Leadership in the New Chaos

Leadership and the new chaos. It's not just you. Leaders everywhere are overwhelmed, and not because they're doing something wrong. The world has changed. Chaos isn't the exception anymore. It's the norm. In this episode, we explore how to lead when the map keeps redrawing itself under your feet. Carolyn Norgate and Carolyn Parker revisit and expand on their earlier podcast about leadership in today's increasingly unpredictable world. Six months ago, they saw a glimmer of optimism. Today, the sentiment is more complex. The leaders are working harder, facing more demands and feeling less impact. They delve into what it means to lead in an era where answers have a short shelf life, where leadership must be adaptive, relational and reflective, they discuss the limitations of traditional leadership models and share insights that challenge the myth of the heroic leader and how embracing vulnerability, creative Inquiry and collective sense making can pave the way to a more human, connected approach to navigating the chaos. 

Transcript

Claire Newell  00:04

Welcome to the Mayvin people change podcast. This is the place to find thoughtful and heartfelt conversations about leadership and organisation development. Each episode is created with our listeners in mind. So if you have a suggestion for topic you'd like to hear us talk about, please do get in touch with us. Mayvin are thought leaders in the area of leadership and organisation development, and have a wealth of experience in this area. We have a thriving community, and we offer regular free events. You can find out more details via our website. Mayvin.co.uk, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, please do leave us a review on your favourite platform to help us grow our audience. Thanks so much for being here, and we hope you enjoy listening. Leadership and the new chaos. It's not just you. Leaders everywhere are overwhelmed, and not because they're doing something wrong. The world has changed. Chaos isn't the exception anymore. It's the norm. In this episode, we explore how to lead when the map keeps redrawing itself under your feet. Carolyn Norgate and Carolyn Parker revisit and expand on their earlier podcast about leadership in today's increasingly unpredictable world. Six months ago, they saw a glimmer of optimism. Today, the sentiment is more complex. The leaders are working harder, facing more demands and feeling less impact. They delve into what it means to lead in an era where answers have a short shelf life, where leadership must be adaptive, relational and reflective, they discuss the limitations of traditional leadership models and share insights that challenge the myth of the heroic leader and how embracing vulnerability, creative Inquiry and collective sense making can pave the way to a more human, connected approach to navigating the chaos. I'll pass you over. Enjoy.

Carolyn Norgate  00:00

Okay, hello everyone. It's Carolyn and Carolyn here. I'm Carolyn Norgate, one of the directors at Mayvin. I'm joined by

Carolyn Parker  00:08

Carolyn Parker, Principal Consultant at Mayvin.

Carolyn Norgate  00:11

Yeah, good to be here and revisiting a conversation you and I had last year with sort of six, six plus months ago, around leadership off the back of the event we did very soon after the election, which is around what we were calling leadership in the new era, thinking about the new government and the impact, particularly in the civil service and the public sector, there was a bit of a sense of, you know, a different feel of trust, respect, potentially sort of more appreciative process. So we were talking about that, and what we were noticing, as I say, 2024 late summer, and it's felt like it was time to maybe have another conversation. Um, given what we're noticing now, yeah, um, which feels in the same broad context, but a bit different. 

Carolyn Parker  00:58

I think what certainly I've been hearing from from our clients, is, you know, when we're doing work with leaders, is there's this real sense of overwhelm actually. I think, you know, when we spoke six plus months ago, I would say there was a sense of hope. There was a sense of optimism around change that might be coming. I think we're talking a lot about what it might mean to be mission driven, and connecting, connecting up the public sector with private sector, with third sector, and kind of really driving collaboration and change. And I think it's not to say that that's not happening, but the pace at which that's happened, or the the lived reality for a lot of leaders, is actually it's really complex still. There's a lot of demands being placed on them, and they are expressing frustration because they're working, you know, harder than ever, and yet getting diminishing returns in terms of seeing progress on, you know, the issues and challenges that they're grappling with, or or the impact that they're having. And I think for for us, and for the conversations we've been having as a consultant team, I think what we've been really struck by is the fact that the operating context within which people are leading are really, you know, are really challenging and only getting more so, actually

