The Evolving Leader

‘Ego Flip’ with James Woodcock

• James Woodcock • Season 7 • Episode 19

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It's no secret that the world is changing rapidly (perhaps faster than many of us appreciate) and this demands a new kind of leadership. But is your ego holding back your ability to evolve and lead effectively?

In this episode, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are in conversation with business philosopher, consultant and author of ‘Ego Flip: How to Reset Your Leadership Life’, James Woodcock. The conversation goes beyond theory, exploring practical ways to understand your own perspective and offers simple, actionable ideas like the ‘one breath rule’ and ‘noticing thinking’. 

If you're interested in understanding how ego shapes not just individuals but also organizations and how leadership can evolve for the future, this episode offers valuable insights on how to potentially reset your leadership life.


Referenced during this episode:

EgoFlip (J Woodcock, 2024)


Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:

Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)

The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)


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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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Jean Gomes:

The journey of The Evolving Leader is to move our focus between the questions of self, our inner journey, and the questions of what the world needs from us the outer quest. By holding these two perspectives together, we gain not only a deeper insight and meaning, but we also tap into the vast interior resources that we all have, but many of us never fully see or access in our lives. In this show, we talk to the business philosopher and consultant James woodcock, who's thought deeply about how our ego plays into our capacity to evolve. Tune in for a fascinating conversation On The Evolving Leader.

Scott Allender:

Hi, friends. Welcome to The Evolving Leader the show born from the belief that we need deeper, more accountable, more expansive, more consistent, more human leadership to confront the world's biggest challenges. I'm Scott Allender along with my friend who needs no introduction, but I'm contractually obligated to give him one. He's a leadership guru and an expert in all things. And it's my good friend Jean Gomes. Jean, how are you feeling today, my friend,

Jean Gomes:

I'm going to check our contract. But yeah, I'm feeling excellent. Yeah, because I don't know what else you're going to pull out that's in the small the fine print. But anyway, no, I'm feeling really good. Had a very fulfilling week, lots of fun stuff, and looking forward to the weekend as well. So great start to the year. I'm also feeling needing to kind of slow down, to lean into the conversation that we're about to have today, because I know it's going to be a really great conversation, and I want to get the most out of it so so that that's how I'm feeling right now, just the need to kind of really kind of be present. So, Scott, how you feeling?

Scott Allender:

I'm feeling a bit of heaviness today, but also a bit of hopefulness. I'm just feeling, you know, we're only at the time of recording this. We're only a few days into the administration. Change in the US, and with it is already coming a lot of complexity and rapid change and a lot of big emotions from people. And I'm just sitting in this sort of gratitude for this show and this work that we do, because the I have very little influence, obviously, on what happens across the country in the world, but I feel appropriately challenged to up my leadership game in the spheres that I operate in, to be everything that we profess we want, right, more accountable, deeper, more human leadership, and I think the world needs that more than ever, potentially. And so I'm taking this moment as a challenge to myself to examine ways that I can become more like that and so. And I think this conversation is going to lend, lend to that objective, because today, we are joined by James woodcock, whose passion is the anatomy and philosophy of leadership. And for the last 25 years, James has worked with leaders across the globe to help fulfil their unique potential as an award winning programme designer and coach, he works with executives and teams to deepen their awareness of the answers that are holding them back and the questions that can transform their purpose and development. He's held senior positions as head of learning and performance innovation for PA Consulting, training mobilisation, lead for the rollout of England's COVID 19 vaccine programme, and head of agile training and coaching for one of the world's largest banks today, James is a partner within Korn Ferry's leadership development practice in the UK, and he is the author of ego flip, how to reset your leadership life. It's a deep reflection on the question, Who am I as a leader, and the implicit paradoxes that must be embraced to live that role successfully. James, welcome to The Evolving Leader.

James Woodcock:

Thank you, Scott, thanks. Thanks for the intro and yeah, great to meet you both.

Jean Gomes:

James, welcome to the show. How are you feeling?

James Woodcock:

I feel it was Friday. I always feel good enough Friday. I think, I think you were saying, Jean, you know, it's a busy week, and so I'm minded to pause and slow down for this conversation, because I think that's, you know, I've been, I've had no executive orders this week, but it's felt like, it's felt that there's a bit of you so and, yeah, I'm kind of grateful to have this conversation, because I think we need more of it. And. And we need to create the space for that and to provoke, honestly, to provoke and be open to that. So, yeah, great. Great to be here for sure.

Scott Allender:

Well, let's start with the origin of James, the leadership philosopher. Let's, let's hear some of your story, if we could.

