Building Leadership Skills

Guest blogger and experienced Irish embodied leadership specialist Maki Pirie (pictured) on systematically building leadership skills. And this links to Integration Training’s own embodied approach to leadership and management training (various links for those interested in the subject).

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How many of us have been given feedback that sounds like “you are doing well but you need to develop greater leadership?” How many of us have been frustrated when we get this feedback and then ask the question “ok, so how specifically do you recommend I go about that?”  and get no useable answer.  We get stories about well-known leaders or told to “build more presence”, “change the atmosphere in your team”, “build more trust”, “partner better with your peers” or “be more authentic”.  Our question of “how do I learn this?” remains unanswered.

Leadership is distinct from management.  Good management includes the capability to organise work for self and others; delegation; capability to implement and manage the appropriate organisation and meeting structures; development and implementation of standards; skills coaching; as well as expertise in a field, as a minimal list.  Leadership is something different.  A leader is someone committed to something much bigger than themselves and their personal ambition, their personal values are congruent with their vision, they are willing to risk a huge amount for their commitment and values, and they build commitment in others because of who they are. Their learning and development is built on their overall commitment and so is often deeper and more personal than the development of management skills.  Yet consistent and effective “how to’s” for building leadership remains one of the big challenges for executives and HR professionals.

One of the reasons for this is that we approach good leadership much like we approach good management – a set of skills we can learn from books, professors, and courses. Most courses on leadership give us a lot of ideas; possibly we’ll implement one or two.  However, generally we are left with the status quo: the same glass ceiling we were hitting, the same feedback from those we work for, the same frustrations.

We often forget that we are biological beings with bodies far more complex than walking bases for our heads.  We live in our world as “Talking Heads” or like Mr Duffy of James Joyce fame “live a short distance from our bodies”.   There is a cost to this that shows up strongly in developing leadership. As human beings our bodies have evolved through millions of years with incredibly intricate circuitry to ensure that we are always moving towards life and survival.  This means that we take in and sort a huge amount of data each minute, almost all of it under our conscious radar enabling our soma (from the Greek, meaning the collection of body, mind and spirit as one integrated whole) to make almost instantaneous assessments to ensure our well-being: “I don’t trust him”, “you wouldn’t want to be too close to her”, “when he comes about the team always is enthusiastic”, “she captivates you”, “he’s a straight on fella”.   These assessments can make or break a budding leader, who could be you or I, and there is no clear way to begin to change them.

Somatic training opens learning, and therefore changes, for the whole soma (body, mind and spirit) and as such is a powerful tool in the development of leaders.  Let us look at, as an example, leadership presence.  Presence is that leadership quality that has people move towards the leader, begin in an instinctive assessment of trust, enables a leader to gather and hold attention in a room/community and enables the leader to have the space to communicate their message or have the required conversations.

Before we enter the realm of building leadership presence through somatic training let us begin with an assumed foundation.  First, our budding leader has expertise in their field and is a competent manager.

Second, our budding leader has taken care of the basics of presence: hygiene, grooming and image.  Hygiene refers to things like cleanliness, body and mouth odour management, teeth brushing.  These may seem so basic as to be unmentionable; however, they have to be addressed should they be an issue.  Grooming refers to hair, facial hair, make-up appropriate to context, manicured hands and neat nails, skin that appears well taken care of, feet that are taken care of.  Unlike hygiene appropriate grooming is context dependent: what is good grooming when on a wilderness leadership retreat is far different that appropriate grooming for a board presentation in London.

Image adds the next layer of complexity while being separate from the somatic elements of leadership we’ll speak about below.  It includes the conscious visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and olfactory assessments we make of another.  Under image comes dress style as suited to person and context, scent choices, voice tone and speed as some examples.  These are the elements that a good image consultant can assist with.   These five elements: expertise in a field, managerial skill, hygiene, grooming and image get you through the door of leadership presence.  Now, let us go to the next level with somatic training.

For illustrative purposes let us call our budding leader Helen.  When we want to move towards Helen are willing to be influenced by her and have an instinctive sense of trust of her, our soma is making a series of assessments of Helen; most of these in the vast underground territory of the unconscious.  If we bring these to the surface:  first, to have the sense that we want to move towards Helen, to listen to her, we have decided, unconsciously, that at a minimum we are safe.  For a strong leader the unconscious assessment is that we will thrive if we are close to them.  If we have made the assessment of safety or thriving, then the assessment of being willing to be influenced follows on.  It is important to recognise that we are not speaking of an intellectual sense of safety or success; this is our reptilian brain, concerned with survival, speaking.

So how are some of the ways we make those assessments of safety?  One of the animal indications of safety is relaxation; relaxation being defined as a softening of the ongoing observation for predators and perceived hostile territory.  One of the observations to make of Helen is does she have a body that enables other bodies to relax?  Somatically, to start, we can observe Helen’s level of relaxation: what are tension levels in her muscles?  In the West good places to look at the shoulders, facial muscles (jaw especially), hands.  Where is she breathing: top of the lungs or deep in the lower regions?  How are abdominal muscles held?  If Helen’s body carries a level of tension that tells our soma that she is on alert, we too stay on alert; if we don’t know her well we might perceive her as a threat; if we know her well, in this level of tension we won’t move to know her better.

Our soma also observe how Helen connects to us through language, body movement and posture and energy.  Is her language inclusive?  Does her language share credit?  Does she require everyone, herself included, to meet certain standards?  Is her language consistent with tone, volume and timbre?  Are language and vocals consistent with other body language?  Do her body and vocals extend in such a way as to include all members of her audience?  Is her body language open for input or not?  How is she moving; does the movement connect her to others or not; is it smooth or stilted?  These are some of the beginning observations a somatic trainer or coach will make; the rest of us make them unconsciously but they impact our actions and Helen’s standing as a leader.

Somatically, leadership presence requires a person inhabit their body; have ground and centre; they are connected both to the earth and something larger than themselves; their energy extends about them and is perceived as inviting to others; their level of relaxation invokes safety and invitation to others; their breath is low in their lungs and relaxed; their vocals have extension, relaxation and depth to them; their language and their non-verbals are consistent.

Somatic trainers have the observational skills to make precise observations of the soma.  It is these precise observations coupled with understanding what creates things like leadership presence, which demystifies leadership and provides effective “how-to’s” .

Somatic training is iterative and moves spiral-like towards, in this example, more and more presence, beginning with those elements that are most “visible” and have the most negative impact for the person. Classes or coaching sessions might focus on one or more somatic elements of leadership presence; they might be in the form of a retreat or you might attend classes on a regular basis; they might be made up of just people from your organisation or from many walks of life.  However, they will have several things in common: first, you will be in movement at least part of the time; second, you will begin to observe yourself and others; third, you will be required to be in practices (some physical) on a regular basis; fourth, a good somatic teacher will have you put something in the game, making a commitment to something that matters to you, giving you the personal leverage you need to embark on the journey of personal change.

All of this means that somatic training for leaders offers pragmatic, effective learning in those areas historically considered nebulous.  Development of just leadership presence builds employee enrolment, which in turn has been shown to positively impact productivity (up to 18%), profitability (up to 12%) and revenue (up to 43%).  What is possible in a structured somatic development of leadership skills?