to be solved. Here is a summary of my key take-aways from presentations, conversations, and twelve hours of interviews I conducted for VoiceAmerica.

  1. Leadership is an interplay between our individual purpose and values, our behaviors, organizational culture, and systems and processes. It requires continual adjustment to maintain alignment between all four elements, an adjustment that is akin to a finely choreographed dance. It is ongoing and requires continuous attention and expertise. All aspects of the dance start with leadership having a self-awareness of purpose and values. This self-awareness provides the inner compass from which the leader leads the organization.
  2. Purpose and self-awareness are the foundation of effective leadership. Self-awareness is not an activity to accomplish once. It is a practice to be done regularly and routinely. When asked, most people want to make the world better than they found it. Leaders who can translate this sense of purpose into their unique commitment to action in the world are more effective as leaders because they have a North Star to guide their actions. When they share this purpose with those they lead, they build trust and inspire commitment.
  3. Reflection takes time—and it is a requirement. Reflection and meditation provide a physiological advantage by impacting the neural network in your brain. One of the precepts of self-awareness is the “moment of awareness” when we take a deep breath, pause, and ask ourselves what outcome we want in a moment. This brief pause allows us to be fully present and clear before we take our next step. The ability to pause and reflect, for a moment or longer, allows leaders to stay centered and grounded in times of high pressure.
  4. Leaders have many roles, including chief culture officer. Culture leaders are akin to musical conductors. Through their actions and attitude, they set the tone of the organization and the underlying agreements supporting that tone. In doing so, leaders create the culture in organizations that supports the purpose and values they claim to hold. Organizations living their purpose do not show it in a poster on the wall but through the underlying rhythm and music of a strong dance performance. The conductor becomes the music that inspires, sets the tempo and tone, and informs action. If the rhythm changes, so do the movements of the dancers. A strong culture offers a competitive advantage and makes successful organizations hard or impossible to emulate. One recommendation I heard repeatedly is that leaders need to create a culture of openness and safety. Awareness of the culture provides leaders with multiple perspectives so that they can adjust quickly to changes in the environment.
  5. Leaders need to inspire followership and know when to follow. Leaders are those formally recognized for their leadership role, some of them have the title of leader and others do not. We rarely talk about leaders as followers. Most leaders report to someone including boards of directors. Leaders need to learn to both lead and They also need to teach those who follow them how they would like to be followed. Back to the metaphor of the dance, each dancer is different, the interplay between different leaders and followers is unique even with the same music. Another topic generally not discussed, but highlighted at this conference, is the idea of ethical dissent — when we chose not to follow and how we courageously hold our leaders accountable.
  6. People want to perform effectively. Organizational systems need to support peoples’ positive intentions and skills. Spend less time creating systems to weed out shirkers and poor performers and more time creating a culture that enables people with purpose to do the work that fulfills them and that concurrently serves the organization’s mission and success.
  7. Teams have become far more important in the current environment. Effective teams are based on the members’ ability to communicate effectively, often across the globe. A key factor in effective team interactions is building relationships with individuals. This is best done in person and, then, can be sustained remotely. There is no substitute for strong relationships when navigating complex work.
  8. Effective communication and learning organizations have become more important with the complexity of the challenges and geographic dispersion of teams. Communication requires both strong listening skills and the ability to speak simply and concisely, including attending to conflict and complexity when necessary. It also means unflinching accountability. Leaders must be accountable for their role when problems arise, and look forward with vision of the future rather than looking back and fault finding. It is important to learn from challenges and mistakes and remain agile in the face of ongoing change. Vision forward and data analysis backward creates learning organizations.
  9. Organizations must align their purpose with that of the stakeholders within as well as with clients, and the local and global community. Making a profit is the fuel for company survival, but it is not the fuel to thrive. Companies must find the intersection between company success and social action in order to make a positive profit while, at the same time, making a positive social impact. John Heiser, the President & Chief Operating Officer of Magnetrol International, gave a beautiful example of hiring autistic adults to perform tasks for which they are best qualified. This approach allows the company to attract and retain people whose skills match their jobs as well as provide meaningful work for people in the community who often don’t find opportunities. He gave several examples of how companies could align their interests with those of the community.
  10. Global peace and security depend on recognizing our innate nature to be peaceful. When we follow our true nature, we are peaceful beings. Conference presenters and attendees I interacted with talked about the intersection of creating individual conditions in which people can express their inner goodness and, at the same time, create cultures and systems that promote peaceful work and lives.

