16 times.
16 times I’ve hosted Ask-Me-Anything sessions — AMAs — with the faculty of the Crusaders Leadership Programme™.
16 hours of talking to Robbie Deans, Sam Whitelock, Scott Robertson, Kieran Read, and Sir Wayne Smith.
And the PREP.
Reviewing hundreds of questions submitted by participants in the programme. Organising them into groups and analysing the upvotes to understand what people REALLY want to know.
I’ve seen a few patterns emerge. And I can tell you that the data is clear.
And it’s consistent with what I’ve heard from the thousands of people I’ve taken through Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead™ programme.
The most common leadership question is the most common one — by MILES. It’s this:
What do I do about this person who isn’t aligned to the strategy?
What do I do about this person who is disengaged?
What do I do about this person on my team?
What do I do about my problem child?
Two weeks ago, I ran an AMA with legendary All Blacks captain Kieran Read.
As usual, the number one question: “Can you share an experience where you had to have a tough conversation with someone who wasn’t fully aligned with the team’s direction?”
And Kieran gave the best possible answer.
He said the first thing he would do is sit down with the person and ask, “How are you?”
“I know he wants to be in this environment, he wanted to be playing for the All Blacks. The key was for me to figure out is there anything wrong? You know, something at home or something that’s been bugging him to cause him to miss those curfews.
“And then I guess putting it on him about the expectations that we have in the All Blacks was crucial as well. Telling him it wasn’t good enough.
“And then at the end, really giving him a shining light is the important part of how I led, was saying how good he could be if he puts his head down and works really hard.”
How awesome is that?
Get curious.
Get clear about expectations.
Get excited about possibility.
How often do we as leaders lead off with the thing we’re annoyed about, instead of starting with curiosity to find out what’s going on for someone?
And how would it change our work relationships to lead with that curiosity?
Ngā mihi maioha / warm regards,
Kaila
