Stretch Your Thinking for Better Leadership
Our understanding of leadership is built on what we know, and what we’ve been taught. This idea of leadership – setting objectives and the paths to get to them, holding employees accountable for getting work done in an efficient way – while embodying concepts of what a leader should be, risks becoming stagnant: this is what we need, this is how we get there, go.
But why? Why not challenge that? Move outside the comfortable, structured ways of leadership. The best ideas are often those born from innovation and creativity, and while comfort can breed success, it’s not going to inspire these new, innovative ideas. But stretching your thinking in leadership will.
What do we mean when we refer to stretch thinking in leadership?
To start, you need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, be willing to lean into things you don’t know. This is the only way you’ll find space for innovation – innovating processes and ideas stem from taking a step back from the ‘normal’, and someone who is willing to do that is willing to stretch their thinking.
Stretch thinking is all about being creative and playing with the possibilities rather than intrinsically planning a process and sticking with it. So, enabling leaders to stretch their thinking is going to improve innovation and, often, long term success. While the possibility of failure is far greater, it also provides an opportunity to learn from the mistakes and challenges to try again. This way of thinking helps to unlock the otherwise locked potential of both leaders and employees.
To enable leaders to stretch their thinking, aspects that might act as ‘anchors’ to specific thoughts, ideas and processes should be removed in order to allow leaders to look for alternative paths and actions.
Easy ways to start stretching your thinking
Recognize you don’t know it all
Often, we can get stuck in our ways. The processes we know (or at least know work) and are comfortable with are what we automatically revert to. Why? Because it’s easier! But, we should recognize that there are often better ways of doing things, and being open to understanding that might be the first simple step in stretching your leaders thinking for creativity and success.
Embrace curiosity
Rather than sticking to your ways, embrace the curiosity you or your people might have. Like ‘I wonder what would happen if I automated this way of working using new technologies?’ Or ‘what if we took a different approach, what ideas might be thrown into the mix then?’ Curiosity is the foundation of learning new things and embracing new things. While our curiosity might take us to a place where we’re not comfortable, it might also spark new ideas, new ways of working and more.
Step out of your comfort zone
Linking to embracing curiosity, in order to allow for stretch thinking as a leader, you need to be able to step out of your comfort zone. As soon as you do, you allow yourself to think bigger, rather than having a focused mindset. Don’t get us wrong, a focused mindset is key to success, but at times allowing your mind and ideas to broaden will also contribute to success.
Challenge predetermined concepts
Your leaders being stuck in their ways of working might be hindering innovation. In order to embrace stretching your thinking as a leader, challenge what you think you know. Think ‘but why?’ Or ‘but what if?’ Allow your team and employees to do the same and build a culture of innovation when stretch thinking becomes the norm. Creativity is often what sets organizations apart from their competitors, so, challenge those preconceived notions.
Listen and learn
Be prepared to listen to others that are challenging the norms within your industry. Learn from them! Another outlet that might help you open up your thinking as a leader is coaching. Specialized coaches can help you experiment with and innovate teams, processes, goals and more by challenging your preconceived notions and pushing you to think further.