Professional Development: Leadership Communication for the Future of Work

1. Introduction: There's so many things to love about being a leader, the core thing that comes to mind is witnessing transformation. I know that I've succeeded at being a leader when other people around me have soared or grown in their own capacity too. I'm Holley M. Kholi Murchison, and today's class is all about leadership communication for the future of work. What I love about being a leader is being able to witness the transformation that happens in myself and people around me. What I do in the world boils down to three things, I help companies and people grow into the most outstanding versions of themselves, communicate and execute bold ideas, and thus shape more equitable futures through work. This class is all about leadership communication. We're going to cover three core lessons today. The first are some alternative leadership scenarios that you should be prepared for. Second, we're going to talk through skills for how you can smoothly transition through those leadership scenarios. Third, we're going to talk about how to cultivate an environment for leadership diversity at your company and on your teams. I hope anyone who really cares about the impact that their leadership has on the world around them takes this class. It doesn't matter if you're an intern, or a CMO, or a project manager, or an engineer, if you are someone who cares deeply about how your body of work is shaping and transforming the world, this was designed with you in mind. If you have any questions along the way, just drop them in the discussion section, I'll be in there frequently to guide you through. Also, in the resources section, you'll find a number of tools that go over some of the things we've discussed in the lessons. There is no one way to lead. In fact, how you lead is going to change time and time again across your career, as long as you have three key ingredients, heart, a willingness to tell the truth, and authenticity, you are primed to be a fantastic leader. You know everything you need to know. Let's get started. 2. An Alternate Outlook on Leadership: Before we dive in, to unpacking leadership scenarios or talking about soft skills that you need to transition between them, I really want to ground us in a shared definition of what leadership is, and that's what this lesson is all about. In normal context when we hear the word leader or talk about leadership, is usually tied to titles, like, are you in the C-suite? Or do you have senior or manager in your title? Those things are all fine. But what happens is when we let leadership just live by that definition, we eliminate people from the conversation. How I want us to view leadership through the lens of this class is the function where everyone gets to contribute to whatever the end result is that we're producing. It's the space for everyone to take pride and ownership in the input and output that they bring to the table every day at work. For so long, we've measured leadership success by the tangible things like how well we innovate or what new processes we create, or what things we ideate on and how they manifest. But we truly say that's home for leadership by focusing on the intangible, and that's effective communication. Because when we look at it, all the conflicts and the breakdowns that usually happen at work are rooted in communication inefficiencies. As we think about what leadership looks like within the context of the future of work, there has to be space and room and access for all people to be able to embody their best leadership styles so that companies can perform at their highest and best level, but more importantly so that people can grow and become who they seek to be in the world and create the bodies of work that they're here to make. I know we place a lot of value in technology when we think about the future of work, but when I think about the future of work I think about the future of humanity. So much of what we have invested in the future of work is dependent on the genius of people. If we're going to bring out the best in the genius of people, then we have to invest in people's learning and development. If we're going to invest in learning and development, then we have to invest in leadership, and that's why it's so important within companies for us to have a variety of leadership styles because this is a not one size fits all approach. Going back to the future of work, we're not just trying to make futures of work that make us billions and billions of dollars, we're shaping a future of work that creates more equitable futures for all. I think the question is more than just who can be leaders, it's like who needs to be leaders, and it's all of us. Literally, every single person watching this video right now has the capacity to lead, to guide something, to move things forward, to honor their voice, to share their ideas, to shape their gifts. Everyone can be, everyone should be, the future demands that we all are. I think leadership is a no days off type of job and I'm typically not a person that's like grinds all your bones or brittle and all that stuff but it's like breathing, it's like sleeping, it's like eating. I think leadership is one of those skills and those capacities that we have to be embodying all the time, whether someone is watching or not. Every moment calls on us to lead in some way. A new day is coming in the world of work, but we're not going to get there unless we all enhance our capacity to communicate well in that new future. I think it's super important for us to bring our best selves to work and be able