I left the conversations feeling hopeful that compassionate, wise, and highly-successful academics, executives, politicians, and military leaders are sharing their best thinking with one another at the conference and beyond. They forge and renew relationships, and identify new opportunities to collaborate to make positive change. This forum is one in which leadership as an art and science evolves through people and their interactions.

I hope this article inspires you to listen to select interviews or, even better, the entire interview series! Interviews from 2016 are being used in academic and professional leadership development programs around the world. I encourage you to share this information freely. This complimentary set of interviews are content rich, exposing listeners to the subtleties required to build leadership acumen, and give insight into those who have made a commitment to work and to live at the intersection between exceptional research and practice in leadership.

To become a more innovative leader, please consider our online leader development program including our new program focused on building global leadership. For additional tools, we recommend taking leadership assessments, using the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations, and adding coaching to our online innovative leadership program. We also offer several workshops to help you build these skills.

About the Author

Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

Building a More Peaceful and Prosperous World Through Citizen Diplomacy By Maureen Metcalf

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Building a More Peaceful and Prosperous World Through Citizen Diplomacy By Maureen Metcalf

This blog is a companion to the interview with Christopher Washington and Jennifer Clinton on Voice America “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” on February 28, 2017, focusing on building a peaceful and prosperous world through citizen diplomacy.
During an era in which we hear the ongoing call of “Putting America First” and “Making America Great Again,” why would we care about an international focus on citizen diplomacy?

My good friend and mentor Dr. Christopher Washington and I were having lunch recently, and we discussed the topic of his work with Global Ties U.S. He knows I care about global leadership and believe that we have a peaceful existence in our local communities when we promote and assure peace across the globe. Yet, as Western societies move toward more populist forms of government leadership, many people focus on what is happening in the US and forget to consider its impact globally. I find myself troubled by much of the current discourse and I, too, am seeking answers. So, I want to share my thinking about why we should all care about global citizen diplomacy.

Challenge:
Across the globe, democratic societies are seeing a shift from global cooperation toward more nationalism, yet much of our economic structure is based on global flow of goods and services. I worked for a computer manufacturer in the 1980s and we tried to prove that our products were “made in America.” Even back then, we needed to define specifically and carefully what that meant. Did we assemble foreign-made parts in the US? Did we produce more than 50 percent of the components in the US? Over the past 30 years, companies have moved toward sourcing components from the lowest cost producers across the globe, leaving most countries without the capability to produce full products.

Add outsourcing to this equation, and we see that millions of people have been lifted out of poverty because of globalization.

Now, with a range of concerns for physical and economic security, many countries are shifting from values associated with globalization toward principles of nationalism—failing, in the process, to recognize that the country in which we live relies on strong relationships with other countries. We rely on healthy relations with other countries to:
1. Buy and sell our goods and services;
2. buy our bonds to finance our debt;
3. Trade in raw materials, such as petroleum, and manufactured products, and our mobile devices;
4. protect currency stabilization to manage inflation/deflation and ensure uninterrupted currency flow;
5. Collaborate to solve problems that do not respect borders.
We need to find a path forward to build on what we have created. This path goes well beyond the movement of money and materials—even making them seem relatively inconsequential—it requires diplomacy. It requires people who have worked to understand one another and the complexities of the global system to connect with the primary purpose of creating a more just and prosperous world for ALL.

Solution:
When business, nonprofit, government, and academic leaders from around the world connect with their counterparts in the US through international exchange programs, the relationships they forge become a powerful tool for addressing some of our greatest global challenges. These relationships are forged person to person. They endure well beyond politics and international boundaries.