James Woodcock:

Yeah, the origin of James. So, well, stories perhaps the origin of I've always been fascinated by stories. I was reflecting ahead of this chat about my school days, because I think when I was at school, I wanted to make movies for most of that time, actually, and I made a few and did plays and all kinds of stuff. So I've always been fascinated by stories and characters, and I think that led perhaps in the direction of wanting to understand people and how kind of people take what makes their stories. I went to university, did biology, so totally kind of different branch, but that for me was this kind of question, you said the word anatomy, you know, how does this all work? Because I've always enjoyed trying to piecing these pieces together. where we've got to reaching a bit of a bottom, because, because I think a lot of us look around today, and certainly my case, I felt a sort of frustration that there is a regurgitation of some of the sort of explanations and concepts As to what good leadership looks like that doesn't marry with the world today. We see, we see the challenges in the world today. Maybe there's a different way to do this. I was kind of keen to to delve deeply into that, and that's where ego flip came from.

Jean Gomes:

So I think you we've got a first here. If I heard you right, I think you're the first ex bouncer that we've had on the show. Is that true? I think so charming one as well.Can't place you in that role, but anyway, we all transform. So I'd like to help our listeners understand why they they should look at themselves with the ideas and tools in your book ego, Philip is divided into these three big sections. Can you kind of talk us through how it's organised and the journey that they'll go on if they, if they grab themselves a copy?

James Woodcock:

Yeah, and I think so. To answer that, it's perhaps to say who's who the book is for, because I think that's partly where I was at when I started to write, write, write the thing. And I think there's two sides to the book, in a way. One is really it's for anyone who's interested in the world, how the world works, because it is changing so quickly. My contention is that we profoundly underestimate how quickly it's changing. I think we're seeing signals of that now, if you look back through history, of course, there have always been periods of momentous change, whether it's or societal or technological. And you know, many purport to the fact that there's almost a rhythm to that, and that this is just one of those periods. My contention is that this this period, this year, is quite different, and that there's almost a confluence of these seismic changes happening, whether that's singular events or, as we say, sort of societal or technological process. It's all happening together. That's why it feels so chaotic, and perhaps so many feel so unsafe. The other side to it, and the other reason on the road, it comes back to us and to leadership, but really from a human perspective, I think we profoundly underestimate how we ourselves need to evolve to fit that future, if it's the future that we want. If you go into Google and look up a guy called Jean court, and he produced these beautiful depictions back in 1900 of what the year 2000 might look like. I think they were little sort of picture cars put into cigarette boxes at the time. And so he had to imagine what would as a Victorian 100 years hence look like. And it's fascinating, because in many ways, he was incredibly accurate. And you see these. Depictions of, you know, hairdressers where there's sort of automated hair cutting going on, or farmers with kind of all kinds of machinery. So in terms the application is brilliant. Obviously looks a little different today, but what he gets wrong in every single one of those pictures is the fact that the people stood in those photos, on those pictures, rather, are Victorians. Haven't changed this, and that's where we go wrong. We kind of think about the ourselves world. We fail to turn that back to ourselves and say, Well, what about us? What is it that we need to shift? What's that introspection we need to bring to thinking about the future? And so in a sense, the book is a journey through those aspects. The first part is what I call leading in. It is a provocation to really look at some of the kind of assumptions we make that inform our worldview. And they are worldviews I look, for example, at quite a lot about consciousness and our sort of paradigms and models around consciousness and awareness, and what does that mean in terms of how we form our sort of identity, our sense of identity. The second part is unpacking that into a series of tools. So if we're going to provoke and look at some of our assumptions, how as leaders like we need to equip ourselves to do things differently in a very practical sense, and then the last part is saying, well, actually, let's, let's go further and think about the future of leadership. What's the role of leadership in the future, and again, to provoke a question around that, because, I think particularly with the rise of AI, this is one of the angles we can take in terms of saying, Well, what is the fundamental, what's the core of leadership that we would need to retain when AI can do so much else? It's a good question to ask about leadership today, in any case. So

Scott Allender:

there's so much to unpack in that, and I love your observation. I concur completely that, you know, things are changing more quickly than most people, or many people can appreciate. In fact, there's even seemingly a sort of movement of actively resisting it, right, even this idea of kind of idealising a past that people kind of seem to want to go back to. Can you expand on on the the implications and the risks of not fully appreciating how fast things are changing? And I'd love to start hearing a little bit about the role of ego in that. How does ego play a part in that,

