Build Connections While Getting Results
The third choice is to build connections while getting results. This is called compassionate accountability. The normal form of accountability is critical accountability. This starts with the premise that “I am right and you are wrong.” It often results in a loss of confidence and, many times, a loss of clarity. Compassionate accountability starts in a completely different place and proceeds along a different pathway.
Nate Regier, Ph.D, in his book, Compassionate Accountability: How Leaders Build Connection and Get Results (Berrett-Koehler, 2023), writes: “Compassion isn’t just tolerance, safety, caring, empathy, alleviation of suffering, kindness, nonviolence, or even inclusion. Compassion means truly embracing that our fates are codependent. We aren’t just going through the same trials, we truly are in this together. My actions affect you. Your actions affect me. My thoughts, beliefs, and feelings have a powerful impact on the world around me, and so does yours. Our world is inextricably connected. We get the biggest and best results through our connections, not in spite of them.” As he continues, “Compassion is what makes us human, keeps us on track, and brings us back together when we’ve lost our way.”
When I read Regier’s work, I thought back over many decades of being present when the best leaders held people and teams accountable. While they did not have the term, compassionate accountability, in their lexicon, they acted with the spirit of compassionate accountability. They understood the deep interwoven connection between leader and follower. They grasped the notion that “we get the biggest and best results through our connections, not in spite of them.” And thus, they acted accordingly.
Still, there is one element that many people don’t see or understand that often takes place before compassionate accountability happens. As an executive coach, I often was on the phone, or was in the room as a leader contemplated whether or not to hold someone or some team accountable with compassion. During these private moments, many leaders wrestled with how to do it and whether or not now was the right time to do it. They thought long and hard about this choice, recognizing that it would have an impact, and may even set a precedent. Still, many choose to move forward.
What is interesting to me as their executive coach is that these leaders did something that, from my perspective, sets them apart from the rest. Bishop Michael Curry captures it best when he wrote, “What I’ve learned is that you can’t open someone else’s heart without being true to your own.” These unique and exceptional leaders looked deeply into their own heart and reflected deeply on their own choices. They held up the mirror and knew that compassionate accountability was a two way street. Thus, they reviewed their choices, actions, and decisions that lead them to choose to hold someone else accountable. In simple terms, they took full responsibility for their actions, and did not blame others for any problems or disappointing results. They also strived to be a better leader moving forward. Again, the best leaders did this before they engaged in compassionate accountability, and, I believe, this is what makes them the best leaders I’ve met in my career.
The End Is Where We Start
“What we call the beginning is often the end,” writes the poet T.S. Elliot. “And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start.” What Elliot is pointing out is that the beginning tells us much about where we are headed and where we hope to end up over time. However, until the end is written, you will never truly know and understand the beginning.
In reality, we experience over the course of our lives at work and at home, many new beginnings and many endings. The difference between good leaders and the best leaders is that they know the difference between the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end.
Furthermore, the best leaders know that a plan will not always go as planned, and yet that does not discourage them from pursing goals that stretch them and their organizations. For they understand that failure, change, and struggle are all a normal part of success. So rather than give up, the best leaders grasp that every opportunity is a chance for a new beginning.
Still, the best leader do not become the best leaders without having people in their lives who were great managers and great leaders as they moved along in their career. These key leaders understood and taught them about the difference between being a good manager and being a good leader. Over time, they learned these different skill sets. Over time, they also got better and better in their ability to utilize situational awareness.
And with this depth of awareness they were able to make better choices. First they avoided merit badge thinking. Instead, they focused on in-depth learning, and creating coherence without losing a sense of purpose. Second, they choose to engage with people by being more approachable. This involved asking questions and listening intently to the people with the understanding that what they learned may change them forever. As part of this choice, they also spoke with an authentic voice, the root of which begins by role modeling integrity, dignity, and honor in all they say and do. Finally, the third choice was to build connections while getting results. Therefore, they embraced compassionate accountability. The other critical element to doing this work involved holding up a mirror to their own choices and actions, and taking full responsibility for them.
For what many people do not recognizes is that in the end if they seek to become a better leader, there must be a convergence between head and heart. The two, logic and feelings, must come together and stay together. This is challenging, but it is a struggle worth engaging with over time. The other element that many people do not recognize is that the best leaders choose to be part of their community at work and at home, and they let the community be a part of them. This integration, in combination with the aforementioned convergence, is the true pathway to becoming a better leader, and becoming someone who helps others become betters leader, too.
© Geery Howe 2024
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