to work effectively with other leaders because the work that we come to do every day doesn't just impact us. It's not like I'm punching into my nine-to-five and I'm doing what I got to do and that's it. When I think about work, the term itself, I think about work as this body of productive choices that I've made to liberate myself, my community, my peers and society at large and help us transcend into something brighter. Creates a domino effect that can trigger something in someone else, that can then trigger something in someone else, and that can really help to shape the world that we want to live and be in and thrive in collectively. What I hope that you take away from this as your end it is that you're not just working as a means to an end, you're working because you are able, brilliant, fantastic contributing citizen to society, and a body of work that you are contributing to every day whether you're an admin scheduling calls or whether you're an engineer who is building the thing behind the scenes, that all matters for the bigger picture. What's at stake is both past, present, and future. I have a really fantastic Reiki practitioner who once told me when you heal yourself, you heal the future and the past. I think of work the same way, like the choice that we make to show up in the work that we're showing up in every day paves the way for generations ahead of us, like what world are you giving them to inhabit, and it mends past ways of doing things that may have been destructive or harm people, or set us back a little bit. The work you're doing today can pave the road that may have been rocky for you to create some more ease for someone you are passing the baton to. Now that we've got a shared definition of leadership and understand the vital role communication plays in it, we're going to talk through some alternative leadership scenarios that you should be prepared for as you shape the future of work. 3. Alternative Leadership Scenarios: This lesson is all about unpacking some of the most easily accessible leadership scenarios that you can show up for at your best. These are some of the most overlooked moments at work where we can really shine as leaders and set the table for other people to shine as well. By no means is this an exhaustive list. But we're going to talk through what I believe to be five of the most recurring alternative leadership scenarios that you can navigate. We're going to approach each one in terms of what's at stake, who's involved, and what stands to be communicated. Ready? The first one is directionless meetings, and here's what I mean by this. We've all come to a room or a Zoom call or some video interface, where we're gathered for a call that has no agenda, that has no facilitator, that has no one leading the space for the room. Who's involved? Sometimes it can be anywhere from five people to ten people or more. What's at stake is having some direction to guide the course of the meeting so that no time is wasted. So that we can rally around a shared idea or common knowing, and we can move the needle forward on some work. What stands to be communicated and making sure we arrive at that is, what's the agenda here? What are we gathered here to do? On the surface, it may not seem like a leadership moment. But if you've been in a directionless meeting where someone took the wheel, you know that that was a moment of leadership. You probably thanked the heavens where you're like, yes, thank you Harley, for taking the lead and offering us a way forward in this meeting. Now it creates space for other people to show up and engage and participate in the ways that we need them to. That's alternative leadership scenario number 1, directionless meetings. Alternative leadership scenario number 2, presenting new ideas and complex information. I know we've all been there before, we've got a juicy idea that we want to convey, and if you can't do it confidently and compellingly, a lot gets lost along the way. Similarly with complex information, if you're working on a more technical team or you're working on a research team and you have to convey something simply so that perhaps your marketing team can do something with the information. That can be really challenging, and this is a fantastic opportunity to step up as a leader in the way that you communicate. Who's involved? It can vary, this can be on Zoom, this can be in person, this can be anywhere from a one-on-one conversation, to one on many conversations, so we know that's who was involved. What's at stake is, while when you're presenting a new idea, you're probably trying to gain traction on it so you can move it forward, so that you can advance some level of work that your team is doing. That buy-in can really help you advance, not just as a team, but perhaps personally in your career. On the other end, when you're presenting complex information, sometimes if you're sharing complex information and it doesn't compute. Then again, you don't get the buy-in that you need to sometimes move projects forward or you miss opportunities to connect with the audience you're trying to reach. In the case that you're on an engineering team, you're trying to communicate something complex, but the PR team doesn't get it and it gets lost along the way. We know that's what's at stake, which gives us a really robust opportunity to step up as leaders in our communication. Alternative leadership scenario number 3, ideation and brainstorm sessions. Who's involved? You can find yourself in a room with three to sometimes 15 people, whether on Zoom or in person in which there are whiteboards available. What's at