James Woodcock:

yeah, I think ego central to this. So probably the first place is to give a definition of ego, because there's different definitions. So Freud, for example, was this sort of executive function that was necessary to manage the instinctive demands of gratification. So in that sense, it was something you might strengthen from sort of therapeutic perspective. So I'm not talking about that. The ego that I talk about in ego flip is really the core of our sense of self, the sense that we have sort of self, sovereign identity, and that we're separate from our experience. And of course, that's common. That's a will of you. I'm a me. There's only one of me and I have autonomy and control, and there lies the rub, and it's all about control, the sense that we have control, in fact, that we need control fundamentally to change events and experiences in the world around us, in The belief that those events, those experiences, can make us happy. It's a materialist paradigm. It's the one that we all live on. It's a consumer society where we believe that we have the ability or responsibility to change the world, and it's that that can give us happiness. And there's a problem with that. And the problem is that you often can't that's the first problem. The second problem is, if you look deeply into control and ask the question, do you really have it, you find a lot of evidence to show that actually you don't, you don't have control. This locus of control that we perceive that we have, that in a sense, is a very role of leadership isn't necessarily there. I mean, what would the role of leadership be if you didn't have control? Didn't have control? It's one question we could ask. So what ego is, in a sense, one way to break it down is to say that it's a way of thinking, it's a system of beliefs through which we are have that real sense of self solving autonomy. But let me just give you one tiny, little example of where we could start to poke at this, because this because this is what I'm trying to do with the book, is to sort of unpick this. So as I'm talking to you now, I'm stood up, and I'm standing on my feet, and so I would say quite openly that, of course, I have the ability to stand on my own two feet, and so I have some autonomy to do that, but that autonomy is owed in part to the ground that I'm standing on, obviously. So you might say, okay, so yes, well, then what? What is holding up the ground, or the world's holding up the ground? So you start to tease out, okay, so do I have autonomy to do these things? We tend to think of our ability to con. Control is, well, we tend to think that there's things that are outside of our control, but then certainly things that should be. So I like to think of the example of a heartbeat, for example, as a really simple example of our heartbeat, because most of the time we don't really pay attention to that. But it, you know, it's 100,000 beats a beats a year, beats a day out. Is there? I think we don't consciously control that yet. If I had to ask both of you, okay, so consciously now, see if you can change your heart rate. So Australia, where you'll think about, okay, so how might I do that? I could do it by holding my breath, or I might, you know, jump up and down the spot. But it appears that there's something you could do to control it. So the moment you kind of give attention to that, you gain the sense that there's an agency through which you could control, that appears a sense of control. The question might be, well, in that moment you have any more control than the moment prior, there's certainly an appearance of control. Now I'm not just talking about this, just to kind of get, you know, this is interesting stuff, but this has fundamental implications for how we relate to the world, for when we seek to gain control, the sense that we have either that we are in control, you know, sometimes refer to this internal equity and control, that I have control of events, of world around us, or, in fact, that the World controls me in a sense that I'm a victim of that, therefore I might shy back from, you know, my experience, I might be passive in that regard. And we see so many examples of that based on this assertion that we believe that control is necessary and that we have it, we have responsibility for that.

Jean Gomes:

So this is a really challenging idea in a world where we have hiring calls for leaders to take more responsibility, to take more perceived control, where we have descriptions of accountability syncs, where nobody's in control, nobody owns things, and that leads to systemic failures, people dying, people being abused, people being neglected, unethical behaviour and so on. So let's kind of take this idea and think, how does this play into the notion of stronger or diminished accountability? Yeah, I mean this

James Woodcock:

is, this is where we need to be careful, and we have to careful. We have to careful is the language that we use. Because what we're not saying is, you're not in control. You don't need to do anything. It's just going to happen. But of course, that's not the case. The sense is that we have it. And so the appearance of control is undeniable. I guess what we need to be careful of it is, you know, a lot of it is about looking deep at your intent. What is your motivation that drives what you're seeking in every interaction that you have, whether it's relationships, what is your intent? And what I mean by that is, what do you need from that? How is it fulfilling you? And can you act without that need? Is there something else that you can do? I think when we think of examples of leaders where ego is less present, one of the things that, one of the simple things that we see is openness, for example, such a simple thing for the openness to ideas, the openness to for example, have deal with paradox, I mean, or dilemmas, so that we're not automatically having to form a judgement, because we need to be in a position where we feel strengthened by that, but to be open. And therefore, I often think of those people who've, as they say, sometimes take time to sit down with their enemies, you know, and to see the other side, the other sort of side of the fence, and gain different perspectives, and not be fixated on your own at the expense of another. So there's something about recognising that the intent that you have to gain control. You know, it's not about not taking part in the game. In fact, in that sense, in terms of the appearance of control, it may look like you can gain more control in that way.