For over 50 years, Global Ties U.S. has been making these kinds of connections possible. As a nonprofit partner of the US Department of State, it sustains a network that coordinates international exchange programs and brings current and future leaders from around the world to communities throughout the United States. Global Ties provides its members—from large, national organizations to smaller, community-based ones across 45 states and 16 countries—with connections, leadership development, and professional resources, so that they are the strongest, most effective organizations they can be.

The leaders who participate in international exchanges—and the communities that host them—benefit from greater knowledge, further understanding, and deeper relationships. These shared experiences result in stronger local communities and a more peaceful, prosperous world.

Each of us, as individuals, has the opportunity to practice citizen diplomacy every day. Diplomatic acts can be as simple as a smile to a woman wearing a hijab, or a nod of acceptance to a Sikh in a turban. And, it actually extends beyond those who may appear “different.” Myriad opportunities exist to help shape US foreign relations; we need only to look around and connect.

Peace is often created because people cross borders both real and imagined, and form long-lasting relationships. The International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) is one of the US Department of State’s premier exchange programs. Participants in the International Visiting Leaders Program are nominated by Ambassadors in their countries, and are the best and brightest from across the globe. I had the great privilege of interviewing several of them, including Rebeca Gyumi, whose work helped raise the marriage age for girls in Tanzania from 14 to 18 years old. To those of us living in the US and other advanced countries whose citizen are expected to attend and complete high school, this may not seem life changing, but for Tanzanians, this decision will directly impact education, poverty, and other social challenges in their country, while indirectly impacting countries not even on the same continent.  

According to Christopher Washington, PhD, Board Member of Global Ties US, “The best way to create a peaceful and prosperous world is to give hope and protect freedom. When one thinks of our most significant global issues such as social inequalities and the need for more peaceful and inclusive societies, it seems that the wellspring of quality education and citizen exchanges across the globe will extinguish the fires of human conflict and terrorism”

To become a more innovative leader, please consider our online leader development program. For additional tools, we recommend taking leadership assessments, using the Innovative Leadership Fieldbook and Innovative Leaders Guide to Transforming Organizations, and adding coaching to our online innovative leadership program. We also offer several workshops to help you build these skills.

About the Author
Maureen Metcalf, CEO and Founder of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker, and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.
Maureen has published several papers and articles and speaks regularly on innovative leadership, resilience, and organizational transformation. She is the author of the award-winning Innovative Leadership Workbook Series and the co-author of The Innovative Leadership Fieldbook, winner of an International Book Award for Best Business Reference Book. She is also a regular contributor to Forbes.com.

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Navigating Major Challenges As A Leader By Maureen Metcalf

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Navigating Major Challenges As A Leader By Maureen Metcalf

This blog is a companion to the interview with George Papandreou on Voice America “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations” on December 13, 2016 focusing on the importance of building and sustaining vitality for leaders.

During the radio show, Papandreou, former prime minister of Greece, spoke about how he navigated major challenge as a leader. One of my key take-a-ways was the importance of building trust and demonstrating courage as foundational skills to leading in turbulent times. He talked about his personal experience as a refugee when his family was in exile to provide context for his views on the importance of inclusion and building alliances across borders. At the root, this interview is about how do we, as people, build common values and common rules to promote fair competition that enables us to work together across borders to solve the challenges we face as a global community. How do we emulate the metaphor of the Olympics rather than the gladiator pit? This interview offers a glimpse into his perspective.
Former Prime Minister Papandreou (George) was born in Minnesota, and spent his early years in the US. He is the third-generation of his family to hold key leadership roles in Greece. George, his father, and his grandfather were all refugees at different times in their lives. In addition to the US, George lived in Canada and Sweden, and said that refugees can benefit societies because of the alliances they have built and the broad perspectives they develop by having lived and worked abroad.

