How to Lead Other Leaders

Hi there, I'm Ben Morton and welcome to another episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. It's the weekly micro edition of my podcast. Each episode is just six minutes long and is designed to provide you with tips, tools and tactics around specific aspects.

Of leadership and management.

It addresses some of the most common, common challenges you will face as a leader or manager. They are all recorded unscripted whilst I'm out walking in the countryside. So you'll probably hear birds tweeting in the background or just ambient noise as the people around me are going about.

Their day to day life.

That's all I'm going to say by way of an introduction. So let's dive straight in to this week's episode.

If you have recently been promoted and now find yourself in a situation where you are leading other leaders, then this episode of the Leaders Kit Bag is just what you need. In this episode we're going to dive deeper into David Rock's scarf model that I gave an overview to in a previous episode and we're going to be looking specifically how we can use that to help you take other leaders with you and achieve the success you are hoping for as a leader of leaders. If you missed that last episode, I'll.

Link to it with this episode so.

You can go back and get the overview of the Scarfe model. Let's not kid ourselves. Leading other leaders can be a daunting and sometimes scary proposition, especially when we are doing it for the very first time. When we are leading other leaders, those people will have strong opinions and ideas. They'll have high expectations of us as a leader. They've got their own track record of success and achievement. And you can add into the mix the fact that some of them probably wanted and went for the job that we have now got. So it can be a daunting task to successfully establish yourself as a leader in this situation. The first thing I encourage you to do is reflect upon your own experiences as a senior leader. It's highly likely you have been in the situation yourself where you've suddenly had a new leader, perhaps with the same amount of experience as you. Perhaps they are younger and less experienced than you. And that being the case, I want you to reflect upon your own experience.

What was it that those leaders you've.

Had in the past did well? What were some of the things that you liked that engaged you and led you to want to follow them and their ideas? And then think about how you can replicate those in your own unique and authentic way? Similarly, in those situations, and this one might Take a little bit more honesty is to think about what were some of the things that they did that really turned you off that you didn't like, and to think about how you can ensure that you are not doing those things yourself. Think about the times when you might potentially fall into some of those traps. So that's the first thing. The second thing is to really think about the SCARF model. So SCARF being an acronym that stands for status, Certainty, Autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Let's just briefly look at status when we are leading other leaders. It's a fair bet to assume that status is going to be pretty important for quite a few of the leaders you are leading. By nature of leading other leaders, they've probably got a huge amount of experience, achievements, and prior success. So we need to think about all of the things we can do to keep their status bucket topped up. How can we seek their input, recognize their achievements, and really tap into their experience and expertise? Because when we do, it'll give them a status boost which is going to generate a positive behavioral response. And at the same time, we need to make sure we are not doing anything that could potentially attack their sense of status or kick their status bucket over, if you will, because that will generate a very strong negative behavioral response. It actually activates the same part of the brain that is activated when we feel physical pain. The same part of the brain lights up and as if when I kicked you in the shin. So that gives you a little insight into how you can use one part of the SCARF model to effectively lead other leaders. I'll leave you to think through how you can use some of the other elements. And if you want some more advice on this, do check out the link accompanying this episode to my clone, Benai, and you can always ask him. Have a conversation with Ben AI around how you can use the SCARF model.

That's it for this episode.

As always, look after yourself. Look after those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, lead on.