At the edge of what we do best, we aren’t so sure of ourselves. Our confidence may falter. This is the place where we redefine the limits of our competency and expand our knowledge and capabilities. Beyond the safe confines of our mastery, leadership is honed to its next level—this is our “developmental edge.” Finding an edge ignites learning. Our developmental edges are the growing ground for our leadership strength, agility, and fresh thinking. And if we are lucky, we get to explore this new territory again and again—on an ever-widening playing field—throughout our careers.
When you get out on the edge of your abilities, you are engaged; figuring it out, generating ideas, and deliberately developing what you need to succeed. Conscious professionals focus on this deliberate growth path to build the skillsets and mind-sets that move them closer to their goals. The case of Diane Smith, a composite story of multiple professionals, illustrates how leveraging a developmental edge for learning benefits both the individual and the organization.
Diane was promoted to team leader of her division at a growing solar energy company last year. Previously her performance reviews were stellar, but this year Diane received criticism, and it felt personal. A few younger colleagues were advancing faster than she was—many of whom she had trained. Diane had given her heart and soul to her job, and that no longer seemed appreciated. She was stagnating and feeling resentful. It was time to get out on the edge.
Diane explained that she had been short with some junior employees. She’d found herself having to do work for them because they were not reliable or experienced. This only increased the pressure she was under. The last time she took a vacation, an entire project fell apart while she was away. She felt trapped and couldn’t figure out what else to do—except to stay focused on keeping the projects on track and working long hours.
“How do I fix this?,” she asked.
Her manager had requested she do a better job communicating with her team, improve her work/life balance, and work on her “glass-half-empty” mood.
The Awareness–Willingness– Skill Cycle
Diane was at the start of a typical growth cycle. The process of growing in our roles, regardless of profession or level, has similar basic characteristics. Knowing this structure allows us to have greater control of the pace and type of development that takes place for us. It’s like having a map that helps you learn your way forward. The cycle goes like this.
Building Awareness
Awareness is the first key to growth. It’s the point at which you discover something to change, such as a way of thinking that is holding you back, or the need for a new approach. Awareness separates the “conscious” professional, who intentionally leads from their values, from one who is reactionary, or adrift in the changing dynamics of organizational life. Awareness illuminates the specific issues and focuses our control to choose a path forward.
Awareness can, at times, be painful because it forces us to see how we are hampering ourselves. It can trigger our defenses. New levels of awareness are often sparked by a problem or challenge like the one Diane faced. While it can be enlightening to reach a new level of awareness of our shortcomings, it can also be humbling, upsetting, or disappointing. However, embracing new awareness gives us control because it reveals the shift we need in order to achieve new outcomes—a shift we can initiate. One small shift can make a profound difference in how we develop into the leader we want to become. Confronting the ways we are not yet living into our best selves expands our perspective. With an increase in awareness, we can see where we are not walking the talk, or living our values.
-
The Conscious Professional: Transform Your Life at Work. This book guides individuals to use their work challenges as the case study for their personal and professional growth.
Until Diane was confronted by the critical comments in her review, she had no idea anything was wrong. She knew she’d been a bit short with her direct reports in a few instances, but other than that, no one was giving her negative feedback. In fact, many colleagues commiserated with her about the challenges. Few recognized (and none had the courage to say) that she was playing a role in exacerbating the situation.
By pausing to consciously reflect, Diane was able to follow her frustration to its source. A simple reflection practice is one of the best ways to open doors to growth. Only then could she see that her attitude—and some of her doer mentality—was getting in the way of her being a leader and inspiration to her team. But next came the pivotal question, “Would she be willing to change?”
Cultivating Willingness
Willingness puts our awareness into action. It may take the exciting or painful realizations that awareness brings, and transform them into a positive force. If others are to blame, what is ours to do? Not much. A blaming mind-set tends to make people feel helpless. Instead, we can figure out a way to move forward; a way that puts us in charge of our own development.
When we are willing, we can choose to change ourselves. With new responses and new approaches, we can shift the circumstances around us for the better. But not all who are aware are willing.
Some people want to stay within the domain of their perceived expertise at all times. They continue to see the world through the lenses that they are familiar with—the ones that justify their actions. Fear and resistance can keep even a masterful player from expanding their impact.
When Diane was shown the cost of sticking to her old behaviors in her new position, such as having little time to do the big-picture work of a leader, lowering her chance of promotion and doing other people’s work for them instead of doing her own, she closed the willingness gap very quickly. It took courage to admit her current competencies weren’t enough to pave her way forward and curiosity to explore alternatives before she was willing to grow in place.
She began to see the skills she needed to develop, and how to calm herself in frustrating circumstances in order to respond professionally, rather than emotionally. Now that she was willing, there was a lot to be gained. She made clear plans for how she would lead at a higher level and work on the areas she needed to develop. Changes like this take willingness over a period of time to sustain the commitment through the process of development.
What you are willing and not willing to do reveals your values. We choose with our willingness to invest in some areas of growth and not in others. This direction, which comes from our self-awareness, and can be supported by effective management and team leadership to help us decide where to invest our time and effort learning—and where not to.