Jean Gomes:

That's a helpful starting point. And I think where, you know, people listening here have a very high degree of a sense of needing to be in control, and their jobs also are constantly pointing to, I mean, I'm thinking of a sales director, for example. You know, then where the pressures every day, every month, or it's like, what are we doing to seize every ounce of opportunity and control over closing sales or creating new leads and so on? So what you're talking about from a philosophical point of view is that it's not it's not about losing responsibility for it. It's about how you think about the influence you put into this and where you can stay open to the answers of being able to deliver accountability.

James Woodcock:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean. The ego creates fear. Let's put it another way. It creates fear because we're concerned that we're going to lose something. So if you take a sales person, for example, if their activity is driven by the fear that they need to achieve their targets, they're going to behave in a certain way. But that fear that's created is not about the sales. Is it something that is created through our own sense of what we think we need to fulfil ourselves to be happy. So we think happiness looks like hitting a sales target, and that is how we're going to fulfil who we think we need to be. If it's dependent on that, we're going to act accordingly. You can have somebody who's equally or even more accomplished at hitting their sales figures, but there's a different intent as to why they want to get those figures. And if they don't hit those figures, it doesn't necessarily form a judgement that they put upon themselves. So part of it is looking very closely, again, as I said, intent and what is it that you need from your experience? And unfortunately, we live in a world where the world is telling us very frequently what it is we should want. You know, organisations measure us on that basis and recognise from all performance on the basis. So part of it is just noticing, but there's a lot of noise out there that will tell you again, this is, unfortunately, a fixation, an external fixation that tells you what you should be thinking, creating the space to step back from that and ask yourself, Is that actually what I want? Sometimes it's as simple as that kind of question, is that what I really want? Is that what I, you know, want in the long term? I think partly this, what happens from a mindset perspective, is we tolerate this fear on the assumption that it's short term, and that's how targets often where we motivated. To get over line to do that. What if that wasn't the case? What if? What if there's something you had to do for years and years now? Is that what you want? What if you suddenly weren't getting paid for your job anymore? Do you still do it if you're in a place of fear? It's unlikely. It doesn't have to be that way.

Scott Allender:

This is super fascinating. We're equating a lot of the ego conversation into into control. So I and I love the framing you've got, you've given. Do you see any other types of egos at play, you know? So I guess I'm thinking of people that I've coached and worked with where, you know, part of their ego is trying to usurp control, and they might do that even more in a world that's feeling more uncertain. But I've also worked with leaders whose ego is one where they desperately want to be liked and popular and pleasing to people, and part of their issue is that they don't, they don't influence outcomes enough. They sort of are more passive, and they have to sort of almost assert themselves more. And do you see that playing out as well in terms of the way that ego gets in the way, or kind of a different angle on this challenge of control or influence. Yeah.

James Woodcock:

So we tend, we tend to think so I kind of draw scale, and at one end, I'd have what I call kind of faster ego, and then the other end, passive ego. We tend to think of the former, and that is because this is an individual who believes that they have control of events in the world around them, and they have this sort of internal ecosystem control, so they act on impulse. If something goes wrong, they'll blame somebody, and they make a lot of noise. But that that exists, you know, in politics, in media and organisations, alongside passive ego, and that's those individuals, as you say, who feel that they aren't in control. They'll be hesitant, they'll be risk averse, they'll step back, and they'll, in effect, create space for for that faster ego, that they're both forms of ego. The difference is their locus of control. They both believe that control is necessary and is evident, and that they need it, but the way they relate to it has different ways. And of course, for each of us, you know, there may be situations where we're one and situations where the other it's not that you're predominantly one necessarily, although we tend to play a role within an organisation, you know, we'll find a way to become effective, and we'll set up power dynamics and organisations in order to assert that authority, you know. And that is how you create hierarchies and organisations, because you create these power dynamics to allow ego to kind of manifest in that sense, but they're two ends of a spectrum. In a sense you get both.

Scott Allender:

Yeah, it's helpful. Thank you.