Carolyn Norgate  02:32

Yeah, no, I completely agree. I was thinking back to the summer conversation. And I mean, last year, famously, was the year of, you know, almost like 50% or more of the world having elections. So, you know, it wasn't only changes in the UK that were going to have an impact. And it certainly feels as we're going to 2025, with the new administration in the States, in the impact that that has globally, and, you know, a whole host of other sort of international geopolitical factors that, yeah, you know, the the interconnection, the levels of interconnection, means that, even if you're focusing very, very locally, the impact that it's, you know, if you think about all the different parts of both government and industry and community that are affected by what's been happening with the steel industry just this last week or so, you know, from very sort of hyper local through to kind of, you know, our international relationships with China and, you know, others, you know, where we're sourcing all the materials from. It's just the sort of the sort of pivot of to attention around that in different points, in different places, for leaders at all different scales, is, I mean, obviously there were certain people who'd say that was predictable, but watching the blue sky or twitter feed over the weekend, of MPs coming into to to the house on Saturday, and the kind of surprise nature of that, and the fact that hadn't happened for over 40 years, it clearly wasn't that predictable that this was going to have to happen, that, you know, primarily legislation was going to have to be formed in a day. So yeah, that that level of unpredictability, to just pick a very recent example, this sense of having to lead from a place of not knowing, yes, seems incredibly now you know current and that that that feel that seems very, incredibly uncomfortable given what gets projected onto leaders and you know, sort of in any place, in a system you know, As people you know look up in any kind of dynamic relationship to the sort of the next layer of power, that kind of projection of clarity seeking, direction seeking, containment, safety, whatever is sought from the that layer above feels incredibly hard for leaders to give, because in the moment they give it, something shifts, and then having to sense make and you know that classic kind of building the path you know, as you're walking on it, but it feels like they're building 10 different paths and hopping across from one path to the next. You know, in order to try and, you know, and then kind of going hop, you know, hop, hop with us, or you stay there and, you know, it's sort of islands. And, yeah, going mad with my metaphors here, but,

Carolyn Parker  05:33

But I think it's it all points to, kind of this sense of our futures are really unknowable and and therefore, what does good leadership look like? What what leadership capabilities do you need to have in in organisations when you're dealing with that level of unpredictability, when you are dealing with that amount of needing to pivot and react and respond and adapt accordingly? And I think, I think, you know, you talked about what gets projected onto leaders, but I think it's also about what's been modelled to leaders historically, and what's been rewarded and recognised in organisational life. And so I think a lot of the leaders that we work with are both experiencing an expectation from their teams that they feel they're possibly not able to meet. They're experiencing expectations from the people that they report into that they're not meeting, but crucially, they're not meeting their own expectations either. And I think, you know, we've had some some conversations in leadership development programmes that that we've been delivering recently, where we've, you know, just taking some time to kind of pause and reflect and make sense of the contexts that they find themselves in, which has been incredibly powerful, not least because in organisational life, people don't have a huge amount of time to pause and reflect. They're very busy doing and hopping between the different paths that they're building, as you were saying, um, and that, first and foremost, I think, has been so powerful because it's allowed people to connect with their peers and realise, oh, it's not just me that feels this way. And so you start to move from a sense of this is an individual failure of leadership. I'm just not working hard enough, smart enough, I'm not politically savvy enough. Whatever it might be, whatever deficit you might see in your yourself or your leadership and and instead move towards actually, this isn't just me that feels this way. Collectively, we're feeling this way. And therefore what that speaks to is the environment that we're operating in. The conditions in which we are required to lead are really challenging, and crucially, might require something different from us to what we've historically relied upon. And so, you know, and that's really vulnerable making actually, because often what we're encouraging people to do is, you know, we talk about answers having a short shelf life, and therefore really encouraging leaders to move towards inquiry and asking questions. But that's quite a dynamic shift in terms of how they've how they've led up until that point, and

Carolyn Norgate  08:38

I've seen as being successful in their predecessors. Yeah, yeah. You know the conception of what a good leader does in an organisation. And yeah, that the what was role model to them as they were coming up and coming through. And there's just not necessarily, there's no one there necessarily to show them the way, because we haven't been in this place before. There isn't our way. And I think that's that process of pausing that you talked about, and the opportunity to for people to realise that everyone's feeling that and from their own context in their own different ways, but giving themselves permission to realise that's okay that they don't know, and having a North Star. So where is it you're trying, trying to get to, oh, you, and you had a great phrase earlier from James Damasio, what was it the guy, the guy who came up with, with Fanny as opposed to the brittle, anxious, non linear, and I always forget the eye

Carolyn Parker  09:49

in principle. 

Carolyn Norgate  09:51

Thank you. Yeah. So how did he talk about?

