Tripping over Leadership
How to denominalise Leadership
By Joseph w Scott – Managing Partner at The Coaching Room
There is a huge opportunity for success and for us to contribute back into society and business through developing our awareness of nominalisations.
Coaching
Executive Coaching
Coach Training
Coaching Certification
Nominalisations are a class of pseudo-nouns (a verb, process or an action, changed into a noun), and act as if they are an object or a ‘thing’. For example, `relationship’. In reality, relationship is not something that you can hold, touch or see, or a thing you have. Instead we relate with others as a process.
There are many nominalisations in the English language that can (and do) trip us up! I refer to not knowing of the effects of nominalisations on our society, success and in ourselves as a `blind spot’. Blind spots are the parts of our ‘maps of the world”.
I’d like to share my own example of this. After Several years of executive coaching I realised to grow I needed to niche, to specialise and develop my reputation as an expert, something I and my clients could understand clearly, and something my clients have a clear need for.
It has only taken me just about three years to hear this piece of information first given to me on the second day of my Meta-Coach training in July 2004. Talk about my own blind spots, one of several that I am regularly discovering and changing my life with.
I decided to niche within Leadership Coaching. After all, business people know they need leaders, and I guessed they must know what leadership is! I have since merged my small business with another in Sydney, Australia – The Coaching Room and we have streamlined our coaching delivery to coaching `leaders’ working in an overt leadership capacity in a corporate environment.
This strategy has been working well, and we have been fortunate to work with many oprganisations including a dozen or so CEOs here in Australia and in New York.
What I have reflected on and which inspired me writing this article today is that even at the lofty top of CEOship, people have blind spots and are still falling over the trip-wire of nominalisations. This time it is the term leadership.
To share some insight, I have gained permission from three of the leaders I am currently coaching, to share their `first’ definitions of leadership. Two of these CEOs’ are in Australia and one in the USA. To set the scene, these conversational extracts are from our first session meetings. All three of these leaders are leading over five thousand employees.
Client One – Bob
JS (Joseph Scott): So, Bob thanks for giving me such an in-depth outline of the organisation and the people you lead. So I can identify a benchmark of where we are, would you mind sharing your definition or understanding of ‘leadership’?
Bob: Sure Joseph, leadership is being the light at the top of the hill, not the lantern… the light…
JS: Okay, thanks, how does someone know when you are applying your leadership skills Bob?
Bob: The lantern’s bright Joseph, very bright…
Client Two – Bob2
JS: Bob, so as I can identify a benchmark of where we are in the leadership coaching process, would you mind sharing your definition or understanding of leadership?
Bob: …(long pause) of course not, Joseph, do you know how your nails grow?
JS: Not consciously Bob, no!
Bob: That is how leadership is, if you are born with it, you just have it, if you are not, you don’t, and it’s that simple! Believe me I know!
Client Three – Bob3
JS: Bob, just so I can get a grip on your being and doing of leadership, would you mind sharing with me your definition of leadership?
Bob: Leadership does not exist…
JS: Great!
Bob: Leadership is simply management with more POWER!
JS: Oh… let’s start then shall we?
Talk about tripping over nominalisations! People have fallen so hard from what they held in their believing; that leadership was immeasurable, a thing, that they could happily give their questionable definitions to, and that would be more than enough.
During the continuing leadership coaching, we explored what leading could also be. This was the catalyst for their ‘getting back up’ as they were starting to see through the nominalisations of leadership. They started to see that as a process, their leadership was visible to their staff/stakeholders!
Now they were breaking through their blind spot.
From the perspective of any given ability, there are governing principles and contextual rules that enable us to develop competency and mastery (in a given area). Can you imagine trying to effectively lead thousands or even just five people by using a nominalisation as a guide or a frame of reference?
When people come to us for leadership coaching, they know that they are curious about leadership and leadership coaching, but are often unsure why! In reality, what they want is to get asked the questions and receive the feedback that they do not get from within their organisation.
To actualise their fullest potentials, and at some level, they know that their own staff are feeding them many nominalisations, and they want even need to be able to effectively challenge these.
Blind spots are blind spots, we cannot know what we do not know (and do not see) ourselves, this is one of the most valuable contributions coaching can provide in coaching leaders; the opportunity to develop greater awareness. Of course, there are many perspectives on what leadership is. Some of the more useful distinctions floating about name it in single phrases, such as “leadership is relationship” or “leadership is about vision”.
Although these may be useful, it is our experience, that leaders and future leaders benefit from realising that leadership doesn’t exist as a thing.
Leadership is many processes that can be witnessed and measured. This is not unlike the early scientists who were bamboozled by the opinion that `heat’ was a thing. It only took them 200 years to realise that heat is a process of a thermodynamic phenomenon.
Let’s not wait that long this time to see through such potentially inhibiting nominalisations as leadership, relationship, communication etc.
In aid of this I have set out below some components for benchmarking the process of leading.
The Four Wheels of Leading (Leadership)
- Leadership is RELATING, the process of relating to others. What are the processes of relating? How do you relate in mutually worthwhile ways? Where in your life could you benefit from realising the nominalisation of relationship?
- Leadership is INFLUENCING, the process of evoking hearts and inspiring minds of others to follow you. What are the processes of influencing? What form of influencing are you most comfortable with? Is there more than one type of influence? How would trying alternative types of influence help you succeed as a leader?
- Leadership is DEVELOPING OTHERS, increasing the extent of your influence. How do you develop others? Are you developing others? In general most people perform from a `what’s in it for me’ frame of mind. If you want to develop leadership, you need to develop followers. Do you care enough to want to develop others?
- Leadership is FOLLOWING, shown in being able to follow those whom you have empowered to lead. Following others takes a strong sense of self-identity, to follow others that are now the leaders and experts in a role. Following is serving the `whole’. Who are you following? Are you ready to serve?
Leading is several processes, verbs like a loop of a wheel going round, one supporting the other.
Finally, a Leader has to walk his or her talk. As we can now see, often overlooked, leaders must first get their talk right so as they can get their walk right.
Self-Reflection
We have started to grow and benefit from this awareness ourselves at The Coaching Room. Our questioning of simple nominalisations is in turn allowing us to realise many of my own blind spots. It also allows us to be in-service to others through coaching other people to find theirs.
What can you do to make a difference in your life, the life of another or to help society become more aware of the nominalisations that they are assuming as real?
What other nominalisations exist in the world of our language that trip us up?
To your denominalising success!
Coaching
Executive Coaching
Coach Training
Coaching Certification
