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September 2016
| Issue #5

Practicing Facilitative Leadership

By Michelle McCormack

Facilitative leadership is a mindset, a skill set and an approach for leaders in today’s organisations to ensure success now and to build a sustainable future.

We operate in a fast paced, global economy, digitally enabled so everything and everyone can be interconnected. In what is often called a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment, no one leader or leadership team has all the information or ideas, or can predict what big changes are about to emerge. Innovation and disruption occur frequently to service models, supply chains, cultures, product development and across entire industries and sectors.

Gone are the days when a CEO and Senior Leadership Team could set the vision, write the strategic plan and then roll it out for the rest of the organisation to implement and operationalise.

Leaders today need to set the vision, and then engage with people using inclusive practices to facilitate conversations to enable information, perspectives and ideas to be shared and worked on. 

Leaders need to work with people, bringing multiple stakeholder perspectives together, to co-create and build the way forward while dealing with ambiguity and diversity, and all the while learning as they navigate the unfolding landscape.

Start with your mindset

Facilitative leadership starts with the mindset; moving away from a traditional belief or model where the leader holds the knowledge and the power, makes the decisions and forms the plans, solves the problems and charts a clear pathway to success. 

Instead, a Facilitative Leader cultivates a mindset that they are the architects and facilitators of the conversations that matter, connecting people and ideas and engaging and enabling people, to unlock potential and possibilities. It’s about facilitating and connecting people, networks and systems to perform and achieve.

A mindset of mutual learning rather than unilateral control (Reference: Roger Schwarz) where people are encouraged to experiment, fail fast, reflect, learn and adapt, operating with agility and creating a culture of trust and connection, building a learning organisation.

Build conversational intelligence

A Facilitative Leader actively builds skill and capability to operate this way, extending their emotional intelligence into conversational intelligence (CI-Q), enabling people to participate, share, connect, navigate and learn, working effectively today and co-creating their future.

What is conversational intelligence?

Conversational Intelligence is the hardwired, and learnable ability, to connect, navigate and grow with others through our conversations – a necessity in building healthy, performing and resilient organisations, operating effectively in a VUCA world. (Reference: Judith Glaser)

When we pause and think about how much of our work happens with or through conversations, we can see why conversational intelligence is so important.

Using the latest insights from neuroscience we can learn what kinds of conversations and interactions trigger the lower, more primitive parts of the brain which cause us to fight, flight, freeze or appease; and what kinds of conversations and interactions activate the higher level functions, intelligence, expertise and wisdom, accessing trust, empathy, creativity and good judgement.  

Neuroscience insights show that protecting ourselves is hardwired in our brains.
See diagram 1: Conversational Dashboard.

In conversations where fear, isolation, disconnection, uncertainty and conflict occur, the chemistry of our brain changes, the amygdala is activated and we release neurochemicals such as cortisol. This changes how we feel, how we behave and how others perceive us.  We can become locked down, stuck or entrenched in our point of view and may even operate in the ‘tell/sell/yell’ mode.

Neuroscience reveals the antidote to this mode is to connect and build trust, to create interactions and hold conversations that enable people to feel safe and to get on the same page or “in sync” with others.  When we are comfortable with someone, our heartbeat becomes more coherent, sending signals to the brain, which releases neurochemicals like oxytocin and dopamine, enabling us to relax, open up, and share with other people in an authentic way.

We can learn to use tools, frameworks and rituals to create safe inclusive interactions that connect people and enable conversations that build trust, activating our own and others higher level functions. We can learn to see differently, to listen differently and to process what we perceive differently.

When leaders do this, they act in ways that facilitate and create energy and focus on productive interactions that build strong trusting relationships and achieve results.

Developing facilitative leadership in organizations

Since 2014 we have worked in partnership to build the skills and capability of the Fiji Revenue & Customs Authority (FRCA); developing facilitative leaders, equipping people with practical resources to address day-to-day leadership opportunities, issues and challenges and to transform their organization to world class.

This programme is sponsored by the New Zealand government in a bilateral partnership arrangement between Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFAT) and NZ Customs Service (NZCS).  We work in partnership with NZCS to facilitate and deliver this programme of work.

At the core of the approach is a 9 month, multi-session, leadership development programme. People attend workshops and are coached and mentored to:

  • Discover the reality and requirements of their leadership context (global and local)
  • Reflect on their practices and make plans for developing into 21st century facilitative leaders
  • Practice with tools and frameworks to achieve with and through people; connecting through conversations
  • Transfer these tools and frameworks into their workplace with projects and action plans supporting the organisations strategy, and building confidence and competence.
  • Participants connect with each other in learning pods, or with mentors from the wider network of facilitative leaders

The programme is supported by facilitated workshops and meetings with the Executive Management Group to work on their strategy, to address organizational and operational opportunities and challenges, and to build capability to operate effectively as a team. Each of these facilitated workshops links back to and uses the tools from the leadership development programme.

Underpinning this approach and all of its components, we coach and support the leaders to apply the tools with their teams and colleagues; building daily and weekly practices and habits that transform the organization, one conversation at a time.

Building your own facilitative practice

Facilitative leadership, a mindset, a skill set and an approach for leaders in today’s organisations to ensure success now and to build a sustainable future – so what kind of leadership are you practicing?

To build your own facilitative practice we recommend you start with reflecting on the conversations you have.  See diagram 2: Learning cycle (Reference: David Kolb)

What do you notice about your conversations?  How do you connect with the people you are talking with?  What deliberate actions could you take to increase connection?

Take a moment to explore other perspectives and increase your understanding of how others see the situation. See diagram 3: Perceptual positions (adapted from Robert Dilts)

Moving through each position can help us to the view the world, the organization, the opportunity, problem or position from different perspectives. 

With a greater understanding of wider perspectives, we can create shifts in our thinking, our conversations and our connection – unlocking creativity and innovation to take action.

Facilitative leadership; a mindset, a skill set and an approach that today’s leaders can develop and cultivate to ensure success now while building a sustainable future.