Recently I attended a wedding for my nephew. My sister, mother of the groom, was preparing to stand up and do a toast. She asked if I would help her. As she began to talk about what she wanted to say, we both got lumps in our throats and tears in our eyes. We realized that, along with the joy of the wedding, we were both feeling some deep sadness. The sadness we were experiencing was over the tragic death of her husband more than twenty years before, when her son, the groom, was just a baby. It was sadness that he died so young and that he never got a chance to see his son grow into the beautiful man he´s become. It was also sadness over her son´s frequent mention of his desire to have known his father. She had some initial concern about calling out the sadness that many in our family were feeling that day for fear that it would overshadow the joy and celebration of the wedding. Her inner wisdom prevailed and she chose in her speech to honor all of the emotions - the sadness and the joy. In so doing, I saw the leader in her.
How many times have you sat in a meeting and felt the tension or awkwardness that was present in the room and just stayed quiet? We´ve all done it. What I´ve come to realize is that by simply naming what you´re feeling or sensing, you are taking the role of a leader. Having the courage to speak out may be saying something as simple as "I´m sensing some tension right now. Is there something that we need to talk about?" or, "This is awkward for me." If no one in the group wants to go further with it, at least you´ve given it a name and opened the window for discussing what´s present.
My experience has been that often, leaders either don´t recognize the elephant in the room, or they are fearful of drawing attention to it in case it will detract from their agenda. Instead, they manoeuvre around it, only to have it show up in all kinds of inconvenient and disruptive ways later.
Judith Glaser has a powerful tool she calls the "ARC of Engagement" that she uses in her coaching work with client organizations. She invites people at the start of a meeting to disclose where they are in regard to a particular idea, strategy or project. The choices are shown visually on a continuum that moves from left to right to include: "Resistor, Skeptic, Wait & See, Experiment, Co-creator". People then have the opportunity to talk about why they feel that way and what it would take to move them along the continuum. (For more information on the work Judith does, and her "ARC of Engagement", click here to read our Thought Leader interview; click here to listen to the interview archive) I think this is a very powerful way to communicate that there is room for all perspectives in the conversation and to invite those various perspectives to be expressed.
Are you looking to develop yourself further as a leader? If so, why not take on the challenge of naming what is in the room without blame or judgement. Simply state what you perceive and invite others to comment. It will be a valuable service to all of those involved.
