In July 2010 I was barely two months into my new role as Saskatchewan Regional Coordinator for the National Manager’s Community (NMC). My Alberta counterpart, Doug, had invited me to join him in Edmonton to observe and participate in one of the NMC flagship workshops, Coaching Practices for Managers. I was a real greenhorn. I was a newer middle manager in the public service and had come out of the ranks of an organization where top-down was the preferred current mode of management. I thought I had a good grip on being a manager. But manager-as-coach was a fascinating idea to me.
As regional coordinators, our job was to advertise and create the space for the learning to happen. Bring supplies, make coffee, and that sort of thing. Doug had a bonus of some giveaways in the form of NMC book bags and some motivational books to fill them with. I helped with all of these logistical things, by setting up the room and making it comfortable for learning.
Before long, the room filled with middle managers from numerous departments and agencies of the federal government. Some came together. They were the chatty ones, all holding the same take-out coffee cups from the drive-through they stopped at on the way over from the office. Others were silent – looking at their Blackberries or shuffling through the material that was waiting for them on the table when they arrived.
Then it was time to begin. I was invited to join one of the tables and was introduced as the new Regional Coordinator for Saskatchewan. Everyone was excited to see me. I joined a table, although it felt strange to me. After all, this was not my role. I was just supposed to be the watcher, the learner. I dutifully put my name on a tent-card, colouring a cute little palm tree on a small island next to my name. Everyone at my table smiled when they saw it. That helped me feel a little more comfortable.
I watched Doug introduce the facilitators. He explained our organization as a community of practice that serves middle managers across Canada, equipping them to be more effective leaders in their organizations and better managers. He referred to the facilitators as practitioners and explained that they were also managers who happened to have some training and experience using coaching skills in their management roles. They had been trained by some of the leaders within the NMC. They were trained by community, for community. I was not one of those facilitators. I was just supposed to be learning how to be the guy at the back of the room, and I was happy with that. At least, I thought I was.
Not far into the workshop, the practitioners shared an engagement tool called The Feedback Model. It was three simple questions: what went well, what was tricky, and what would you do differently. Through a demonstration, the practitioners shared that this is a model to provide focus on innovation and improvement. Most importantly, it placed the power in the hand of the employee, not the manager. It seemed too simple. The manager asks the employee if they would like some feedback. If the employee says “no” then end of discussion. But if the employee says “yes” then the manager responds by introducing those three questions and then tells the employee, “okay, you were there. YOU start.”
As I watched the role-play unfold at the front of the room, I became acutely aware of how much my mind was being blown. The lightbulbs were coming on so fast I am sure my eyes were lit up! If I had known this model for having difficult discussions with my employees when I was a manager, my whole world would have changed for the better! But I was aware of something else, too – the eyes in the room that were lighting up the same as mine, as other managers were thinking the very same thing I was. I became instantly convinced that I, that we have been doing it all wrong.
At the end of the workshop, the participants thanked the practitioners, but equally thanked my colleague and I for making it happen. I was reminded of my training as a counsellor and began to realize at a deeper level the crossover that exists between my training, my experience as a manager and my practice as a leader. If I create an inviting space and ask the right questions, the result is an environment where people feel safe and grow both individually and collectively. This I believe, is a fundamental principle to servant leadership. Here started my journey as a leadership practitioner. My goal: to create the space for human potential to emerge, and to be there to see the eyes of the participants light up with new, life-changing realizations.
I do not consider myself a leader. Rather I am a leadership practitioner. I strive to practice the skills and attributes embodied by leaders such as Nelsen Mandela, Gandhi and Mother Theresa. They are examples of leaders who focused on their own journey and in the process brought along entire nations and cultures.
In 1970, Robert Greenleaf refined what he along with his contemporaries had been experiencing as a shift in leadership style and coined the term Servant Leadership. He has become my go-to authority on the topic. He came out of the executive ranks of AT&T. I imagine him as a member of the ‘Old Boy’s Club,’ partaking in the after-dinner discussions over Brandy or Scotch and a good cigar with the other executives of large companies – the successful crowd. I imagine him being an influencer. I would like to think he had a positive influence on at least some of those other big-shooters.
The challenge for Greenleaf and others who would follow in his footsteps seems to be how to navigate the waters of servanthood and management at the same time. But I suggest that they are focused on the wrong goal. The key to servant leadership is to remove all of these from our line of site and focus completely on the inner journey. In the weeks to come, I will be unpacking he characteristics of servant leaders as gleaned from Greenleaf’s work in relation to this journey.
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