Even during the wet and chilly weather, I make sure that I get outside in the fresh air. I often find, when in the fresh air, I am able to think slightly clearer & new ideas occur to me on my longer walks. This short blog was written because of a thought that occurred to me when I was outside walking. As I am outside walking, I often take a combination of bird seed & nuts to put down for the birds that reside there. What has occurred to me over the course of the last few weeks is that the Crows and the Magpies have begun to recognise me when I arrive in their environment.
• How do I know that they recognise me?
Well, they begin to fly just over my shoulder & perch themselves on a tree, a few yards up ahead of me. Once I drop the food onto the floor, they swoop down and collect it, before flying ahead of me to the next tree to wait, as if asking me, if they will receive anymore. I have then been faced with a dilemma:
• Should I give these birds even more food or wait until I see some different ones?
In the interest of fairness!! I have, on occasion, decided on the latter, & then found that I cannot find any other animals to feed on my walk. This is frustrating because, not only have I not found any others, but I have also made my attention laser focussed, & therefore ignored the colour of the sky, the greenness of the evergreens and the dew on the grass. Two key leadership lessons occurred to me. The two I noticed were:
The importance of asking:
Firstly, asking for help is critical in any walk of life. There have been many people that have been supportive to me, over the years. I have hugely benefited from the space that they have given me, to explain my situation, & to understand what I can do differently or build on. I will always be grateful for this support. Not only that, asking for help is important as it continues to build trust, connection, creates opportunities for people to think about their talents, and share in the talents of others. It also creates reciprocal support, which aids collaboration, particularly across teams.
Secondly. Asking a question is powerful.
All too often, as leaders, we feel we need to have all the answers. However, our people will have amazing answers themselves if we empower them to think and reflect. When we get something in our mind, like focussing on a task to find an answer, often we can become tunnel visioned. Our focus becomes like an obsession, seeking out the thing for which we are searching. Often, we are missing different perspectives, lenses which, if we took a step back and assessed a bigger picture, may give us the answers that we are seeking.
Perhaps, there is an opportunity for us all to perch ourselves above our current situation, seeing what is around us and being resourced by what we seek out.