Taking Personal Risks - Role #6 - Part 1

Entering stage 3 of ‘Devising means to Achieve the Vision’ both Ghadah and Martin discuss role# 6 of Taking personal risks in an organizational context: what does it mean? how much risk can a leader take? And why personal risks?

Ghadah stresses the fact that from day one or the organizational transformation, the leader has been taking personal risks by putting themselves out there for others to criticize them and scrutinize their decisions or transformational effort. She argues personal risks come with the job. If you don’t you are asserting the status quo and preventing yourself from harm by hiding under the shadow of ‘business as usual. 
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Introducer: 0:03

Welcome to this podcast series on Neocharismatic leadership with author, leadership expert and coach Dr. Ghadah Angawi. And executive leader Martin Hedley, where they will both explore the recently published book, Neocharismatic leadership and the coaching topics it covers.

Ghadah Angawi: 0:29

We have covered so far, five behavioural roles in two stages. And we are today ready to move to the practical hands on, stage three, devising means to achieve the vision, I'm excited, because being a practical person, this is where I belong. So far, we have been setting the stage, and now it's time to take action. They say it takes more fuel to launch a rocket and to keep it going. And I think we have been doing that so far, if we had launched right by doing accurate and detailed assessment of the environment, which resulted in the ethical and challenging decision, that will transform the life of the organisation. And we have spent enough time formulating the shared vision with the people and articulating it, then the implementation becomes easier. And we are ready to walk into the practical role without even thinking about it. Or maybe we have already done so so far.

Martin Hedley: 1:32

Yes Ghadah, I'm always intrigued by the smooth transition between the roles and how they overlap and consecutively take place. So I too tend to be very practical, so achieving the vision is always my favourite topic. But I think it's very important to realise that, you know, none of these roles actually are consecutive, that they all blend into each other, and we use them at different times. So I think it is true here that in many ways, the leader having already articulated the vision means they have already taken some level of risk. And the topic of this talk, taking personal risks, I think is something that really needs to be understood by any aspiring leader. And it would be ideal if their followers also understood what it entails too.

Ghadah Angawi: 2:22

Yeah, taking personal risks has already taken place when the leader have announced the challenging decision. This role naturally occurs because it demands taking bold steps towards the transformation. So you know that transformation, you know what needs to happen. But once you announced it, that becomes a first step towards taking personal risks, because people can say no to you. Definitely, group of people will come up and say, no, that's not a good decision. And they'll start scrutinising your decision, whether they were involved or not, because people are threatened by the idea of change.

Martin Hedley: 3:03

And that's exactly what I was thinking in terms of when you are coaching, a neocharismatic leader. The questions that typically come up are about, you know, well, how much risk should I take? And, how much risk should I allow everybody else to, to face? And I think, actually, that's sort of the wrong question that's actually coming at it backwards, we need to look at it from the front on. So what I think leaders do is they take personal calculated risks, there's a difference, because I've added the word calculated. If we take silly risks, as leaders, we're likely to lose followers, because they're going to consider us to be reckless, you know, reckless is for individuals, daredevils who really want to get going, or when are and thrill us, okay, but that's not for someone that we want to follow on the long course. You're right, that perhaps the greatest risk is the first one, just making the case for change. We're only going to be a leader, if we're going to change something, you don't really need to be a leader in order not to change anything. And whenever everything is going fine, you just need a good manager to keep things going. So we've already gone out there, we've already put some possibly physical risk, we face reputational risk, and we've certainly risked upsetting the applecart because we're saying something is going to be different. So when you think about it, though, that's just table stakes for the leader. This is just what gets them into the game. You know, it's that risk that somebody says, Oh, they're, they're going to take a risk, and I like the direction it's going in, so I might follow them. Personal risk taking should demonstrate the leaders willingness to do whatever it takes, to be willing to do nothing less than what they're asking their followers to do. So in effect, this is getting to the heart of trust, which underlines everything. And as it develops that bond between the leader and the follower is cemented into place. Now, once established, it's very strong, and it's only broken by one recklessness, and two an unwillingness to no longer do what you're asking people to do.