Developing Skills
Developing new capabilities is a strategic response to a challenge. It is one thing to solve a problem; it is another to change your behavior, perceptions, or the environment so that the same problem is never a challenge again.
For Diane, learning to delegate, train, and let go was an uncomfortable process. She felt, at times, like she was dangling at her developmental edge by a finger hold. She realized that the only way she was going to grow was to temporarily step away from the center of her circle of mastery. She was going to have to try some things she hadn’t done before and would probably make some mistakes—but that would also mean she was moving toward what she really wanted, rather than stagnating where she was.
When we are in development, our capacity expands. We grow in conscious awareness, presence, and capability. At first, what seems like the very edge of our abilities soon becomes a challenging stretch, and then something we can do without much trouble, and eventually, a natural habit. Our playing field expands as a direct result of deliberate development.
The changes Diane made gave her work, and her life, new meaning. Now, instead of avoiding areas of discomfort, she began to look for problem points she could leverage into new growth. At home, she began to use the same developmental mind-set, improving communication with her family. The awareness–willingness–skill (A–W–S) cycle changed the game for Diane because she purposefully sought out her developmental edge and grew herself from there.
A Conscious Professional
At its core, conscious professionalism is about becoming ever more self-aware and aligned with our highest ethical values as we do our work. Each day offers opportunities to grow ourselves and our teams from the challenges and missteps we make to the triumphs and achievements we create.
Conscious capitalism upholds the principle that businesses should exist for reasons beyond making a profit. Conscious companies focus on a higher purpose, care for an ecosystem of stakeholders, lead ethically, and create a culture that embodies the organization’s purpose.
Conscious professionalism is a personal choice about living one’s values at work, so that our career becomes a force for good, whether or not our organization is a conscious business at this moment. Conscious professionalism results in increased awareness, personal and professional development, and positive impact emanating from right where we are.
Leading organizations in a conscious way is new territory, requiring both personal and professional development of new and seasoned leaders on the journey. Professionals choosing to deliberately develop new skillsets and mind-sets are growing the capabilities needed to lead conscious businesses.
Work itself becomes a case study for growing in place as we achieve higher levels of performance and satisfaction.
Transforming work into a personal platform for one’s development and contribution appeals to emerging leaders. An impressive majority of millennials already think about jobs as opportunities to learn, grow, and do work that matters. However, there is a significant gap between employees’ desire for meaningful development opportunities and the reality of their experience with corporate learning.
This gap opens the door for engaging learners as partners in the success of the organization through their individual and collective development.www.jessicahartung.com/book Such shared ownership of the dual mission of business success and deliberate development is crucial to engagement and retention.
Giving responsibility and control to others, with support, creates a learning ground for all involved. This seems like it should be easy, but it takes courage.
Developing leaders who report to you is an artful blend of letting go of the parts you once held tightly and grabbing on to the role of providing what others need to succeed—not what you needed, or what you want them to need.
The Developmental Workplace
Ultimately, successful organizations require a workforce able to handle complexity and ambiguity, with the capacity to take on increasing levels of responsibility and challenge. Yet, hard times can shrink rather than grow one’s capacity, depending how the situation is interpreted and acted upon, as well as the degree of support available. Personal development helps us to better navigate the inner game of work, increasing the likelihood we will be engaged in transformative professional development.
Our capacity to turn difficult situations into deep learning is the alchemy of development our workplaces can foster. It takes perspective to look at our beliefs as something that can be examined, selected, and adjusted over time. Who we are is much bigger than what we’ve known or believed in the past. How we make meaning in the world should evolve as we are able to understand the events of our lives differently through our growth. Such transformation makes knowledge practical and enables us to be more effective in an often volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world.
Authoring our professional lives in a conscious way is a gift. It means we can use workplace experiences as a catalyst for defining and redefining who we are and what we are capable of. Learning is the ultimate competency—the gift that renews its power with each developmental cycle.
So what can you do to help your team members grow and develop, while you are doing the same?
Helping individuals stretch toward their developmental edge in the workplace has many dimensions, such as creating an environment of psychological safety, transparency, trust, and risk/failure tolerance. However, any effective strategy to grow the capacity of team members will enact an A–W–S cycle. The A–W–S cycle is a simple and effective tool for helping ourselves and team members discover and expand their developmental edge.
Grow In Place
Within the system of organizational life, we are all connected. We can see that being a sponsor of our own and others’ development is mutually reinforcing. Getting good at supporting and challenging others’ growth is, in fact, supportive and challenging to our own. Modeling growth at the edge is an act of authentic leadership that has as much value as an example to others as it is beneficial to our own development. Being purposefully willing to get out to the edge, talking about what you find there and how you grew from it is a hallmark of conscious leadership.
Moving from the stimulus of what we don’t want, to focus on our developmental edges, turns roadblocks into pathways for new skills to grow. Setbacks become new footholds from which to push forward, increasing one’s influence, impact, and fulfillment.
Development at the edge is how we can expand a playing field of contribution. This is the legacy of conscious professionals—personal and professional growth as tools of transformation that make the world better.
