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4.4 | Spend time reading about the Google Oxygen Leadership Model. Identify an area of your leadership that needs more attention. Explore steps, conversations, and actions to cultivate growth in this area. Post insights.
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Being a clearer communicator when I am making a request that I think the other might not like would be helpful for me to work on.
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Google’s new addition of “is a strong decision maker” struck a chord. I know I am capable of being decisive and making difficult decisions. However, cultural norms at my current workplace and expectations around collaboration have clouded my ability to know when and how it is appropriate or welcomed to be decisive. In some ways, I recognize I have become “timid”—not out of fear, but in an attempt to intuit expectations and align with unspoken cultural norms. I’ve witnessed the consequences of not getting this right, including design by committee, and team members experiencing a lack of confidence and uncertainty about their own decision-making authority. I am not alone in raising this issue, and it is on the radar at a leadership level, too. We (I) have some work to do to better understand where to draw the line between decisiveness/compromise/consensus for the benefit of our teams and our mission.
As a first step, I can establish clear expectations within my own team: being open, up-front, and clear with my direct reports about expectations I have regarding how they exercise their own decision-making authority. As a second step, we can continue dialog at the leadership level in an effort to align expectations and approaches to decision-making across the organization.
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Over the years, I believe that I have had numerous leadership experiences where I naturally excelled. Things seem to go in phases where I learn a new skill: direct clear communication, provider of actionable feedback, respect/consideration to the other, keeping the vision/goals for the team, etc etc. Overall, I have good leadership skills and I feel good “knowing” this. However, the COVID pandemic and working with people over ZOOM has handicapped my abilities. The creativity that comes out of connecting with folks “live” is missing on zoom; it is there a little bit but not like when we are live with others sitting at the table working out the issues at hand. This covid time has challenged my natural confidence as a leader and I have had to pay attention to make sure that Zoom somehow does not “dilute” me. That is how I have felt. Diluted. Sometimes ineffective. My spiritual practice – meditation and mindfulness – have really served me well in this regards and helped me stay centered through this process. Most notably it seems like there is much meanness and lack of kindness abounding in systems; esp in my system where certain teams hold other teams in contempt. I often feel protective of my staff and our system which serves the most vulnerable adults. I have been working on trying to keep the team focused and centered. One area I would like to work on is to develop meaningful discussions with each manager individually about their career goals/development. I used to do this quite a bit and I need to return to the individual managers; not just the team! I will make this a goal for 2022!
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#2 has always been a challenge foe me. That is why I embarked on this course. I have historically been managing most all aspects of my business. It has kept my business small. It has kept my heart small. The steps, conversations and actions have all happened here with this group.Our Wisdom Circle has opened my heart and mind to the beauty that exists in collaboration and supporting others.
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I feel that I can always work on being a better communicator (#5). As a digression: one of the things that strikes me about the Google Oxygen Leadership Model is its name–Oxygen–and how that ties back to our breathing exercises in mindfulness, inhaling and exhaling as foundational, elemental exchanges.
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An area that needs more attention is the decision making. As a leader I still struggle with making decisions for the whole team at times and have a hard time trusting myself in the process. I am becoming more aware of my fears and motivations behind this area and making improvement by just utilizing mindfulness of body techniques to be present when I struggle with it. From that placing of inviting it in and holding space for it rather than jumping into making more decisions mindlessly falling into the other extrema I am capable of making decisions with presence and trust.
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My area is clearer communication, which makes me think of the saying “clear is kind”. Sometimes I decide not to explain something because what I would say sounds like an excuse. I’m not a fan of excuses because there is a tendency to place fault on an external event so I struggle to offer reasons that do not sound like excuses. I also have am a person who stutters and will sometimes not choose to talk because stuttering is not expected or anticipated and people can respond in some unkind ways. So not talking can be a form of self-protection.
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I think my formal/informal leadership areas to pay more attention to are good communication skills, particularly sharing information. Sometimes, my attention is hyper-focused on input and gathering data that I may not prioritize sharing as much as I could or should. However, I can also be more proactive and prepared to help with career development, especially networking.
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For me the, ““Has a clear vision/strategy for the team”” is the part I’d want to work on, mostly strategy. I usually have a vision but have realized that I don’t fully lean into it for fear of coming off as not as educated or being dismissed as being too “woo-woo” as some people call it. I’m in a very political, almost academic field with my organization and doing things like slowing down and breathing can often be seen as avoiding “real work.” This goes against a lot of my fundamental beliefs but understanding and research that shows how important it is we do more supportive nourishing things.
I think if I was able to better outline and propose my strategies for the visionary ideas that got me into my role, it would be better adapted and easier to back why I think they’re important to implement and likely garner me more support in my struggle to change the dynamic currently existing within the organization.
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My intention for 2022 is to be intentional about sharing information back and sharing as much knowledge as possible. I take for granted that some things come easy to me (speaking with partners, analysis, writing, staying organized) and I want to be more intentional in sharing with others how I do these things. I plan to become a mentor to several of my colleagues and share more of this information.
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“Is a good coach” and “Empowers the team and does not micromanage” stood out as areas of my leadership that need more attention. I think the two go hand-in-hand. If someone comes to me with a question, I am more likely to take the approach of telling them what I would do (which can sometimes come across as micromanaging) vs. coaching them to come up with their solution. I prefer to listen to them actively and then do some powerful questioning to help them land on some possibilities they can try and a plan to implement. To cultivate growth in this area, I enrolled in a coach training program in November.
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The model is a great list in terms of reflection . I thought about a couple of areas I can improve on and how they interact. One is the “sharing information” point in communication. I obviously do this, but have been reflecting recently that when I get very busy I can assume others know what I know and not spend enough time on intentionally using potentially time-consuming iformal and informal channels to make sure everyone does actually know. This model reinforced how important this sharing is and how interdependent some of these traits are – the sharing information partly underpins both empowering people effectively and creating a creating an inclusive environment.
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I definitely have a hard time with the “results-oriented” part of the model. I am aware I carry an internal resistance to this idea of being productive and focusing on results. I feel a lot of pressure and stress about it and have difficulty opening up to this perspective, because inside there is a part of me that thinks I should be focused on people rather than results.
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My area of leadership is result-oriented, because we desire success and achievement for those we are serving.
There is a level of pressure to achieve. Certainly, it is important that I practice responsibility and humility. I do realize how important it will be for me to hold space for myself, as well as for those who need it more. -
I’ve found this model really valuable for diagnosing what’s going well and areas for improvement. Some of the areas I think I can do better are: productive and results oriented; supports career development. I really like the analogy of playing chess, rather than checkers and playing to people’s strengths. I am currently working on setting clearer metrics and tools for measuring impact with my teams. In the new year I intend to have career growth conversations with each of my direct reports to improve in the two key areas I think I have most room for growth.
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