Jean Gomes:

What so once we've started to become more aware of the fear and the way in which our ego will adapt to these situations. How do we flip it? What are the practical things that we now need to start talking about? Yeah,

James Woodcock:

there's lots of things you can do, and also you can make it overly complicated. In a sense, the problem starts the moment you start to create a process for this, because ego loves a process. Another way of just. Loving ego is, it's this belief that you need to become something going

Jean Gomes:

wrong all these years. Yeah,

James Woodcock:

and that. But it is, it is, you know, it's sort of addicted to the search, whatever that search is, you know, whether it's, I need to, you know, get a better at this. It's a belief that I need something more than I have. It's, it's a lack of acceptance that doesn't mean that we wouldn't go and be passionately learning about something, but we're not in terms of how we value our self dependent on that. So we have to be careful about getting a kind of a process. There are a few things that are important, and the first is knowing who you are. So if you if you want to flip the ego. When we talk about flipping ego, for example, stepping outside of ego, it's about shifting your perspective. So we all have particular perspectives, and they get fixed when we have that sense of self. So how do we change that? The first thing is to to understand, what is that perspective that you're starting with? What is that point of view? In the book, I have created a model called ego dynamics, where I've tried to break that down into a level of detail, to say, actually, in any one situation, we have what I call a governing thought. And it is this governing intent, and it's defined from an ego perspective, in terms of what is it that I need to fulfil me right now in the situation? And it's how we form our relationships, it's how we interact with others. That's how we build trust, that governing thought creates that focus of attention, that perspective.

Jean Gomes:

So an example of a governing thought might be what?

James Woodcock:

So it could be that I need, I need you to get what I want. In this situation, I need you to get what I want, what I want could be different. I could flip it around, and I could say, actually, my belief is that you need me to get what you want. And there's a whole different array of these, and they're quite they have quite precise egoic emotions attached to each of those egoic emotions being a little bit different emotions in general, because there are not enough words to describe, let's say emotions generally, because we feel everything. That's one thing to say. You go, emotions are quite definitive and specific, and it's about how we how they inform our perspective. So, yeah, the first step is to really understand, Okay, so who am I in this situation? In a sense, it's another way to say it is. It's almost like stepping outside of our story, because we get lost in our narratives, in our heads, in our thinking. So if you can step outside of that and notice what's going on, it's much easier to sort of see who you are being in that moment. Now the temptation when you can see how you are is to react to that, and in a sense, ego is basically always resisting how we're feeling in any given moment. That's what it is. It's resisting an emotion. So it could be, for example, that we're feeling anger, and that anger could be in resistance to a feeling of guilt that's underlying that the moment you surface, that there could be some guilt there, the temptation is to shy away from that. So there's an element here which is about simple acceptance. If you can look upon who are on seeking not to change it, that's the most important thing. And again, that sounds paradoxical. We're talking about changing it, but actually is not almost be happy with that. So that's the first part, that there's also something about just coming back to this process aspect of the case. But what could I do? What could I do differently? And the book's got lots of examples of things you can do. I'll just pick two that I think are important because they're so simple, and I use them quite a lot. One of them is and it relates back to what we said there about sort of fast ego and passive ego. So let's take the example of somebody who has passive ego, somebody who finds themselves in situations holding back or they don't step forward, for example. And one of the practices is a really simple practice, involves breath, and it evolves, involves getting outside of thinking. So I'll give a simple example. It's not so much a work example, but we are in January now, so you might find that it's quite hard to get out of bed in the morning because it's dark and cold and you might have to get up early. How do you do that? So if you notice that when you're in bed and you want to get out of bed, the moment you start thinking about it, it becomes almost impossible to do unless there's a huge compulsion to do it the moment you give it too much attention and thinking, of course, all you'll do is you'll come up with the reasons why you don't. The reasons why you don't have to do that, and I can do that later. So the trick, the hack, in a sense, is to break that thinking. And so the way to do that is to act quickly. So the technique I talk about in the book this, this one one breath rule, is very simple. So if you find yourself in a situation where you find that you need to act, and habitually you're used to not acting, you take a breath in, and you say to yourself the word one in your head, and then you breathe out. So you think the word breath, and then the moment you breathe out, you act. And the reason. This such simple process as a work. And work is because the first thing it does, it takes you out of thinking. You have to think, to think one in breath. You're, in effect, creating a cue. So next time you do it, you've remembered this, so your attention goes to it more easily. And the third thing is, it's quick. You haven't got time to work it through. You don't get stuck in thinking. One breath you set in your head and you act and it sounds so simple, but, but the moment we try and make it more complicated is a moment we tipping to as a process, and you're not ready. And half the problem is this belief that we need to be ready. I love who you always quote that, you know, there's no such thing as ready. There's a there's only now. And that's the truth of it. Many books sell themselves by telling me there's a there's a process you have to follow. Often it's not get rid of the process, just do

Jean Gomes:

it. Where did you come across this? Where does this come from?

