Knowledge@Wharton staff
Presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article published with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Executive coach Jerry Colonna wants managers to stop focusing on output and achievement. Instead, he wants them to engage in radical self-inquiry, which builds the maturity required for leaders to lift up others, not just themselves.
It’s part of what he sees as a bigger individual rebooting.
“It goes beyond this notion of self-awareness,” Mr. Colonna said in a recent segment of the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM. “I call it radical because we tend not to do it. It starts with basic premises like, ‘How am I actually doing right now? How am I actually feeling? Am I anxious? Am I scared? Am I filled with joy?’ As a leader starts to unpack their issues, they start to ask questions like, ‘What kind of CEO do I want to be? What kind of leader do I want to be? What kind of company do I want to build,’ rather than just automatically going about their business and doing the tasks of every day.”
His book is entitled ”Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up” because the challenges associated with assuming power often take another level of self-actualization for an individual.
Indeed, he sees most individuals panicking when they step into larger leadership roles as the authority and responsibility becomes overwhelming. He added, “All of the internal challenges that they have start to get amplified by the challenges of actually working in that leadership position. For example, if they tend toward conflict avoidance, then their tendency tends to be exacerbated, and it gets amplified throughout the organization.”
New leaders have to shift their focus from “high output and high outcome” that made them high achievers to creating work environments where staff can thrive and be their best selves. Leaders, he believes, also have to recognize how “intricately, intrinsically linked” personal and work lives are.
“We’re all faced with those step-function changes in our lives,” said Mr. Colonna. “My advice is, I’d rather see someone go through that consciously with an awareness about what’s going on for them — radical self-inquiry — rather than have it happen to them and be blindsided by those forces.”