How to really create value as a leader

I was looking at the recent World Economic forum top skills for 2023. Those who read these regularly won’t be overly surprised – in the top 10 we have analytical and creative thinking at top of the list, with resilience, flexibility and agility next on the list. These cognitive skills are reported to be growing in importance the fastest.
 
What does this mean for leadership? Aside from needing these skills themselves, leaders have to lead for these skills. We need our leaders to help create the right environment for their teams to do their best thinking. Not only that, but do their best thinking in rapidly changing and unstable conditions, which have more potential to create stress for people. Not an easy task, particularly for those who have grown up under leadership expectations where they feel they should have all the answers, be able to solve all the problems and be accountable for delivery as well.
 
So what type of environment fosters “good thinking”? Of course it will vary for the individual, but one thing we do know – brains under acute stress (in “fight, flight or freeze” mode) are geared for escaping a threat rather than creativity or deep thinking. In flight or flight mode, a lot of the ‘higher order’ cognitive functions are paused, and memory sharpens so the brain can focus on the ‘tried and true’ strategies that have allowed it to escape threats previously. This might sound familiar if you’ve ever tried to have a heated ‘logical’ argument with someone – usually resulting in one or both people digging their heels in, storming off in a huff or going silent/conceding. This can work OK to solve repeat problems using the same strategies, but what about new challenges, novel problems, things that we’ve never confronted before? These effects on our cognition are worse if we are in a constant state of stress. I remember one leader I had earlier in my career who shouted at me while I was trying to manipulate a complicated spreadsheet – my brain literally shut down and I couldn’t think, after the call I had to lie down on the floor to recover (luckily was at home not in the office)!
 
If a leader inadvertently puts their team members into fight or flight (shouting, shaming, aggression, undermining, inconsistent/unpredictable behaviour to name a few red flags), they are shutting down the possibility for complex thinking - they won’t get the best from their team members’ brains and as a result will have less positive impact as a leader, and effectively destroy value that comes from this complex thinking for their organisation.
 
There are a number of things you can do as a leader to help create better conditions for thinking (yours and your team’s), and hence increase the value you contribute as a leader – will cover these in my next few posts. Have you had a leader who was either fantastic or terrible at helping your thinking?