I took away some key points in our discussion:
1. We are interconnected. Problems in Syria and other countries impact all countries. We need to build our capacity as societies to bring in new populations. We need to invest in policies to help individuals and refugees, and help society integrate them. A significant key is to see people as positive contributors. An example of the challenge of integration is: How much education do we provide to ensure immigrants can speak a second language and contribute to a new society?
2. We need to be clear about our values. Peace depends on having basic values everyone must agree on and uphold. These common values can unite people across borders and build on their common interests. Identifying common values will take dialogue and openness to different points of view.
3. We need to attend to the complex challenges we face with courage and diligence. We are balancing humanitarian needs with, among many others, the need for security. This requires courage and compassion and clear policies that ensure values are upheld and that there is a clear path to accomplish the objectives—and that there are consequences for people who are not upholding our values.

Prime Minister Papandreou emphasized his recommendations with an example of the dialogue he started with Turkey, a border country with whom Greece historically has had an adversarial relationship. He talked about how he and his counterpart started discussions and found small areas of commonality upon which they built. As they focused on their common interests and built trust and agreed on values they shared, they could address increasingly more complex issues such as removing land mines from borders. After an earthquake, Greece came to the assistance of the Turkish citizens. A key take away was that including the population and exercising people’s diplomacy was key. This diplomacy meant the peace was not just an alliance crafted by politicians, but rather it was a peace that reached across the population.

The question then shifted to: How do we take these lessons from running a country and convert them to leading within an organization, or a family, or community? How do companies we adapt and change? How do we adapt and change in our roles? Out of a small window of opportunity, how you can build momentum to bring out the best in people? How do you go about building alliances? Here are some recommendations:
1. Identify the interest of both sides (interests and concerns of both).
2. What injustices do you observe that you can work on by mobilizing the best in people to solve the problems?
3. Where there is shared interest, what actions can both parties take to build trust and strengthen the relationship and move to positive outcomes?
4. When there are differences, where can we work together in a mutually beneficial way?
5. Look at what others are doing effectively. Find the best examples in industry, or in science, that have solved these problems.
6. What is the platform we maintain, and what do we change? Maintaining our values and compassion are terrific examples to start with.
7. What are the experiments we can take to improve our environment and lives?
8. Take clear actions based on shared values that continually build the foundation of trust and mutual interest including the broad population (not just senior leaders) until the alliance supports the common interest of as many individuals as possible.

We then focused on the question: What keeps you up at night?

His answers followed in kind: Facing these difficult problems and the pain society is going through—there are those who promise easy and false solutions. They are welcomed because people want problems solved. This growth of fear, and the politics of fear and scapegoating and denying the real problems, is creating tribalism and fearing of “the other.” Authoritarian leaders aren’t the solution. In the face of fear—we need cooperation across borders! We need to build solutions based on research, science, and facts. We need to build solidarity with problems around the world. We need fair competition with rules and values.
I was inspired by this interview and the idea that the best leaders use the challenges they face to find paths of success that leverage strong values and a belief in the goodness in most people, to create the best outcome for as many people across the planet as possible. This goal is accomplished by leaders who are strong thinkers and courageous in their behavior—leaders who do not look for easy answers, but rather invest in understanding and navigating the complexity of the universe.  

About the author
Maureen Metcalf, CEO and founder of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, consultant, author, speaker and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

More Here!

Why International Leadership Matters Now By Maureen Metcalf

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Why International Leadership Matters Now By Maureen Metcalf

ila-change

At the International Leadership Association 18th Annual conference in Atlanta in October 2016 focused on the dynamics of inclusive leadership, I had the great honor of interviewing key conference speakers. These interviews will be featured on VoiceAmerica “Innovative Leaders Driving Thriving Organizations.”

