How visionary leaders focus on plan A

How visionary leaders focus on Plan A.

What inspired me last week was learning a different relationship with fear.

As an executive and leadership coach certified in the Leadership Circle Profile, I have a lifelong curiosity about how people tick and the process of human behaviour change.

There are seasonal transitions like January which invite deep reflection and personal development. This might be prompted in a variety of ways, through corporate annual personal development plans, new year’s resolutions or even the ushering in of the New Lunar Year. Times where I believe clients are particularly invested in understanding how they operate and what is hindering them from achieving their leadership goals and aspirations.

This article focuses on my personal learnings following a masterful session by the Leadership Circle called The Vertical Leap - How working with your Inner Parts unlocks the shift from reactive to creative leadership*. The article is aimed at those executive clients who struggle with change because they dislike feeling powerless or vulnerable. My hope is that it will pique your curiosity and motivate you to take a fresh approach to visionary leadership.

How your fear keeps you glued to Plan B

I’m an expat and entrepreneur who experiences emotional highs and lows. When I am low, I operate in a reactive manner to problems. I’m vigilant to ‘threats’. In these circumstances, I’m acutely aware of a ‘part’ of me that is protecting my vulnerability. Protecting my soft vulnerable self.

This ‘protector’ focuses on contingencies. It plans scenarios and focuses energy on a complex back-up plan, ‘plan B’. This part of me is activated when I am vulnerable. It guides decision-making based on fear. It finds hard evidence and ‘rationally’ reasons with me on how things could potentially go wrong, rather than what could go right.

It keeps me on the ‘straight and narrow’ and nice and safe. I have taken counsel from it regularly. However, this part of me is also the gatekeeper to the more complex parts. Let me explain.

Cultivate the part of self that dislikes vulnerability - and create a relationship with it.

Let’s call this part of me ‘Knuckles’

Knuckles is tough. He is strong. He is built like a tank. He is cautious. He judges. He thinks the worst of everyone. He believes they’re all out to get him. He is righteous. He especially detests being vulnerable.

Fear-based decision making and a self-protective backup plan is what he is all about.

He is fearsome. He has a strategy to stay safe in the world. After all, he has had all kinds of horrible experiences in the past and doesn’t want to repeat them ever again. (Or so he tells me as we have a cup of coffee as I interview him).

However locked up in this protection is unmet leadership potential. An opportunity to lead without autocracy but with creativity. A purpose-driven pathway to a new way of being and doing that is aligned with action.

The way to access this is through forging a proactive relationship with Knuckles.

Once he is calm, he is released from autopilot. He listens and can be reasoned with. His role changes from the default boss to creating space for an inspiring inner leader within me to step up. This is the breakthrough point for creative leadership. It is where the protector gives way for new learning and change to occur.

For many executives the experience itself can feel like an identity loss, yet if they can stick with the process, it is a breakthrough point.

A practical tool to create the whole you.

The theory of integrating LCP with inner team dialogue (ITD) can sound difficult for the rational mind to grasp.

However when leaders start becoming aware of their underlying pattern of protection they also become aware of what it has cost them to stay the same.

They can become aware of how they have been operating on a very narrow ridge, which they are comfortable with.

When integrated, they can see what is possible.

For me, when Knuckles loses his grip, my attention can focus on Plan A. It takes regular and consistent practice.

Ready to take a risk and develop a relationship with vulnerability?

Do you have a character like Knuckles who is fixated on plan B? Do you need to bring out your creative leader? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then let's talk as I am here to coach you out of fear and into more passion. Don’t let fear hold you back from meeting with your true potential.

*If you are an ICF certified coach interested in learning more about how to integrate LCP and Inner Team Dialogue into your practice contact Paul Wyman.