Anthony Landale

I was reflecting on a walk that I went on this time last year in the Yorkshire Dales. It was a glorious Spring day and I was feeling very peaceful. And then this young, inconsiderate lad on a very loud motorbike drove by, careless of the disturbance he was making and intent, it seemed to me, only on getting his teenage kicks from bombing up and down the green hills.

I was triggered! I immediately found myself getting cross that my walk was being spoiled and I was making judgements about ‘irresponsible kids’. I also found that I was quite unable to speak to my wife, so loud were the voices in my head!

Then it dawned on me that it really was quite strange that a youth would be driving up and down the hills when there were sheep and lambs around and I was just about to add this to my internal litany of complaints when I stopped and looked again. Could it be that this biker wasn’t the inconsiderate thrill-seeker I’d immediately taken him for? And there it was. The lens through which all my judgments were being focused suddenly shifted. He was indeed a young farmer on his bike looking for newly-born lambs. And as my context changed, so the loud noise of the bike completely disappeared as if it had never been there and I was back in relationship with the world!

The message for leadership is clear. What’s the context you hold about your culture, your team, your customers or the people around you? And with a different and more powerful lens could you let go of unhelpful beliefs and invite new possibility and relationship into your world?

By Anthony Landale

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