Not only was I honored to attend and present at the conference, I was invited to interview several key speakers and board members. This one-on-one contact allowed me to ask questions I cared about in my own journey as well as framing a conversation I thought would be interesting for our listeners. It was an opportunity to stretch my own thinking, get uncomfortable in discussions, and question my own beliefs. My intent in this blog is to share a snapshot of my take-aways and, also, to invite you to listen to the interviews and do your own summary of what you heard from this robust group of thought leaders and role models.  
Metcalf & Associates developed a leadership competency focused on the mindset and behaviors required to successfully navigate the complexity we face now and will continue to face in the future. This model was published in the ILA book Leadership 2050. One of the seven competencies is intellectually versatile, welcomes collaboration in a quest for novel solutions that serve the highest outcome for all involved. This competency includes the following behaviors:

• Seeks input from multiple perspectives—valuing diverse points of view

• Creates solutions to complex problems by creating new approaches that did not exist, pulling together constituents in novel ways, creating broader and more creative alliances

• Understands that in a time of extreme change, input from multiple stakeholders with diverse points of view are required

I wanted to share some of my reflections as we kick off the series. Listening to the presentations and interviewing the speakers helped me identify several key themes. The following is my personal application of intellectual versatility in stretching my own thinking and reflects what I heard across the range of speakers (seeking multiple perspectives and synthesizing them to refine my own thinking). As I update my personal practice of leadership, I am thinking about what actions I can personally take to remain as effective as possible.

1. The world is changing and some of these changes will change the trajectory as a species. How we navigate the turbulence is becoming a core competency—because chaos is not going away. We will not only face multiple concurrent changes; it is likely we will be living through turbulence the balance of our lives and some of that turbulence may change the trajectory of how humans navigate life on the planet. Climate change was mentioned frequently—not as a discussion of cause, but rather that we need to address the multiple impacts as a result of it. Some saw it as an opportunity to come together across borders to address the global issue.

2. People are now emerging as global citizens. While we live in local communities, organized by countries and continents, we are also part of the global citizenry that must address key planetary issues like climate and migration as a collective if we are to create the most robust solutions. Part of the glue that will make this possible is identifying global values that can serve as a rallying point for everyone, such as transparency in governance.

3. We are a group of scholars and practitioners who come together to address the greatest problems of our time by accurately identifying the adaptive challenges and working together to research and pilot solutions.  While everyone acknowledges that we face huge issues, there was a sense of hope because we had great minds in the room committed to creating and implementing solutions.

4. There was a strong focus on doing the work to create a peaceful planet. These conversations covered a broad range of topics such as, how do we identify ourselves, and how does that identity impact our mindset about in groups and out groups—all the way to the very macro discussion about national approaches to creating peaceful relationships across countries? These discussions were not whimsical or wishful, they focused on identifying actions we can each take to create peace in our own communities first. A couple of actions included learning about others and treating those who are different from us with respect rather than fear. The second is identifying in ourselves when we default, often unconsciously, to fear rather than curiosity. We know there are times when fear is appropriate to maintain safety; and yet, are we too fearful. Are we creating a culture in which, driven by fear, we miss the opportunities to break down barriers that no longer serve us?

5. Are we creating opportunities to be a global community that cares for every citizen based on their humanity—not based on what those citizens can offer in terms of resources?

This came out during a discussion on refugees, but also in addressing other groups that are under-served or are the “out” group. Again, these discussions were grounded in research, action, and compassion. There was a strong acknowledgment that leaving people behind causes unintended consequences that are not acceptable. We need to find a way to balance actions, as an example  retraining, as the economic landscape changes to ensure citizens are employed and contributing to their own care as well as to society.

This exploration is most useful when put into action. During one of the interviews I made a commitment to examine my own thinking and biases more closely to see where I can revise my thinking as well as behavior. It also reinforced things I care about, but have not put into action in my busy professional life. I tried to include a discussion in each interview about how can we move to action in our own lives irrespective of the level of our role in our work, families, and communities.

I invite you to join me in these conversations and see how they inform your thinking. This is certainly an opportunity to build your intellectual versatility.

About the author
Maureen Metcalf, CEO of Metcalf & Associates, is a renowned executive advisor, author, speaker and coach whose 30 years of business experience provides high-impact, practical solutions that support her clients’ leadership development and organizational transformations. Maureen is recognized as an innovative, principled thought leader who combines intellectual rigor and discipline with an ability to translate theory into practice. Her operational skills are coupled with a strategic ability to analyze, develop, and implement successful strategies for profitability, growth, and sustainability.

More Here!

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