Ghadah Angawi: 5:15

Yeah, from a research perspective, the data we have show that their altruism plays a big role in the risk taking, if a leader is dedicated to a cause that serves the greater good or dedicated to making the organisation ideal for its people, community and stakeholders, they will present sacrifices along the way, the sacrifices can be personal through using their own means, time, or physical being, or even family resources. I've seen many of these sacrifices in my career, coaching and training leaders.

Martin Hedley: 5:55

Yes, of course, the altruistic goal is something the leader believes in, and hopefully the followers too, but because they believe in it, therefore, they're more likely to go ahead and just take that risk. And you know, whenever you signal to anybody, that you're going to do something different, there'll be those that want to follow you, and there'll be those that want to decry, and, you know, bring you down and sort of argue with you, possibly, because they're not on the same plane as you at that particular time. But more than just taking the risk. Asking followers, how they feel about the risk shows a willingness to share thoughts around a possibly high impact result. Okay, so very little focuses the mind quite like our own safety, physical, emotional, and reputational. And it opens us up to be vulnerable. As leaders, we are vulnerable now to our team, we're showing them that we're scared. Basically, we're willing to take a risk, but it's calculated and there's a concern. So it is as much the involvement of others in identifying, discussing preparing mitigation, and having a plan B, that binds the followers. An example of this, I think it is the recent trips to space by folks like Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, leading into your analogy of the beginning that it takes more fuel to get a rocket out, than it does to keep it going. But space travel is still very high risk. But these two individuals believed in their teams enough to go there themselves. You know, what does that say to follow us?

Ghadah Angawi: 7:29

Yeah, definitely. And I like the idea of calculated risks. But remember, we in the beginning, in stage one, we have already done the calculation really well. We continue to do it throughout the second stage, and it continues throughout the implementation, it is cyclic. So there is no chance that this leader is making a haphazard decision where they put their organisation into a greater risk, they know that this is going to end well. But people are afraid and scared. And this is, it's funny that you mentioned fear, because I think the opposite of taking personal risks is fear. And fear is part of your thought patterns. It comes and goes and it comes and goes in different degrees in different people. And remember, when we spoke about self awareness as a prerequisite for successful and neocharismatic leadership, we spoke about the ability to recognise those self talk or those thoughts that prevents you from taking the right decision or making your way through implementing that decision. So if you look at fear, it could stop you because it could be different fears, actually, fear of being judged. Fear of people, scrutinising your decision or fear of failure itself can stop you, although you have all the data that backs you up, but you still have a risk that you're taking, because things can go wrong. Like the pandemic, for instance, nobody could predict this could happen. So there is always a possibility of some kind of a crisis around the corner that can put everything at risk. So not only that, putting yourself out there for others to criticise your decision or comment on your behaviour is a byproduct of being a neocharismatic leader. But your vision and altruism always wins. If you are a neocharismatic leader, and it counter that effect.

Martin Hedley: 9:36

Yes, I agree very much that the leader at the very beginning calculated a lot of the risks. And I think that your that has to be done because if you don't do that, before you make a big prediction of a change of into lead, then that's more wishful thinking, then careful leadership. But of course we're in stage three. So here, the taking of a personal risk now has to be made explicit to the followers. So in a way they're catching up with where you were, right at the beginning. And I think that that is another way of, as I say, to building this trust between the leader, because without the trust, you're never going to be able to action, anything. It's all just ideas and possibilities up to this point. So I agree when you're talking about the fact that you believe in your team, because they're now following you. You think of Branson and Bezos, for example, they announced that they were going to space, but they sort of knew a long time in advance, there was a huge amount of planning, or is 15/20 years worth of planning and knowledge that has gone into this sudden event. And guess what, of course, as soon as they went into space, they had people crying on the internet, saying,"Oh, this is terrible, these guys shouldn't be going to space when they have companies that employ people at low wages". Well, you know, these are two completely different ideas. First of all, as it happens, Bezos and Branson don't run companies anymore. They're way beyond that. They have people to do that for them. But what they're doing now is they're pushing the boundaries of human endeavour. And this is a completely different thing is there's always going to be sort of inequities like that, just because these individuals had companies, I think, these two individuals did have companies, that's how they got to be where they are. But that's got nothing to do with the kind of leadership they're doing now. So they're pushing boundaries, pushing frontiers, and discovering a whole lot that will in turn, generate a broader economy and more jobs, jobs that we can only dream off today, we can't even specify what they're going to be, we just don't know. So the fact that they are experiencing this risk, if you like, and their team is going along with them, makes them very vulnerable to physical, emotional and reputational harm. But they did anyway. And this causes me to ask you a question, how do you see the issue of vulnerability play out in this role?