stake? Figuring out the next idea to move the needle forward or figuring out the strategy that helps enhance what your team has been working on for months on end, this varies. What stands to be communicated? So many moving parts here. Who's who in the room? What their individual roles are in the room, what idea we're taking and moving forward from there, and who we need to share that idea with. Usually it can be any number of those three things and sometimes all three. Alternative leadership scenario number 4, giving and receiving constructive feedback. Now this one is applicable to all of us no matter what team or level you're on. Who's involved? Sometimes it can be one-on-one, sometimes it can be one on many, if you're in some of the previous scenarios we just talked through. What's at stake? There's so many different layers and nuance. What's at stake here? The first is the preservation of relationship. Because your willingness to give or be on the receiving end of feedback is so crucial to be able to maintain a healthy relationship with the person that you're working with. The 2nd thing that's at stake is your growth and improvement. Can you take the feedback? Can you apply it well? Can we see it happen in your work? Then the third is the person on the giving end of the feedback, is like your ability to communicate well and get results from your team and support them in that way. Now what stands to be communicated looks different across the board and we'll talk more about that in the next lesson. But at a high level, what stands to be communicated is, what's the feedback you're giving? Why are you giving this feedback? Where is their room for improvement and what's a way forward? Charting new pacts through the giving and receiving feedback. The 5th alternative leadership scenario, documentation and meetings. Now this one is a slipper as far as I'm concerned. Again, we'll go to who's involved? Can be one or many people. Sometimes we're brainstorming in sessions by ourselves. Sometimes we're meeting with 10 or more people, we need someone to be keeping track of what's being said. What's at stake? Well, have you ever left a meeting and be like, what are the deliverables? What am I supposed to do from this? What's such and such supposed to do? When is our next meeting time? What's at stake is, one, the efficient moving forward of ideas. Two is the deliberateness of communication, and am I going to have to repeat this in an e-mail? Am I going to have to take this over to Slack? It's something that my wife always says to me, one touch, can this meeting be one point of connection that we don't have to duplicate over and over again. What stands to be communicated? This one is a little different in terms of documentation because what stands to be communicated is, a log of what we've talked about in conversation that we can then archive to help us move forward smoothly in our next steps. This isn't an exhaustive list. But I want you to think about where you've seen yourself across these scenarios and jot a list down and add any additional ones that you see come up for you on a day-to-day basis at work where you can flex your leadership muscle the next time it comes around. Meet me in our next lesson and I'm going to talk you through the skills that you need to smoothly transition through these alternative leadership scenarios. 4. Skills for Smooth Transitions: This lesson is all about taking the alternative leadership scenarios that we talked about in the previous lesson and walking through different skills that you need to navigate them with ease. Let's take it from the top of our five alternative leadership scenarios and start with the first, directionless meetings. Now to smoothly transition through this one, there's a couple of things that you can do both logistically and in practice when you're in the meeting. On logistics side, if you are the person who set the meeting, this is the simplest thing you can do, add an agenda into the calendar invite or send an agenda around to folks, whether it's through email, Slack, or whatever communication tool you use on the team. This way it sets the tone and lets folks know, hey, we've come here to be really intentional about how we devote and nurture this time together and this is the end goal that we want to arrive at. If you don't send an agenda and you're the person on the receiving end of that cal invite and you haven't received one, you can set the tone at the very top of the meeting or you can send a note to the person who sent you the cal invite and him ask, hey, are there a couple of loose items that we have for this agenda to help drive the conversation forward? Simple communication techniques that you can use. If that doesn't happen beforehand, you can start the meeting with that, hey, cool, I love that we're all here, how do we want to structure the agenda to move us forward? That way of being, that mindset is what I like to think of as the way maker persona. It's someone who embodies this skill set to foreshadow what might be coming up, someone who can see things as they arise, someone who was thinking about the big picture and moving the needle forward throughout the dialogue. Now, when you're in a meeting and you've got an agenda and it still feels a little directionless, that same way maker is the person who brings us back around to our original goal. Okay, cool everyone, I feel like we may be getting off topic a little bit, here's what we set out to do, do we feel like we're getting close to that? Okay, awesome. That's midpoint of your meetings and way makers really show up in the end of meetings to particularly 5-10 