Thinking together for change — Conversational leadership

In our last article we introduced the concept of Conversational leadership.

This week we would like to explore the strategies and skills that leaders can use to implement conversational leadership.

In today’s advanced technological world, interaction between people has been minimised as conversations have been replaced by tools such as Gmail which suggests future words as one type, mobile applications that give instantaneous information by simply clicking a few buttons without us having to ask anyone.

David Gurteen, a conversational facilitator in management and organisational learning, defines Conversational Leadership as “appreciating the extraordinary but underutilised power of conversation, recognising that we can all lead, and adopting a conversational approach to the way in which we live and work together in an increasingly complex world.”

Every day, we are engaged in conversations about different questions, as we do our work. In essence our conversations and personal relations are at the heart of our work, and leaders have the responsibility of contributing to or taking energy away from this natural process.

Leaders have the choice of tapping into the intelligence of a few people or gaining the intelligence of teams by focusing on key questions and including people more intentionally in the conversation.

In a World Café dialogue experiment, participants experienced how the collective intelligence of a group can become visible as people move from one table to another over several rounds of conversation, cross-pollinating ideas, making unexpected connections, developing new knowledge, and creating action opportunities.

Below are some of the strategies that leaders can implement to encourage Conversational leadership:

λ      Huddle meetings with the team – to motivate and inspire by sharing teammates, recent successes and plans for future success.

λ      Cross departmental meetings – to discuss various business initiatives. Conflicts often arise during these meetings as leaders fight for various aspects of ownership.

Conversations around what can be done successfully to bring teams together and possible actions that can facilitate success are at the center of the discussions.

Handlining conflicts in a professional manner during cross departmental meetings helps avoid burninginsight  bridges.

Conversations between cross departments allows for systems thinking by allowing all parts of the system to be part of the conversation.

λ Coaching – when coaching employees in areas of improvement such as confidence and problem solving, Leaders make use of the permission-based question which allows the leader to ask the employee to share their areas of weakness.

Asking for permission helps the person being approached to be more receptive as they invite feedback.

It is important to note that during coaching the goal is to instill confidence through practice and positive reinforcement.

It is of paramount importance to use positive reinforcement, focusing on effort and progress of the individual.

λ Communicating negative news/ results- when communicating findings is important to communicate with the objective of guidance in order not to be viewed as complaining.

When sharing bad news, it is important to use appropriate language that encourages conversation such as visibility, perspective, share and opportunity.

This approach invokes a line of thinking in the recipient’s mind that will encourage conversation and possible solutions.

This allows for co-creation within the organisation.

A conversational leader is fluent in thoughtfully navigating within and between conversations, being deeply empathetic and using active listening skills.

Leaders must therefore realise that the way they converse has profound impact on people’s motivation, emotions, willingness to work, ability to accept feedback, acceptance of change and many other aspects of employee performance.

Chiedza Kadare is an OD Practitioner. You can get in touch with her on WhatsApp/call +263 77 283 0986 or Email chiedza.kadare@gmail.com

Paul Nyausaru is an OD Practitioner and leadership coach. For all your OD interventions and leadership development training you can get in touch with him on WhatsApp/call +263774062756 or Email pnyausaru@gmail.com