"Leaders are responsible for creating an environment where people are at their best".
I love this quote from Simon Sinek. But concretely, what does this mean? What kind of environment should a leader foster, and more especially in an ever-changing world?
I like to refer to a “holding environment”. A “holding environment “ is a psychological space that is both safe and uncomfortable. Concretely, a holding environment is uncomfortable enough that a person cannot avoid the problem (the change), but safe enough that the person can experiment with a new way of being.
You could compare it to the space a parent is creating for his kid when he/she learns to bike. When the father (or the mother) is running alongside the kid to catch him if needed, he is holding the space for the kid and thus creating a “holding environment” where the kid learns a new skill while feeling safe. However, if the parent is holding the bike, he is not creating a holding environment as the parent is doing most of the work and the kid enjoys the pedaling without learning to balance and steer.
Ronald Heifetz defines it as the “productive zone of disequilibrium”. The role of a leader is to bring his people in this zone to help them adapting to the changing environment, while feeling safe.
The productive zone of disequilibrium
Heifetz et al. (2009) gives the following definition of productive zone of disequilibrium:
“The optimal range of distress within which the urgency in the system motivates people to engage in adaptive work. If the level is too low, people will be inclined to complacently maintain their current way of working, but if it is too high, people are likely to be overwhelmed and may start to panic or engage in severe forms of work avoidance, like scapegoating or assassination”.
To optimally adjust the environment to move people into the productive zone of disequilibrium, a leader will call upon his intuitive intelligence to read what’s living in his system. He will turn up the heat when needed, so that it becomes more uncomfortable, and turn down the heat when people show signs of overwhelm, so that it feels safer.
Different actions can be taken to turn up the heat and to turn it down to support your people through the adaptive change journey.
If you want to know more about how to translate this into your specific environment, do not hesitate reaching out to our team (info@lead3.eu).
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