minutes before the meeting is ending. Something as simple as saying, hey, we've got 5-10 minutes left, I know we set out to do this, we've got three more items on our agenda, shall we set up time to discuss these at a later date or do these feel less urgent? Or things like, okay, cool, it looks like we've covered everything on our agenda, let's talk about next steps and what everyone needs to own so we can delegate things and move forward. That's leadership, that's showing up in your role, directing traffic to make sure everyone stays on the same page and we can move the needle forward so that directionless meetings start to take shape and have a clear route. That brings us to our second alternative leadership scenario, which is presenting new ideas and complex information. We talked about who was involved, what's at stake, what stands to be communicated and again, the persona that I think embodies this particular style of communication is the captivator. Ideally, you want to set forth an idea that feels compelling, that feels concise, that feels thoughtful enough to move someone to action and I think that key piece is like moving someone to action. So some key skills and things that you should be keeping in mind as you're shaping this idea, presenting a new idea or a more complex information are a couple of things: who's coming? Is it a senior manager? Are there folks who are more senior to you? Are there folks that you work laterally with? What do they need to know to move the needle forward on the idea? Sometimes we come into a space and we have an idea, and we have the bigness of the idea in mind, we know the timeline, we know the behind the scenes. Not everyone needs to know all of that information, so really taking a moment to take inventory on who's in the room and what do they need to know helps you begin to architect a type of script so that you can bring that into the conversation. Who was in the room? What do they need to know? Another thing to be considering for that idea and sharing that idea is like, what do you need? What do you need from the people of the room? Considering who was there and what they need to know, what do you need from them in order to take the next step in whatever the idea is. I work with my wife, she has been my business partner for several years. I know that I love to give all the information and the backstory and I know what I know about her is, she's the type of person who wants direct clear communication. What are the key details I need to know? What do you need me to do? How can I get an action? So for her, usually, what I need is her to give me the green light on an idea so that I can spend our business funds to then go out and enact that idea by hiring the right people or bringing in the right resources so I'm like I need her to say yes and I know what she needs to know in order to say yes. When I think of presenting more complex information, I think about it in its simplest form. Will my youngest niece understand this if I share it with her? How can I strip it down of all the jargon with the same considerations? Who is in the room? What do they need to know? What do I need them to do, and now how can I architect the message that allows them to do that? If you do that, you will stand in the room as the captivator. Lets move to alternative leadership scenario number three, ideation and brainstorm session. I like to think about this leadership communication persona as the consensus builder. We often find ourselves in these brainstorming sessions and ideas are getting thrown up. There's posters, there's magic happening, but no one is necessarily facilitating or moving the needle forward. That pocket, that opportunity to facilitate the dialogue and move it forward is a leadership possibility. When my partner and I are on-boarding new clients, we have a discovery call and that in itself is really an ideation and brainstorming session. It allows us to get to know the client, it allows us to share more about how we do work and what we do and why we care about the work we do, and it allows us to brainstorm possibilities for how we can work together if we see that there's synergy there, but in a big meeting when everybody's getting all worked up and excited, it's so important to have that consensus builder to connect dots, to figure out loose ends, to figure out what are the highlights of how we can move forward and then move us forward from there. If you feel like this consensus builder is someone who is you in the meetings or a skill set that you want to refine, I would recommend taking crystal-clear notes along the way, highlighting what points really stand out to you and reflecting those back in the dialogue. Some phrases that I use and that my peers and colleagues use often are, okay, so what I'm hearing is, am I getting that right? Then you can make sure everybody's on the same page. All right, great, it sounds like there's a lot of energy around this idea, is everyone most excited about this? Let's find a way to vote on it whether that's using little colored post-its that you can stick on things or if you're doing something more virtually everybody can put a marker down beside the idea that they believe in most right, so that consensus building is what helps move the needle forward. Let's take it to the fourth alternative leadership scenario, giving and receiving constructive feedback. Now there is no fancy leadership communication persona for this. Feedback is a critical part of our work, that everyone must learn how to engage with, the giving and the receiving of it. There's a number of techniques and tactics that you can put