Ghadah Angawi: 12:07

Yeah, so it's very important to be able to be humbled, to be able to expose yourself and your emotions, lead by emotions. Vulnerability means more than just taking personal risks, it means you're willing to share how you feel about that adventure, or venture or decision, or action, and how you are going to overcome that emotion or navigate it, or substituted with another emotion? How are you going to demonstrate to others your ability to manage that risk internally. So that's number one, you are actually role modelling to everyone, human being around you, who experiences a certain degree of personal risk in even sometimes speaking to you as a leader, they can feel that they're taking risk, how can you make them comfortable enough by sharing your vulnerability, and I have witnessed leaders do this with their teams by sharing personal experiences, of how they took personal risks in their lives, that help their team share their own personal experiences, so that in the workspace, they can collaborate easily, without calculating too much how they should show up? Or how they speak to each other. And what should they tell each other? Or should they tell the leader this or that? What if the leader doesn't like it? What if their peers judge them for it, all this disappears, if a leader starts sharing themselves, and it is risky, because it's not easy. We're not programmed to share ourselves, with the public, with people who we know so little about, or we know enough to trust them at work, but we kind of tend to be apprehensive about sharing, how we feel about this or that. But when people see that you are a human being and you can share, you share the good moments you shared the bad moments, you shared your failure, you share why you are fearful of taking this step. And once you start sharing it, it just becomes easy because all disappears and dissolves with trust, as you have just said. So sharing your vulnerability is really an important step in conquering taking personal risks. The fear of it

Martin Hedley: 14:35

Great well when I think about my youth, when I would go into an organisation and I would you get an opportunity to talk to a leader. You just think for some reason that they are very powerful. Now they might be but you know, you have this feeling that they're powerful and they've got to be very careful. And to me, it is very high risk even talking to them because they may think I'm silly All right, well, when that leader makes you feel comfortable and welcome and offers some vulnerability, you say, wait a minute, I'm not that different. I'm at a different level in the organisation. And I have a much smaller role. But, you know, this person is interested in what I'm saying. So that's, I think, a very good sign in a neocharismatic leader in that they've got to be involved with heart, mind and soul. When they express that to the followers, they will then feel far more empowered to come back and help out. Because let's face it, it's all or nothing. If you're going to make change happen, you're going to make change happen or you're not. With carefully calculated steps, you can achieve the goal calculated risk taking leads the discussion in this podcast, but we can see how it brings out a lot of what we said in the prior episodes to bear on this subject.

Ghadah Angawi: 15:54

Yes, and it is important that before we end our discussion today, that we also bring it to reality, I'd like to give some examples of how you take a personal risk. You take a personal risk by leaving your office and walking down the corridors and speaking to normal people, ordinary people in the organisation, people who do things for you when you've never got a chance to speak with them. There is also you being there all the time, early in the morning, speaking with people nicely and sharing with them their meals, asking them about how they feel about the organisation, are they happy, what is missing is there any challenges that they have that you can help them with? It's nothing that you plan, it just comes, touching people's lives. I've even seen some of these leaders take training courses with normal ordinary people from the security say, or people who are there admins, these kinds of small acts show people that you are a human, that you're not just the leader, nothing should show in front of you, it's really heart touching, and it sends a message. And it is a personal risk, because you're not used to this. Your team might object to why you're interfering with this or that, you shouldn't be doing these things. But I think this is what makes you a successful leader from research, from evidence and from a human perspective, this is what it is that will help you become a neocharismatic leader. We are at the end of our episode, and hopefully next time we can talk about individuals in small businesses and social entrepreneurs, and how they can become risk takers without fully encountering hard risks. Thank you very much for being with me, Martin today and see you next time.

Martin Hedley: 17:52

Thank you. Ghadah Yes, and goodbye to the listeners.

Introducer: 17:55

Ghadah and Martin, hope you enjoyed this episode. There was more information available at Neocharismaticleadership.org. And if you would like to discuss coaching or training for yourself or your team, you can contact Ghadah and Martin through the website. We look forward to your participation next week. Until then, goodbye