Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre

Passing a learner driver the other night, I reflected on the first thing we learn when we start driving – mirror, signal, manoeuvre. It’s the way we successfully make it from A to B. What if we applied these principles to the way we drive our leadership?

When we drive a car we are hopefully looking forward at the road ahead, driving towards our desired destination. We use our mirrors to scan our environment and know what’s going on around us. We make an extra effort by checking our blind spot and then, if we are going to do something other drivers might not be expecting, something outside of the norm, we let them know by flicking our indicators on. Finally we make our move.

However when developing ourselves, we tend not to signal our intent. There’s a real temptation to keep development areas to ourselves, to not let others know what we are up to. So often when I’m coaching leaders I hear, “I’m trying to change but people are just suspicious of how I’m behaving now – I’m coming over as disingenuous, strange, clumsy”, and, “How am I ever going to stick with my desire to change and develop if I get that reaction!”

Martin was working on practising his listening skills, in particular generous listening. He didn’t tell his team that this is what he was working on, and sat through a meeting listening quietly. The team, who were used to him expressing his views with gusto, experienced him as disengaged and uninterested rather than listening to them generously. As you can imagine, Martin felt dispirited by the feedback from his team, and only then told them what he was practising, engaged them in what he was working on, and asked them for their support – which they were more than glad to give him.

Leadership nudge: How much time and energy are others using up in guessing what you are up to and going down blind alleys and, or bumping up against you – and you into them? How could you signal your intent more clearly, and engage others in what you are working on and encourage others to do the same around you?

By Alison Atkins

With a background of HR Partnering roles, Alison currently specialises in Leadership Development at Boots. To contact Alison directly, email alison.atkins1@ntlworld.com