My reflection blog this week is to discuss “A different Kind of Leader” by Stephen Denning. I will reflect on the dimensions and how I expect they will impact the way I lead in the future. I will include some examples of how these dimensions’ manifest in my own application of leadership.

            In the book The Leaders Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of business Narrative, Stephen Denning talks about to be “a different kind of leader, you can use narratives to become an interactive leader.” (p269).  He goes on to elaborate that if “someone who embodies the interactive mode of thinking, speaking, and acting and takes on the new capabilities that narrative enables can accomplish what was inaccessible to someone operating solely in the traditional command-and-control mode.” (p269-270) Within this concept, Denning, provides a review of leadership within dimensions. (Denning, 2011)

Interactive Leader

            The interactive leader “works with the world rather than an against it.” (p270) (Denning, 2011)In this dimension, a leader is less controlling and does not set boundaries to obtain a result based on their own will. Instead an interactive leader listens to those whom they lead and lets others do some of the work. From my perspective, an interactive leader is available. This leader needs to “show their face ‘in the work area, which means getting away from the emails and meetings and be available to the employees. (Groysberg & Slind, 2012)

            My experience with interactive leadership is focused on those who are my leaders, and then myself as a leader. About six years ago, I had the opportunity to be asked to have lunch with executive leadership. I was a bit nervous as I did not know these leaders very well and I went anyway because it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I remember one of the vice presidents asked about any issues going on in the workplace and what they could do to make things better. I usually do not say anything in these types of meetings, but this day was different. I offered up to the leadership team that if they wanted to know more about what was going on in the workplace, randomly walk around and introduce yourself to the employees.  The leadership team thanked us for the feedback. I enjoyed the free lunch and went back to work. The very next day, the vice president is walking around the work area talking to employees. I smiled, as I had the bravery to tell someone of this level of leadership on how to be more interactive. I did not gloat in the workplace about my recommendation, however I overhead how people were surprised to see the leader walking around and asking questions.

When it comes to being an interactive leader there are two things that I have to continuously work on: creating conversation and pulling the plug on technology. I love to talk to people, however, my life is overcommitted with work, school, leadership association and family. I have to make sure that I take the time and have a conversation with those who work around me. My favorite is talking to the younger troops, they tend to be very intuitive to the newest trends on technology, fashion, or even just social events. I think sometimes it reminds me of hanging with my own adult children. My other element that I have to work on is “pulling the plug on technology.” I love the technology, but I have found myself consumed with email, internet, and instant messaging.  I think instant messaging in the workplace has hampered the ability to be effective at interactive leadership. It is a larger topic, but I think it creates barriers to interaction with human people. I will admit using instant messenger is much faster than email, so it becomes a crutch. (Groysberg & Slind, 2012)

Leadership Palette (Addition and Subtraction)

            Denning defines that “interactive leadership supplements the traditional management functions of command, control, regulation, analysis and optimization by adding new capabilities, but requires the leader to set aside manipulative and whining techniques” (p270) Basically, the interactive leader cannot “exercise manipulative and spinning behavior in their conduct and expect to be accepted as open, truthful, and trustworthy in other domains.” (p270) (Denning, 2011)

So this past week at work, our team bully just returned from a week of vacation. She prides herself in team meetings that she is helping our Control Account Managers (CAM) with cost and schedule integration. Being out for a week, she missed the email communication that a CAM requested to add a new task to the schedule. In our work, schedule is king, as it tells the cost team which month to lay in the associated budget. When I let her know that I would have the schedule change by the end of the day, she pushed her role as a leader to a very unprofessional level. She tried to manipulate the situations by saying it was too late in the accounting month to make a change, and the CAM did not coordinate the work. She sent emails to upper level management about how no one was following the process, including me. In the end, there was several very bad emails sent from her, based on her emotional state of the situation. She even went to the level of telling me I was not following the process. However, the value of email was the savior of the situation for the CAM and myself. An email was sent two weeks prior requesting for the work to be accomplished. The bully didn’t read it. The next day at a team meeting, she was crying about how no one listens or respects her, and she is just trying to help. The key is her leadership palette is unbalanced, she is not good at interactive leadership. She likes to manipulate and control the situation to her convenience, but does not understand why people don’t trust her. I would like to think she would change, but I have known her for over a decade and her leadership behavior is status quo. In interactive leadership if she would take more from her “learning verses her fears” she could improve on her leadership palette. (Insight Leadership Partners, 2016)

Personal Integrity and Authenticity

Interactive leadership “builds on personal Integrity and Authenticity” (p270). There are several factors leaders can have that support integrity and authenticity.  If you can “communicate who you are and what you stand for, others come to know and respect you for just that.” Additionally, Denning says if you “make your values explicit and act in accord to those values, your values become contagious and others start to share them” (p271) ( (Denning, 2011)