James Woodcock:

The idea comes from realising that we are addicted to thinking and we don't notice it. Say more about that. Yeah, so we can get lost in thinking. And I think it's easy, an easy habit to do. And a good example of that, and one of the recognising myself is almost a pursuit of understanding and thinking that actually that, you know, the more understanding, the more can solve it. And we can get lost in that. In same ways we can kind of get lost in in stories. And so one of the important things of ego is to better notice how you're thinking. Notice how you're thinking. Thinking is obviously an incredibly useful cognitive ability. The challenge with ego is when it can hijack our thinking, when we are creating judgments about ourself. When that happens, obviously, then that affects how we lead, and has lots of ramifications in terms of how we show up and how we relate to others. But it's very easy when you're in thinking not to notice that. So there's a practice of just stepping out and stepping back and noticing what's going through your head. I mean, we could talk about mindfulness. One of the ways that people do that, the challenge is to do that in the flow of day to day. You know, it's not going in a room and finding a moment to kind of have calm. How do you do that in the many moments of your day and be able to step out. One of the ways I think about it is almost notice the heaviness, the stickiness of thinking, because if you can be conscious, whether it's in conversations with people, what is your freedom of thought? How free do you feel in that moment? Or do you feel you're getting stuck and taking as a practice to just to step outside of that and allow yourself to notice how you're thinking, rather than letting it hijack you.

Scott Allender:

What does that unlock for you personally, when you do that, what have you noticed in your own leadership and your own approach to things?

James Woodcock:

So for me, the unlock has been that we tend to think that we can control what we're going to think, and we've formed judgments around that. My experience of being able to often what happens with the train of thought is it can almost get stuck in a certain gear, being able to step outside of that and create a space for that. And it is simply probably a space of pause that can come from going to different places. Sometimes it's often a case of just going going for a walk. I mean, just talking in practical terms, putting your head into a kind of a different area of focus, and then going back to what you're doing. Suddenly you bring a different idea. So we can get caught up in almost a loop of thinking, and we don't realise it. So the important thing for me is almost to build it as a bit of a practice, to take time in the day, for example, to to allow yourself to not get on that kind of treadmill of constantly having to solve stuff. I think we all feel responsibility for solving things, you know, and if we're not solving something, if we don't understand something, then somehow we're not sort of living up to the expectation, or we could be doing more. There's a huge amount of productivity that, in my experience, it comes from stepping back from that and allowing yourself a break so that when you come back again, you have new ideas. I mean, that's, in many ways, we think about the creative process absolutely essential to create space for that. At the same time, what it's doing is it's it's saying, You know what? I don't know what it's going to come up next. And I'm happy with that. There's a value to me just stepping back from this

Scott Allender:

that's super practical and useful. You outlined sort of eight practical tools to build a leadership manifesto. Could you touch on? I know we don't have time to go into depth across all of them, but maybe you could just sort of hit on them, and we could maybe pick one or two to go deeper onto.

James Woodcock:

Yeah, the manifest. So in the book is is very much about what are the different things we need to dial up as leaders to be able to lead outside and beyond ego. And so one of the things I talk about of the 80s is this idea of radical transparency. And I talk about it both in terms of how an organisation might demonstrate that, but also, and importantly, what that would mean for you. So at an organisational level, of course, this has many different kind of ramifications. In terms of, how does it decide to share information with its employees? How does it sort of entrust that information to employees? What does it kind of decide that it's important to hold back? I mean, the EU directive around pay transparency, for example, is a good example of something that's come up relatively recently. We decided that actually, if we can allow people to see with that greater transparency, you know what people are getting paid, then there's an opportunity to try greater equity within that organisation, whereas previously, that information was locked away. The more important aspect, in a way, when we talk about radical transparency, is on an individual level, and it's about how you prepared to show up. And then it starts to dip into things like, you know, authenticity. So when you show up to organisation, how much do you show of yourself? How much you prepared to show others? Now, when I think of, you know, examples of great leaders that have really connected with people, it's been those who have almost been open book in the sense of presenting themselves as being verbal and human, and the inviting effect that that has on other people. The power of that is immense. Another aspect of this and transparency that's come up, actually, relatively recently is around feedback. There is an example of you know, process where typically feedback is something that's closed book. It's done perhaps as a one to one conversation. It's not something that tends to get shared, and yet, it's a really important process. The question is, well, what's it driving? And so I was reading recently, you know, that the CEO in the video was talking about how he didn't do one to one feedback. He does it in groups, and doesn't believe a that it has capacity to do it, but actually the value of having feedback in groups and open forums is that, of course, then the opportunities that anybody gets to learn from that conversation. Of course, that requires a huge amount of trust. Sounds like a great idea, but you do have the trust, because feedback is ultimately personal, so it can prove counterproductive if you don't kind of hold it in that sense. I mean, my view is that that's that's great, and you still need to have one to one conversations. Because I think, again, coming back to the role of a leader, there's a critical role of a leader to be able to connect on an individual, personal basis with somebody, to build that trust, which is more than just feedback has to be a two way conversation. So, yes, absolutely, but there are a lot of opportunities for organisations to increase transparency. The question is, you know, in some ways, what do you need for that? What you know? What's the bold move that it's going to take to open that up? Because, you know, there's a risk that if you try and do and it can have the wrong effect, if, if the leadership is not there to support it in the right

