Effortless leadership is an oxymoron?

I‘ve always had a fondness for a fine oxymoron that grabs you and shouts “hey, there might be a contradiction here.” So when I ran across a comment on a blog pointing out (with a wink) that effortless leadership was oxymoronic, I just simply couldn’t resist responding in some way. And so, my first blog dedicated to upholding the honor of effortless leadership was born….

Effortless leadership may imply that leadership somehow doesn’t require hard work, but we all know that’s not quite true. Leaders work hard, but, for some, everything they do just seems so effortless. That’s because effortless leadership is actually, when you get right down to it, an effortless state of being that informs everything that leader does.

So, why do we marvel at the effortlessness of these leaders?

We marvel at leaders who

• See and know exactly what to go do before others do
• Fully understand the impact of their actions and make wise decisions
• Understand the perspectives of others and have the ability to empathize with them
• Think about what’s good and right, not for just them as individuals or their team, but for the whole organization, and
• Do all of this with clear and focused intention.

And, what’s more, these leaders and their organizations are immensely successful.

While these kinds of leaders may be rare, we know they exist (usually because we’ve read about them), and we may even have run across them in our careers (lucky us if we have). And, if we’re really honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we want to be like them…. The fundamental question for us then is:

“How do we, as leaders, reach that state of effortlessness?”

We can learn a lot from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, which has studied the brains of leaders (and other mere mortals), and how they use pattern recognition, intuition and even rapid simulation in making decisions. Dr. Gary Klein’s research studies and books on how leaders decide in high stakes situations are seminal. A more mainstream look at how we make decisions is Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, which demystifies, and makes accessible, intuition’s role in decision making.

While neither Klein nor Gladwell call the developed ability to make critical decisions, effortless, it’s definitely implied. What they have both figured out is more than just how we make decisions in the blink of an eye; they have uncovered much of what lies at the root of effortless leadership.

Of course, there’s more to effortless leadership than the ability to make decisions. Based on this research and our work at Innate Strategies with leaders, we’ve found six critical capacities of effortless leaders. In upcoming blogs, I’ll explore each of these capacities in more detail (so stay tuned).

Six Effortless Leadership Capacities

1. Effortless leaders are clear about what they intend to create or cause or achieve in their organizations, and have a deep understanding of how they need to be, what they need to do, and what they already have in order to get there effortlessly.
2. To hold their intention and build the path toward their goal, effortless leaders see and understand how things are interconnected. Being able to see patterns, relationships and connections requires seeing differently than most of us normally do. Luckily for us, we can learn how to see this way, which means looking for and becoming conscious of patterns that effortless leaders see.
3. Being curious about all the pieces of the whole, and not just what they can see, requires these leaders to understand others’ perspectives on those pieces (and on the whole). And once they understand the intentions and motivations of others they come  to see through their eyes and empathize with them.
4. Effortless leaders also build an integrated model in their head of how everything works and how everything is related. That ability often comes with experience, but, even with experience, some leaders still don’t see how everything relates in their world. And many certainly don’t understand causality or we wouldn’t be in the state of affairs we’re in now. When these leaders know what the whole looks like, and they understand what actually causes what, they become acutely aware of how their actions (and the actions of others) affect other parts of the whole.
5. When effortless leaders see and know the impact of these actions, and when they balance reason with their intuition, they quite naturally find themselves at choice about the right course of action. Of course, because we have free will, they can always decide to not do the right thing, but they have to break the flow and consciously make that decision (and live with the consequences, as do others). More often than not, these leaders feel compelled to make the right decision because doing anything other than that creates such internal discord, they literally feel out of integrity.
6. And when every action a leader takes is informed by their intention and by what they know is true and right and good for the whole of the organization, that is effortless leadership.

When every action you take is informed by your intention and by what you know is true and right and good for the whole, that is effortless leadership.

Effortless leadership isn’t an oxymoron; it’s a natural state of being we can all access. What’s natural about it is its innate sense of the whole, which isn’t genetic; it’s something leaders have learned through experience, which means we can learn it too.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• Do you lead effortlessly or do you find leading to be a struggle?
• Do you live into some (or all) of the six qualities of an effortless leader? Do you know other leaders who do?
• Are you clear about your intention (what you want to create or achieve) and does it match your actions?
• When you make decisions for your organization do you feel in integrity, or do you feel a sense of unease and discord?

What does effortless leadership look, feel and sound like to you? What becomes possible for you and for your organization when leadership is effortless?  Can we learn (and be taught) to be effortless leaders? I’d love to hear from you about your experience as an effortless leader or one who aspires to effortlessness.

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~ by Nicole Gnutzman on November 9, 2009.