Carolyn Parker  09:56

So he talks about, you need to be really clear about where you're going, so be crystal clear on the vision and what you're trying, where you're trying to get to. So yeah, so you've got your clear North Star, but then be really flexible about how you get there. And I think if you think you know, traditionally, you know, you'd in leadership, you'd set a vision, and then you'd set your project plan to achieve that vision. And what he's saying is you can't set the project plan, because the conditions of the world are such that you know it just the minute you start to to enact that plan, something will change, something new will will arise that requires you to respond and adapt accordingly. And so actually, it's much more about iteration and improvisation. This is, you know, and I think he the Barney framework is kind of, he positions it, if you like, as the kind of more modern version of VUCA. So, you know what was once a VUCA was a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Actually, he when he coined the phrase Barney, he was saying it just felt like VUCA was no longer cutting it. It felt like it wasn't really describing the conditions that people were operating in, or the lived experience of operating in those conditions. So Barney was a way of, I suppose, re redefining what had been VUCA for a more modern world. And then within that thinking about, well, you know, if the world is brittle, then what you need to develop is resilience. You need to be able to bounce back. You need to be able to adapt. If the world is anxious and actually we have to meet each other with much more empathy and create space for connection. If the world is non linear, then you have to be adaptable. You have to acknowledge that like say, once you set the plan, it's not necessarily going to play out in the way you anticipate. So can you respond and adapt accordingly? And when things are kind of incomprehensible, then you need to have an open mind, and you need to have the humility to be able to say, I don't know, and actually invite different perspectives in, because bringing in those different perspectives means each person's got a got their own vantage point in the system they see, you know, whatever the issue is, or the challenge or or the opportunity is, from their own particular place. And when you bring all of those diverse views and perspectives together, you start to create a new sense of what might be possible.

Carolyn Norgate  12:47

Yeah, yeah. And, and that adaptability in that moving towards your North Star, your clear vision is, you know, it's constantly kind of understanding that in the context. So by bringing together diverse voices, it's easy to understand the context. And I was talking with a group recently around best fit that you can't you can't know if it's the right thing to do, but you can make a judgement that's that's part of your role as a leader, is to make judgments, to to take a call. You know, does this, but given everything we know will this, if we take this step, will it take us towards be the kind of best fit we can we can do? Is it kind of coherent, a coherent move to make? And that's where I think things like incoherence and coherent are often quite felt, felt a felt sense. So, you know, there could be a whole set of classic quantitative data that you can get to start to help you describe that. But there's also a lot of intangible, yeah, um, relational data that would be around that which requires leaders, I think, to work with their tacit knowledge. So what I find when we get to go, as you were describing earlier, when we've been getting groups of leaders together and talking about leading adaptively, leading in complexity, is there is something about tapping into a knowledge that they have developed. They are not they have capacity in this. They can, they can make moves, what they can make, but they can make moves from a different form of knowing to their the kind of you know what I think a leader does, concept that you were talking about earlier, in a slightly more directive, heroic pace setting style that they may have seen around them. They know that's they're trying to do that, and it's not getting them anywhere, or it's very slow and very unsatisfactory. But there's a whole load of other stuff that they that they know how to work networks and connections and build bridges. And, you know, they've, they've started, you know, they've been doing this through their careers, as they've as they've moved up and through organisations. But it's not always the stuff that's talked about, or privileged or rewarded, but it's the the intangible, messy, you know, the stuff that you can't draw on an org chart, it's that kind of, you know, you can have a sort of like, you know, like the org chart is a nice, sort of wire diagram of everything, and then it's almost like you're going to pick it up and look underneath it. And it's just this sort of, like, organic, kind of fascinating, but messy reality of organisations, you know, they're filled with people, and they sit within a, you know, like we're saying earlier, it could be a local context, it could be a national context, it could be a global context, but that context is constantly shifting, and never more than before, so it, it's really messy, if you try and draw it,

Carolyn Parker  16:00

Yeah, and I think a lot of the a lot of the work that we're doing with leaders is helping them to acknowledge that, is helping them to acknowledge that it is messy, it is unpredictable, and to kind of rediscover their agency within that. So to think about, okay, well, I might not know everything I'd like to know in order to make a decision. But to your point, earlier, do I know enough to take a next wise move here? Do I, or you know, or who else might I need to bring into this conversation to help make sense of what, what, where we might go next? And to do that without expectation, kind of letting go of this binary right or wrong, and kind of, instead embracing this is iterative, it's experimental, it's about, you know, taking taking a next step, and then reevaluating where we find ourselves and what what might be our next move after that. And I think there's a real power in just naming the messiness of it actually starts to free people up, I think from the anxiety because said before, it's kind of a lot of a lot of people are feeling like this is an individual failure of my leadership. And when you kind of go, No, this is, this is the reality of of the world that we are operating in now, once you kind of kind of go, oh, okay, great, then you can go, well, in that context, then what might I do? Yeah, how can I make progress,