Jean Gomes:

way, and that that, that is the very question that comes to mind with all of these things. Because if you're going to be a progressive organisation, you have to know where to start first, to create the safety or to create the means. Because, as you say, if you if you did a you know, some of the things that other organisations are trying, like, like open feedback that could just become hostage to the existing culture and power systems. And you describe how that ego works at large. And you you talk about the evil genius organisation. Can you expand on that?

James Woodcock:

Yeah, the evil genius organisation. If we think about when we've been talking a lot about ego, the sort of individual level, how ego plays out on a sort of macro scale, what we see are these sort of dynamics, these pattern that makes it I mentioned earlier. And when you look at an organisation as in a hierarchical system, it creates these axes of control that I talk about in the book. For example, on one end, you could have predictive power, so an organisation absolutely needs to be able to predict the future come up with the right answers. On the other end of the scale, it also needs to have what you could call disruptive power. You know, the power to envision vision changes and disruption in that organisation. You need both of those and these axes. What's interesting is they sort of tend the organisation between order and chaos. And this is a dilemma that every organisation. And faces that it needs to create control within that system and at the same time that will also kill it. So it has to evolve at the same time. And so this sort of tension between this, you know, ordering, chaos, and the competing, almost powers that you can create, creates this dilemma in many ways. It's the role of leadership to reconcile that, but it creates a space for ego to play. You know, we think about predictive power people often form here as a great authority by the information and knowledge that they have in their organisation. So they can choose to allow the free flow of that, or they can choose to leverage that, and similarly, from a disruptive power perspective. You know how they might create sort of authority and organisation to create change, to build networks to do so. So the evil genius organisation is saying, well, actually, we need to pay attention to where these power dynamics can establish themselves, and the role that leaders play. And of course, across each of these dilemmas, there's an opportunity to do things differently, and really what, what the book is encouraging us to do is to say, actually, well, how do you support the organisation best to allow the free flow of value through those different axes of control. How do you give control away? Is often one of the ways to do that. Often think from a leadership perspective, the greatest actor leader can have is to work out how, how do you give give power to others, which is the opposite of of ego leadership, which is always seeking to gain greater control and greater power.

Jean Gomes:

Where are you seeing examples of organisations embracing this or being good at doing this?

James Woodcock:

I think one of the one of the interesting ones is when we look at B Corps, B Corp organisations, and these, obviously organisations which are really thinking about not just the benefit of what they do to their organisation, but the greater societal impact. And I think in many ways, it's challenging for an organisation. Are your goals? Are the goals of your leaders? Big enough? I think what's interesting is, and we find this in politics, I think as well as well, sometimes when we look at organisations actually to be successful, to kind of harness that greater level of control, the goals are far too small. And you can see that in different parts of an organisation, this idea of when we have these bigger goals, sometimes seemingly impossible goals, that we're trying to face, the only way to solve those goals is is to work across a bigger system that could be within an organisation, obviously different parts of organisation, or within an ecosystem of other organisations. And so that requires a certain type of leader to do that, to work across the whole kind of network of the enterprise or beyond. It also requires such a leader to have courage to kind of go first, because that's a brave place you have to play and when you're trying to achieve these bigger goals, because it requires more than yourself, the value of that is obviously these, these sometimes called impossible goals bring huge purpose to those who work to them. I think about the example you mentioned in the intro when I worked on the COVID vaccination programme, and that was what I would call one of these impossible goals. It was a challenge that we'd never really had to face before, and working in that organisation, working in the NHS, we quickly realised that the only way to solve this was to bring all the different organisations that wouldn't normally work closely together, all the way together so we could work extremely collaboratively. The only way that that that was possible, ultimately, was this recognition that there was a purpose far bigger than ourselves that just drove away so much the bureaucracy. Everybody just said, Yep, we just have to find a way to make this happen. Had our goal been narrow, that would not have been possible. So it's interesting to see how some of those barriers dropped away when we could work across a far bigger system to get that done. I mean, ultimately, I think the UK was the first Western nation to deliver the vaccine nearly 2020 and it was for that reason, for that reason, that recognition of this bigger goal. So organisations that do this well, I think are ones who have that and have bigger aspirations.

