Episode 78: The New leadership Playbook - Andrew Bryant

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Show Notes

Andrew Bryant is British by birth and Australian by passport. He moved to Australia when he was 25 in 1985. He left Australia in 2003 and worked in Asia, using Singapore as a base. He developed his own company, Self Leadership International, working in Asia and then expanding into Silicon Valley in the US. He has also worked as an author, a speaker, a coach and a C-suite advisor.

He is the author of 4 books. The latest is the "New Leadership Playbook – Being Human while successfully delivering results".

As a young student, Andrew was keen on science and medicine. He studied physiotherapy and loved it. He discovered his passion was not working with sick people but with sports people, helping them prepare for peak performance. This was before sports psychology was developed. The crux was how to make human beings the best version of themselves.

 He has worked with sports teams and individual sportspeople. Following his success in this area, he moved into management coaching and development. He focused on diagnosing patterns and systems and prescribing some solutions. 

You cannot lead others unless you first lead yourself.

There is a direct correlation between the level of self-awareness and awareness of others. 

Look in the mirror. If you are not getting results from your people, stop blaming them and look at yourself.

Clear Expectations x Mindset and Motivations x Right Behaviors = Results

Communication is critical. It is about a shared understanding of meaning and outcomes. Do your people understand your intent? Everyone understands what they understand. However, they don't necessarily understand what you want them to understand.

Buy-in and ownership speak to self-leadership. We feel more motivated when we have some self-leadership. In the pandemic, many people got much more autonomy around the work day. The great resignation directly results from giving freedom and trying to take it away once the pandemic is over.

Digitisation was accelerated when working from home became so popular. However, Leaders are not engaging on collaborative platforms. Engaging with your people keeps people in the organisation and increases productivity. Organisations need to be agile and not go back to the old way of working.

Basic conversations are an essential part of the leadership role. Playbooks around feedback, career and crucial and challenging conversations in a human manner are not natural skills.

Some of the old boundaries have come down for employees working in the hybrid work environment and wanting to advance their careers. Now, most people are one zoom call away. Intelligent companies are having reverse mentoring. Learn the norms of communication and be respectful. Most organisations have social platforms. Use them and contribute. Ask for mentoring. Senior leaders love to be mentors.

Advice for young professionals – travel and get a broad range of experience as a base.

In Summary:

·       You can't lead others unless you can lead yourself.

·       Self-awareness before other awareness

·       Clear Expectations x Mindset and Motivations x Right Behaviors = Results

·       If you give people autonomy, you cannot take it back.

·       Find ways to give people autonomy and engage with your people.

·       Communication is shared understandings

·       Create the environment so that leaders can have hard conversations in a human-centric manner.