The one element of myself that I am very passionate for is community service, especially veteran benefits and respect. Being a retired veteran, I wear my military support attire very proudly. I also have no problem supporting the homeless person standing at a busy intersection who claims they are a veteran for some extra financial support. One day my daughter asked me why I always give money to those who claim they are veterans. She wanted to know how I knew this person was really a veteran. I let her know that it doesn’t matter if I know this person was a veteran or not. I educated her on military benefits to degree of how poor they are. I explained that military pay is low and I know for a fact that military members, currently serving, turn to the food stamp system to feed their families. In fact in 2014, it was reported that over “$84 million dollars of food stamps benefits were spent at a military commissary.” (Clark, 2015) The point to my daughter is veterans are very important to me as they serve our country selfishly for our freedom, while they struggle financially. We don’t know if the homeless person is really a veteran, but we are fortunate to spare some money to those who need it, so we do. It’s not about whether this person is telling a truthful story, but helping a person in need.

Additionally, to this story, my work is currently doing a canned food drive for the north Georgia. I am required to do it being in a leadership development program. I immediately cleaned out my pantry last week, and sent emails to all those I support on the program. People know I am very compassionate on community service and giving back. Within a day, my group raised over $1500. I was very honored and proud. People know I am authentic and have a very strong passion in this area, so they support it. I know who I am, what I stand for, and people respect that.
Possession of Hierarchical Authority

Interactive leadership “doesn’t depend on the possession of hierarchical authority” (p271). Denning states “anyone who can help clarify a direction, improve the structure, secure support, or offer coaching that improves performance is providing leadership” (Denning, 2011) As a new leader, I do not do well with those who like to control things. I tend spend most of my time clarify things and coaching, especially as a parent. Having four adult daughters and being a woman, I spent allot of time leading by coaching them to be strong adult women. There are times I have to clarify my intent of conversations, as a couple of them automatically go to the negative or judging of the information being delivered. Before they were adults, I had to control the situations for them. I have had to transition in the last year to make sure my deliver is more suggestive and coaching, verses do it my way or you will fail approach. To do this, I find myself re-clarifying the intent of my words and learning to listen. I have learned as a mom at this stage of the game, securing the support from them and vice versa is very important in the relationship. I will admit it is very hard to not want to control the situation. The change has occurred when I learned to make my idea as their idea, by changing how we actually communicate. Verses giving them the answer to an adult problem, I coach them in thinking, then they solve the problem on their own. This also builds their internal confidence.

Different Narrative Patterns

Interactive leadership “benefits from an understanding of the different narrative patterns that can be used to get things done in the world” (p271) Denning’s states this “involves telling stories, not talking about storytelling” and “you don’t need to burden the world with the principles of what you are doing.” Overall, “interactive leadership entails active participation in the world rather than the detached observation” (Denning, 2011) I can relate to this when having a conversation with other people. Often at work or as a parent, when someone is telling a story, the story teller has to tell us how they got to the story in the first place, verses just telling the story. (Denning, 2011)

My future of leadership

            The three dimensions that I can improve on in the future is my leadership palette, understanding the various narrative patterns, and understanding how I can work with the world rather than against it. My leadership palette is not surfaced with a control manipulate leadership style that creates boundaries, and at the same time I do value trust from those I support.  I had to complete a 360-degree feedback survey that was supported by leaders, co-workers, and various people that I know. This last week I received the results. A good majority of the responses were very positive, but there is the one that got the most attention from me. A remark was made that I am negative when someone wants to change the schedule. At first I was baffled by that feedback as I consider myself very supportive, helpful, and easy to work with. The unique thing about the feedback is it came from the cost team. I had to think about that response and what it really meant. Since I value feedback, I immediately went to self-reflection to determine if I am sending the wrong message. The key is when I am very connected with the schedule and the process, maybe I do come across as a non-team player. The best part of the feedback is it is information about my leadership skills and I can use it as a tool to be aware of which leadership narrative I am currently operating in to make improvements.

References

Clark, K. (2015, May 25). Military families turn to food stamps. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from

The Market Place: http://www.marketplace.org/2015/05/25/wealth-poverty/military-

families-turn-food-stamps

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide of Storytelling: Mastering The Art and Discipline of

Business Narrative. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Groysberg, B., & Slind, M. (2012, June 20). Four Ways to Become a More Interactive Leader.

Retrieved May 20, 2016, from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2012/06/how-

interactive-are-you-as-a-l

Insight Leadership Partners. (2016). Insight Leadership Palette. Retrieved May 20, 2016, from

Insight Leadership Partners: http://www.insightleadershippartners.com/insightleadershippalate.cfm