Carolyn Norgate  17:43

Yeah, what can I do? And how do I need to be? And I'm really thoughtful about, you know, I suppose, as a someone who helps leaders and organisations, given what we do as Mayvin, but also as a citizen, kind of, what, what do I need from, from the organisational or, you know, public sector leaders in order to live in a well formed, safe, progressive society. And what I don't want is, you know, what worries me is leaders who are anxious, you know, in a sort of defensive crouch, because they, you know, that's that's not going to that's not going to enable good quality decision making. You know what what we need is leaders and the people around them, the people they're working with, and people you know, the people who report to them, to have to, you know, to be, look, you know, working with, you know, creatively with novel solutions to things that have not confronted us before. As you know, you know, as as citizens, there's probably more novelty needed than ever before. And in order to be creative, there's, there's something about freeing people up, so having that permission, like, okay, it is messy, and that's not, that's not of your making. You're, you're, you know, that just is, and your role is to to, you know, to pause, to notice, to collectively interpret, given what we're trying to do. Well, yeah, where are we trying to get to North Star, and what are some of the best next steps that we can make? And it's course and course correct as we go. But that the yeah, that the thing that you know really catches me is, is, how do we help people be freed up for that creativity? How do how do we how to help leaders free themselves up, and how do we help them create the conditions for others to get beyond that sense of right, wrong, binary decisions, the freeze that comes with that. Because, yeah, we need that. We need the the amazing creativity that happens when humans come together and have the freedom to just sort of share with each other and riff, you know, riff off each other, but that, but you know, certain conditions enable that and met a lot of conditions disable it, and we're noticing a lot of disabling conditions. I guess that's that's part of what we've the kind of what's been underpinning some of this conversation,

Carolyn Parker  20:10

And I think that is one of the tensions to navigate. You know, one of the things I think we do with the leaders that we work with is really encourage them to think about, how do they bring some of those creative spaces intentionally into their working week? Because organisational life is jam packed with emails and meetings and agendas and actions and those, all those all have a place. They serve a purpose, and if every agenda is crammed within an inch of its life, then nothing's getting the space and time that it deserves. And that's I think one of the things we do when we work with leaders, is we create those conversational spaces. And I think one of the ways in which our work can have a lasting impact is if we can support them to think about how they go back and create those conversational, generative spaces within their own teams, and see that they have agency to do that you know that they can make choices about where they spend their time and how they spend their time, whilst completely acknowledging that the systems that people are working in often privilege output, task meetings, you know, ticking off of actions and some of what we encourage is is less tangible, but it is where some of the breakthroughs really happen I think in terms of seeing seeing challenges in a new light, finding new opportunities, generating new possibilities. I think that's that's really critical actually in the environment and the operating context that we find ourselves in right now. 

Carolyn Norgate  22:06

Yeah, yeah. Leaders, of course, have a role in from an accountability perspective, whether that's to throw ultimately, to taxpayers in the public sector through government or to shareholders or funders and third sector and beneficiaries. So there's a formal set of processes that they need to, of course, attend to, but it's in the informal system that so much real, the real work gets done. And that's that kind of how do you navigate and set the conditions for the informal system to really respond in a creative, innovative safe way to the challenges we have. So yeah, and of course, well, not of course, but I know we pay a lot of attention when we're working with leaders to not just to how do we help you notice, pause, pause and notice start the process of interpretation, so you can figure out the moves you can make. But when we're doing that with clients, so if we've got a group of leaders in a room, we're also pointing out what we're doing. So we call it double duty. So we're saying so just notice what we did just then together for what what conditions did we create for you to have that conversation? How did we structure the conversation so that you got to that point? How might you do that with your teams? So we're kind of giving, we're creating the spaces, and we're hopefully giving people a sense of what's possible in in their own situations, with their people as well. So yeah, so just I suppose to wrap this up, one of the things we've been doing a lot of over this last year is really being really thoughtful around the different ways in which we work with leaders, given the time people have, given the capacity in in their systems to create space for this kind of pausing and noticing so a shift towards shorter half day online or face to face sessions, maybe as a series of sort of, 123, of those kinds of sessions, either to kind of kick start and catalyse a different way of thinking. And then, if there's space to kind of come back and share that, to think about how you may be start holding an inquiry practice. Think about your practice as a leader and hold an inquiry question to help you stay with questions, as you were saying earlier, answers, you know, Glenda o Yang's great phrase, answers have a short shelf life, stick with the question, and maybe bringing in some learning set to action learning type processes to that again, if that, if that's something you've got capacity for in your system to really be able to to work in that way. So yeah, if you're, if you want to just have a bit more of this conversation with us, really happy to do that and or explore there's ways that we can help with some of the leadership development type programmes we've been doing over this last six to eight months since we've been thinking about leadership in this new era, leadership, leadership in the new chaos maybe, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I'd love to hear carry on the conversation with others as well. So thanks, Carolyn, been good to revisit it with you today.

Carolyn Parker  25:17

Yeah, thanks, Carolyn.

Claire Newell  27:28

Thank you so much for listening to us today, and we hope to see you next time. Take care. Bye. Bye.