Ever since reading Good to Great by Jim Collins I have been fascinated by the concept of the flywheel. Working hard on the right things consistently over time and then having your efforts compound for massive impact over time. I have touched on the idea here and here.
Leadership is a difficult topic to create a flywheel around because there is not a shared definition of leadership in the community. The definition I choose to use is:
Leadership is the practice of mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive
The definition is nuanced and layered; I’ll reserve the breakdown of this definition for another blog post.
Using this definition, I have put together a leadership flywheel that has four components: Insight, Action, Habit, and Teach/Share.
INSIGHT
All of us have had the moment when something clicks and things make sense. Or a new piece of information deepens and reinforces an existing idea. I am calling this an insight. It is the most critical component to the flywheel. The most important thing to know about an insight is that you cannot generate an insight for someone else. You may be able to create an environment that encourages and fosters insight, but insight lives inside of every individual.
An insight should lead or compel us to action. Sometimes we need someone to invite us to act for the insight to solidify. Whether you come to the decision on your own to act or are invited to do so, action is the next component of the flywheel.
ACTION
This is the part of the flywheel that has the most variability. Not all actions are created equal. An action that turns the leadership flywheel is a practice of leadership. A leadership practice is an action taken that will lead to mobilizing people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. Inherent in this is a judgment. The actions that will lead to mobilizing people and to thrive are very much context dependent and your job as a leader is to experiment and figure out the leadership practices that need to be exercised in the situation you are in.
An action or leadership practice that is repeated can then become a habit. This is our next flywheel component.
HABIT
This component calls to the importance of consistency. Those who follow you as a leader will not follow on a single action. Trust and confidence will be built when you, as a leader, have a habit of demonstrating leadership over time.
Leadership habits lead to greater understanding of when to apply a specific leadership practice to mobilize people to tackle tough challenges and thrive. When you have this greater understanding, you have the duty and responsibility to teach and share what you have learned with others. This is the last component of the flywheel.
TEACH/SHARE
This is the component of the flywheel where the magic happens.
In the church that I attend, there is a practice of giving a talk or sermon to the congregation upon invitation. It is not ad-hoc but the invitation comes 1-2 weeks prior so there is time to prepare. When that invitation has come to me, I prepare to teach by reflecting, pondering, and wrestling with the ideas that are at the core of the topic I have been assigned. It is in this process to prepare to teach and share that new insights and connections are made in my brain.
The exact same thing happens when I am asked at work to teach or facilitate a session. In my preparation to teach and share, I generate new insights and create new connections. I know I am learning something new when in the moment of teaching I have a moment of insight. This usually comes because of the new ideas or thoughts coming from the people I am teaching.
It is in the act of preparing, teaching, and sharing that new insights can be generated. With this, the flywheel starts over again.
To kickstart the flywheel for others, when I teach/share I strive to end with an invitation to act. This can help the listener or learner do something with what I have shared. Most learners will not act on the invitation if they did not have their own insight, but if they did, then the invitation to act may be enough to get the flywheel going for them.
Take a moment now to consider a leadership practice that you have turned into a habit. This should not take more than a few moments. A leadership practice that I have turned into a habit is to teach. I choose to teach through writing, but teaching can and has taken many forms for me.
Now that you have in your mind your habit, write down on a piece of paper the answer to the following question:
Who will I teach or share my habit with?
It can be with a colleague, a friend, a loved one – it does not matter. Intentionally prepare and then teach that person. If you take it seriously, I can guarantee you will generate an insight for yourself on your habit.