Sara Deschamps:

If the conversations we've been having on The Evolving Leader have helped you in any way. Please share this episode with your network, friends and family. Thank you so much for listening. Now let's get back to the conversation you

Scott Allender:

You closed the book with some thoughts about the future. Can we talk about these?

James Woodcock:

Yeah, I think so. Am I an optimist or pessimist? It's one way to answer that I'm an optimist. I mean, I think you've met as this is kind of a recording obviously, Trump has recently become president, and that's brought his own sense of turbulence. I think there is a route in the world right now of increasing polarisation, there's a concern that we're going to see the emergence of bigger superpowers. I think, actually think that's sort of inevitable. My optimism lies in the fact that I think, first of all, from a technological perspective, and the progress of technology, and I mentioned at the start, the pace of that, I think fundamentally, technology is probably our only way out of this. The challenge that we have, on a sort of global level, is obviously the scarcity of resources, the plundering of those resources and this consumer society is creating has a threshold in the course that's creating greater competition when we need greater collaboration. Because the bigger goal in all of this is obviously the planet, and then it just appears that we haven't realised that yet. So the question is, will we, at some point come together to solve that? I think we will, but I think it's going to come through technology. Technology is a double edged sword, because for everything it helps us solve, it also creates the risk of it being weaponized in some other sort of aspect. But I am optimistic, and ultimately I'm optimistic for the simple reason that I think when we come back to who we think we are, I think we all have an innate sense of connection, I think where we see polarisation and, you know, sort of entrenched nation states, it appears that we've retracted from that. But actually, I believe for all of us, there's a sense that, actually, you know, we are part of something bigger, intimately part of something bigger. I think that that innate sense will ultimately drive us in a positive direction.

Scott Allender:

Well, I'm glad you're optimistic. I need that. I need that optimism to wash over me.

Jean Gomes:

We definitely do. And I think it's not about just sort of being pragmatic and trying to, just trying to pick out the best of what's actually happening. It's it's about having vision for what can come next. And you know, I think what's great about your work is that it provides some really practical things about how to evolve yourself with the realities that we face. So I'm interested to know what's next for you. James, what do you what are you into inventing or working on next?

James Woodcock:

Yeah, I mean, the work that I'm doing at the moment is kind of at two ends of a spectrum. Again, I do coaching work, and so I think there's something that I enjoy deeply around one to win interactions. The other side of the work that I do is looking at a great with organisations and looking at the system, and how can we unlock leaders in that system to really activate the organisation. So I think again, coming back to the role of leaders, the role that they play, my work as a consultant in leadership development has really been thinking about the formal side of leadership. How do we take leaders, how do we develop leaders to drive an organization's strategy? And what's fascinating now and is the opportunities to actually work on a broader level, so that leaders really are in a position to activate organisations. Every organisation is going through transformation. This is reality. How can you place leaders in a position where they can really drive that? We need to think a bit differently about, therefore, how we support them in that and so the work that I'm helping with, and hope to be more involved in the future, is to help organisations think systemically about how we support leaders in that role. Because I think historically, when we think of digital development, it's often in small pockets and small places. What we really want to do is create sort of flywheel effect. How can we create something over here in the system that has an effect over here that creates an amplification, that creates an energy and activation from leadership as a whole, and that that that's necessary, again, because of the pace that organisations are moving, we need to quit leaders to play the role that we need.

Jean Gomes:

So I'd like to ask you a quick question about if there was a if there was something you could place in people's mind, a question that you could place in leaders mind right now that they think about in their downtime at the weekend or whenever they're travelling. What might that be okay.

James Woodcock:

So I think a question that I've so as a little seed would be the one we mentioned earlier, which is, what do you need to be ready and to really challenge yourself? Around that most of the growth and opportunity comes when you realise actually you will never reach that point. And so the other question is, what if you're ready now? So my sense is, many of us put things off. I'm sure we could probably all write a list of things that we want to achieve. What What if you just did it now, what if you kind of, it's actually, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give that a go. You know, that may be the source of greatest learning to do that. So that might be the question. And use this weekend and try it out.

Jean Gomes:

Yeah, I'm going to.

Scott Allender:

I love it. James, thank you for joining us today and sharing a bit of your work. Really appreciate your Dear listener, thank you for joining us, and please do order insights. your copy of ego flip if you haven't already. And until next time, remember the world is evolving. Are you?

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Jean Gomes

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Scott Allender

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