One of my clients had reached a watershed. He needed to make some key decisions about the business and the role family members played in that – or not! And to do that he needed to get the family on the same page.

So, he brought me in. I was under the impression that the engagement would be playing to my usual role as a leadership advisor. In other words, through weekly meetings, guiding the leadership team through a process which provided them with a consistent operating system that helped deal with issues and get everyone on the same page.

However, as the engagement developed, it became clear that my role was becoming more of a facilitator than a leadership advisor. What do I mean by that? Well, my role developed into prodding, prying and pushing. A combo of leadership and facilitating.

Now, I consider myself in many ways a facilitator and I do believe to add the best value to my clients I need to be a combination of the two, i.e a leader and facilitator because in my view you have to have the skills to be a facilitator to be a leader and the other way round.

Why? Leadership should NOT be about telling people what to do and barking orders. Real leadership that makes a difference and instils commitment from others is getting as much valuable input as possible and then making decisions based on others’ insights and views.

If the decision goes against what people feel should it should be, they are more likely to feel much more committed to that decision because they feel that at least their voice was heard and they have not been dismissed, or worst, ignored. They feel part of the process.

Leadership is not about one person’s view, or worse, pretending that decisions are all-inclusive and then having obtained input from others, ignoring that advice and reverting to a solitary decision that was already made.

Having said that, leadership is not a democracy. There’s no voting system, but people should be heard and then that one person ultimately makes the decision.

Leadership has become the buzzword over the last few years for everything. It seems that nearly every speaker, article, podcast and post is about leadership. However, what I have been missing in these articles is any reference to the fact that leadership is like being a facilitator. A good facilitator makes an action or process easy or easier. And how they do that is by asking the right questions to get 360° representative points of view, so the decisions are made simpler.

So, since working with this client, I have come to realise that most of what I have been doing is helping the owner by being a facilitator first and a leader second. My role became getting the family members all on the same page with their expectations and having managed that, harnessing their views and energies and converting these to action.

We started on our journey together nearly a year ago and it has had its trials and tribulations. I have come close to resigning from the project several times, and I am sure they have come close to firing me but I have continued to ask the tough questions required. That has at times seemed confrontational but you can’t move forward without confronting the real issues.

So is a leader really a facilitator? Absolutely. The two are joined at the hip and all good leaders need to facilitate to ensure they get the best decisions from their people and build a culture that will survive all the numerous setbacks that successful, businesses endure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Christina Morillo