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Show your workings

As an experienced leader, it’s easy to forget how you’ve built your tools of the trade – how they’ve evolved over time through the wins, mistakes, experiences and lessons you’ve had (both intentionally and not).

You fall into the trap of unconscious competence; you don’t know what you know and how you deal with certain situations or make decisions, you just do it.

Much like those times when you drive home and then wonder how you got there.

Before training as a chartered accountant, I worked in subterranean construction sites as a civil engineer. Subsequent to this professional J-turn, I’ve joined fifteen leadership teams to help plan and execute a turnaround… the attraction to jumping into big holes to build things has never faded. 

I instinctively reach for and use my engineer’s toolkit every day, especially when a changing situation demands rapid decisions and effective action to achieve the intended outcomes.

These automatic skills and behaviours are great for you, but can be off-putting, confronting or discombobulating to those around you as they wonder ‘how do they do it?’ 

This is why it’s important to channel your inner year 9 mathematics teacher and...  

"... show your workings ! "

… explain how you’ve come to decisions; how you balance risks, why you challenge one thing but not another, what warning signs you look for, where you seek support and when you know that you have enough information.

Pippa Wicks is one of the fantastic mentors whose fingerprints can be seen if you closely observe me on the tools. I’ll never forget the time she took me aside to say...

“... fantastic, I think that could work.  The rest of the team are still trying to get their heads around the problem. You’ve left them all behind, we can’t do it without them, so let’s go back to basecamp and turn your idea into a solution... ”

For the next generation of leaders, we all hold the mysteries of leadership.  Without showing our workings, we are making it harder for them to develop and be able to make their own conscious decisions.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author. This article provides general information, does not constitute advice and should not be relied upon as such. Professional advice should be sought prior to any action being taken in reliance on any of the information.