in play to make sure you do that smoothly. I'm going to mix and match a little bit and talk about the giving and the receiving end of feedback. First and foremost, and this is something that I had to learn the hard way as a recovering perfectionist, constructive feedback is not meant to harm you. It is not meant as a personal attack. It is best for you to not take it as a personal assassination on your character. That said, listening is the most critical part of receiving feedback. One thing that I found super helpful, and I've seen my peers, and clients, and folks I've coached is writing down the feedback that you hear so that you can reflect it back. For example, what I'm hearing is the quality of my work has been stellar and one area where I can improve is my timeliness for the different due dates that we set. Got it. I understand that clearly. The listening and reflecting back assures that you receive the information. You've received the highlight of the strength, and you've received the highlight of the area for growth, so listening. Sometimes we're in conversation with folks who may or may not be direct communicators. It's okay to ask for a direct feedback on things that you're working on. For example, I work on a number of writing projects and sometimes I tap my peers for feedback. ''Hey, can you read this over and let me know if the tone feels clear. Here's what I was going for. How can I make it better?'' Asking direct questions is oftentimes the easiest way for you to get applicable feedback that you can apply to enhance the work that you're trying to do. One thing that I've seen my clients do and folks that I've coached do really well, is ask for the space to process feedback. You shared a lot with me in this moment, I just need some time and space to think these things over and come up with questions. Is it all right if I send you an email or we schedule more time to continue the dialogue? Those are things that are available to you in the giving and receiving a feedback and the leadership piece that comes up in that is that you've positioned yourself as someone who is taking ownership in your personal and professional development by really taking seriously the feedback that you're receiving. The most golden rule I can offer him feedback is the age old phrase, ''If it doesn't apply, let it fly.'' Not all feedback is meant to be applicable to you, and it's okay if it's not. Now on the giving end of feedback, setting clear boundaries for how feedback will work is super crucial. I think particularly if you're in a senior position and you're giving feedback to someone on your team, set the tone for how you want the conversation to go and the same way you wouldn't answer a directionless meeting, feedback conversations should also not be directionless meetings. I want us to open the floor with you sharing more about how you feel like you've been performing and what your experience has been in this role thus far. Then I'll share with you how I've experienced you and some strengths and areas for improvement. Then I want us to collaboratively discuss how I can support you in growing through it, and we'll create an action plan from there for how you can continue to move forward in your growth in this role. Simple ways to approach feedback, but most importantly, the thing to remember is communication is the most important dynamic there so that you can continue to have a relationship of trust with the person who you are giving feedback to and receiving feedback from. A bonus for those of you who are giving feedback, sometimes you can ask a question for feedback on your own management style or your own leadership. How can I support you better? Is there anything or any feedback that you want to give me in the way that we've been collaborating in relationship across this team for the last X amount of time or however long it's been? Our fifth and final alternative leadership scenario is documentation and meetings. Now what often falls through the cracks in this scenario is one of two things. One, either someone is taking notes and they don't capture everything or don't get shared or two, multiple people are taking notes and they mismatch the information, and again, it never gets shared effectively. There's one really simple tool that a client introduced to us a few summers ago, and that's a shared document where we capture insights from a meeting in real time together. How that works is ahead of a meeting someone will share the shared document with us all. We all have editable access and it maps out four clear things. There's the agenda, there's space to take notes, there's questions, and then there's next steps. Throughout the meeting, everybody participating in the conversation is actively adding to the doc, adding their name in parentheses if it was them who took a note, so that throughout the conversation we can come back and reflect to the note. Google Docs is one of the more obvious ones. Dropbox Paper is another great one. There's another tool called Miro, which is a huge online visual collaboration tool, it's a gigantic whiteboard that you can all have access to. You can still take your notes independently on paper if you wish, but there's one dedicated space where we've archived what happened in that conversation so that there are no loose ends to be tied up, so that there's not an annoying email that goes out like, ''Wait a minute, what got missed so that we're not tapping each other on Slack to have a meeting about a meeting, about another meeting. It's just all clear and to the point. Now the perks of shared documentation in meetings and why this lets us