#040 What is your worldview?
Hello,
Welcome to The Future Of Leadership, an approximately monthly newsletter packed full of leadership wisdom for CEOs and senior technology executives.
Leadership beyond deliberate practice >> was the most clicked link in last month's newsletter.
Deliberate practice involves repetitive practice of challenging tasks, continuous feedback, and a structured effort to go beyond current abilities. It's helpful in the earlier stages of your leadership journey, but becomes less helpful as you advance in your executive career because of the ‘wicked’ nature and complexity of the learning environments that senior leaders operate in.
How do you better navigate these types of environments? Check out my Accelerating Executive Mastery >> series which explores exactly this question.
What I'm reading
I've just moved house (I don't recommend anyone do this with an 18 month old toddler in tow) and I'm getting married in two weeks time. Needless to say, I haven't had time to read many books.
However, I did have time to restack all my books on their new shelves. For a book-lover like me, this wasn't a straightforward task. I found myself flicking through almost every book and grappling with what order to put them in, namely, the extent to which they have influenced my thinking and worldview.
My top 25 books, based on how much they've influenced my thinking and worldview.
As I shuffled my books around, I reflected on the concept of a worldview, or Weltanschauung. We all have a worldview that is unique to us. It represents our fundamental cognitive orientation. It encompasses the entirety of our knowledge, beliefs, values, and emotional responses, in turn shaping how we perceive and interact with the world around us.
Think of it as the collection of attitudes, values, stories, and expectations that inform our thoughts and actions. It includes things like ethics, religion, political leanings, philosophical and scientific beliefs. It's a comprehensive conception of our reality that influences how we interpret our experiences and make decisions. It is the lens through which we see and make sense of our world.
When I'm coaching, I must remember that my worldview is not the same as my client's, though there may be some similarities. It's not my job to force my worldview onto them, or seek to change their own, unless of course there are aspects of it they think might be holding them back, or causing them to feel otherwise incongruent.
That can lead to some wonderful conversations in which we explore foundational questions like:
"How do you define success, both personally and professionally?"
"What gives your work meaning beyond financial success?"
"How much is 'enough'?"
"What values are non-negotiable for you as a leader?"
"What core beliefs shape your decision-making process?"
"How do you think your perception of reality differs from others in your organisation?"
"How has your worldview changed as you've matured? How might it change in the future?"
What's your worldview? How does it influence how you show up in leadership and life? What books have influenced it most?
What I shared with clients this month
The Perils of Bad Strategy - "A good strategy does more than urge us forward toward a goal or vision; it honestly acknowledges the challenges we face and provides an approach to overcoming them. Too many organizational leaders say they have a strategy when they do not. Instead, they espouse what I call 'bad strategy'. Bad strategy ignores the power of choice and focus, trying instead to accommodate a multitude of conflicting demands and interests. Like a quarterback whose only advice to his teammates is “let’s win,” bad strategy covers up its failure to guide by embracing the language of broad goals, ambition, vision, and values. Each of these elements is, of course, an important part of human life. But, by themselves, they are not substitutes for the hard work of strategy". Written by Rumelt, this is a great article summarising the book's key messages.
Founder Mode - "There are two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a startup meant switching to manager mode. But we can infer the existence of another mode from the dismay of founders who've tried it, and the success of their attempts to escape from it... The way managers are taught to run companies seems to be like modular design in the sense that you treat subtrees of the org chart as black boxes. You tell your direct reports what to do, and it's up to them to figure out how. But you don't get involved in the details of what they do. That would be micromanaging them, which is bad. Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. Sounds great when it's described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice, judging from the report of founder after founder, what this often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground". Paul Graham's latest essay has got the startup world talking and arguing (depending on worldviews)!
Until next month,
