![]() So what makes a great shadow? There are lots of books written on this subject, some good, some not so good. John Maxwell, one of the greatest influences of our time, would describe these people as being positional leaders they are in a position of leadership, but lack the capabilities to cast an effective shadow over those around them. You don’t have ask to many people about their own poor experience with their leaders to know that the world is full of leaders who don’t know how to lead. A manager’s style has a large influence on how employees feel about being at work, and that, in turn, impacts directly on their engagement and productivity. The message is a simple one: your team is a map of you and your shadow casts itself upon those under your authority. This saying has always stuck with me and I have often passed on the wisdom to the thousands of managers I have trained over the years. During the conversation, he told me that in India they have the saying ‘children are a map of their parents’. Years ago, I had a good friend from Hyderabad who invited me to join him and his young family for dinner. His argument was that an organisation is simply a shadow of its leaders. In 1970, Larry Senn published a doctoral dissertation conceptualising the shadow in an organisation environment. He concept of the shadow, being one of influence of one human on another, has no doubt been around since the start of time and has been used in many contexts. One book that helped me do that was The Art of Possibility.20 Essential Qualities of a Great Shadow Leader Thinking differently requires entertaining new perspectives. What type of shadow is your leader casting? How could we help them? What can we do to provide more transparency into decision making? What shadow are you casting that might be impeding the vision of people on your team? Open conversation with the team providing deeper understanding of the problem and asking for helpīooks, seminars or other online learning opportunities. Leaders that dictate don’t end up leading long. People commit for themselves in their own way. We trust them to make sound judgement when they see clearly. When that occurs we need to move our people to a place offering an alternate perspective. 2) Re-position them gentlyĪt times, listening to us and hearing our perspective is not enough to receive the ‘buy-in’ to earn followership. When done properly, our connection to our people strengthens allowing our actions to become more predictable and their ability to anticipate our movements increases. ![]() When we engage our people on their terms (not ours) we increase trust. And people trust those who speak their language. Shepherding Principles provides us a framework for doing this: 1) Speak to them using their language As leader, it is our responsibility to be aware of the shadow and provide our teams insight into the environment ahead. This cannot happen without specific actions on the part of the leader. There is little our followers and teams can do themselves that will help. In its simplest form, transparency simply means allowing light to pass through us to give others the opportunity to see what we see. The word transparency is important and discussed a lot today in business. ![]() ![]() ![]() We create shadows because light cannot pass through us Leaders with lacking foresight will not have the capacity to understand their people and will simply ask their followers to keep up and “get with the program”. As a result, team members may disengage as they feel discouraged, angry, or frustrated. Without clear landmarks and continuous communication, the teams they lead, might find themselves completely lost. While the leader may see clearly where they are going, their teams may not. Metaphorically, the leader who lacks self-awareness of the shadow they cast may inadvertently create problems for their team(s). ![]()
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