enhance our leadership capacity is because it gives us the space to engage meaningfully in dialogue with each other in real time, and take ownership of what our deliverables are. At the end of those meetings when we've had that shared document of notes, the question is okay, we've got our notes here together, let's do around where everyone shares what their next steps are and when they're going to get them done by so that everyone takes accountability out loud for what they have to do. We move the needle forward on ideas and we've enhanced our capacity to participate in interpersonal relationships successfully together. Now that we've talked through these five scenarios and ways to transition through them, I want to highlight that sometimes the personas that we've talked through, the way maker, the consensus builder, the captivator, the documentarian, and the person giving and receiving feedback, sometimes those skill sets exist all in one person so you're able to maneuver your different leadership communication styles, and sometimes they don't, and that's absolutely fine which brings us to our next action. Remember this is not an exhaustive list, so I want you to go back to the list that you made and map out what are the skills that exist for you in those scenarios now, and what are the skills that you want to sharpen as you grow in your leadership capacity? In the next lesson, we're going to talk about how to cultivate an environment for leadership diversity. I'll see you there. 5. Cultivating Leadership Diversity: In this lesson, we're going to talk through some tips for how to foster an environment for leadership diversity. When I say leadership diversity, I mean shaping a psychologically safe space for people across teams, no matter what their titles are, to step into their leadership capacity. I've divided these tips into two categories. One for managers and folks who were otherwise titled as leaders, and the second for everyday leaders who have separate functions throughout their teams and companies. Let's start with the managers and folks who are titled as leaders first. First and foremost, when hiring, consider the diverse biome of leadership communication required. Do you have way makers on your team, consensus builders, captivators, documentarians, and folks who give him receive feedback? If you look for those different leadership styles within folks who you're hiring across teams or ask specific questions about those things in the hiring process, you know off top who has the savvy to do it, who needs space to improve, and how those folks work within a larger ecosystem of folks who are already staffed on your team. The second tip is pretty obvious, but stay in constant communication with your team and get their feedback of what points of leadership and communication feel challenging or exciting to them. If you keep the lines of communication open, it'll be easier for them to enhance their capacity for you to know where they need to grow and for you to support them in that growth. Tip number 3. Once you've been in constant communication with your team and you have a strong idea of the points of leadership and communication that both challenge and excite them that's the perfect opportunity to collaborate with your people ops, and your learning and development teams. Because the feedback that you share with them about their areas for growth, their strengths, and their interests is precisely the type of information they need to align them with personal and professional development opportunities that'll help them continue to grow. This next set of tips is for our everyday leaders on teams and other capacities. First and foremost, put yourself out there. There is no way to enhance your capacity to be a strong leader or to communicate as a leader without dipping your toe in the water. Think about the scenarios we've covered and the ones you have on your list and consider how can I put myself in a position to show up in that scenario tomorrow at work. Tip number 2, role-play with your trusted peers or by yourself and record it. I grew up playing basketball and one of my favorite coaches taught me repetition is the mother of skill. Go back to the list of scenarios you created, whether it'd be the five alternative leadership scenarios we discussed or additional ones you added on, and go through the motions over and over and over again to see how you're growing through, where you need to enhance, and where you really shine. The third tip, find folks on your team who embody the different personas that you want to strengthen and shadow them, model that behavior over and over again. I know you know some way makers, some consensus builders, some captivators, some documentarians, you can practice and model and shadow that behavior to see how you can create your own authentic style as well. Now that you have these tips for how to cultivate fruitful environments for leadership diversity, there's two things I want you to do. First, I want you to write down what skills you have and which ones you want to build on, and second, I want you to write down how you'll help someone else on your team cultivate these skills as well. 6. Final Thoughts: Thank you so much for taking my class. I believe that our leadership capacity is deeply tied to the power of the word and how we communicate. I hope you feel that too. I'm really looking forward to seeing your projects and hearing how you intend to enhance your leadership capacity as you navigate these scenarios. Feel free to add any questions you have to the Discussion section. I'll keep an eye out for your projects. I'll see you next time.