By Stuart Carruthers
Introduction
The approach of Ontological Coaching has much to offer the field of leadership, whatever the organisation and the position of the leader. In short, the knowledge base, principles, practices and skills of the ontological approach to coaching enable a leader to develop the three crucial factors that make all the difference in the quality of their leadership.
These factors are:
awareness and management of their Way of Being;
cultivating the ability to have high quality conversations that get desired business outcomes; and
developing constructive working relationships.
It goes without saying these days that leaders are operating in a world of increasingly heightened uncertainty, volatility and disruption. One risk for leaders is to fall into a mood known as “hysterical industriousness”, in which they and others in their organisation get caught in what can be described as relentless frantic busyness. You can read about hysterical industriousness in a previous newsletter article at https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/post/the-mood-of-hysterical-industriousness
Introducing Stuart Carruthers
Now an experienced executive coach, Stuart Carruthers completed the 18-month ICF accredited Ontological Coaching and Leadership Program several years ago. Since then he has found much value in applying his ontological learning, which focuses on Way of Being, to enhance the leadership abilities of key executives.
As an Australian Olympian who won a hockey bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta games, and with extensive experience in senior roles in major corporations, as well as having his own executive search company, Stuart is no stranger to the high-pressure world of elite sports and corporate leadership.
In this article, Stuart offers some important insights about Ontological Leadership. He highlights that the only place that leaders can lead from is their Way of Being and being aware of and managing this will make all the difference in the quality of leadership that is provided. Over to Stuart ….
The notion of Ontological Leadership
Leaders are constantly facing pressure of all different sorts, some of which become crises that require urgent and skilful attention. Great leaders are rightly acknowledged for “turning the ship around” and navigating a viable path forward for their organisation.
Reviewing and revising strategy and objectives are essential, but there is something more important that precedes this and that is what we can call the “existential manner” of the leader. Many refer to this manner as the right mental state or correct mentality, but from an ontological perspective it is more than what is happening mentally. What is occurring with us mentally can be equated with our thinking. Certainly, it is essential for leaders to be thinking clearly, analytically and appropriately using logic. But only focusing on this misses a crucial question, which is, “What will enable us to get into the best mental state to move the organisation forward?”
This is where Ontology comes to the fore. Ontology means the study of Being or the nature of existence. Ontological Coaching focuses on supporting people to change their Way of Being so that their behaviour and communication are more effective and they become more constructively influential.
Strange as it may seem, leaders can learn to apply the principles, practices and skills of Ontological Coaching without necessarily coaching. This is because all of human life, which includes coaching and leadership, is fundamentally about conversations and relationships. Leadership is fundamentally conversational and relational and learning to be an ontological coach is much more than learning how to coach. One of the wonderful spin-offs from learning to coach is becoming more conversationally skilful and dexterous, and relationally savvy, to create more constructive relational contexts that foster collaboration and coordination with others.
Being constructively influential is a continual leadership pressure, because the creation of revised strategy and objectives requires engaging with others and deciding what aspects of their perspective to integrate into a new direction forward. Each leader will have his or her own style, but experience has continually shown me that the most effective leaders are those who had intuitively adopted the principles of Ontological Leadership. This especially included being excellent learners, who were willing to put aside what had worked in the past and be open to new and unusual perspectives that were more relevant to their current challenge.
So, a crucial part of the Being of an effective learner is someone who has not remained trapped in their own Enemies of Learning, which are unintentional biases and prejudices it can become easy to be trapped in, which block the versatility and adaptability that are so essential for operating in an ever-changing and highly unpredictable business landscape.
[Some articles from previous newsletters you may want to refer to are: https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/post/walking-away-breaking-old-chains-through-body-unlearning; https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/post/breathing-and-emotional-transition; https://www.ontologicalcoaching.com.au/post/is-this-our-greatest-challenge]
Way of Being
One way of understanding the concept of Way of Being is to think of it as our inner world or internal world. It is the essence of what comprises our existence.
Way of Being is where our perceptions and attitudes live, many of which can be deep-seated and out-of-awareness. Part of the power of our Way of Being is that it plays an extraordinarily powerful role in shaping what we regard as present reality and also our future with regards to what we see as being possible and attainable.
The other related part of the power of Way of Being is that it is the underlying driver of our behaviour and communication. Therefore, how we are in our Way of Being is probably the most significant factor in our ability to create constructive conversational and relational environments, which shape how positively influential a leader will be.
Ontological Leadership’ is a framework that focuses on a leader’s internal world and how it shapes their external reality. It’s about creating the sorts of leaders who, more than just make decisions or give directives, can positively influence the rooms they enter. If you’re lucky, you will have worked with a leader like this – and you may remember thinking at the time that they were born that way, that they had a talent. I like to think of the analogy of a muscle and say that they had ”existential muscle” that had developed with practice.
The Ontological Leadership Model broadly encompasses three areas of focus:
Emotional agility (emotional awareness and the ability to shift from unhelpful to helpful emotions).
Linguistic ability (being aware of and changing your self-talk or inner conversation; learning to use the specific language patterns of constructive influence).
Developing a constructive physical being (creating postural awareness and a body arrangement that allows for respectful and attentive listening, a sense of calm and composure, willingness to be appropriately vulnerable and develop an overall constructive bodily presence).
A leader has to believe they can change things for the better. It makes sense, then, that a leader’s first priority should be to affect themselves in these three spheres of human existence. To achieve this, there are many individual tactics I might ask someone to adopt, depending on their own personal tastes and style – but you could begin right now by asking yourself (perhaps in the moments before your next meeting):
What’s my mood right now? Is it one of resignation – or acceptance? What is my mind set about this? Or could I allow myself to be curious?
What sort of words am I using to describe my situation at this moment? Positive or negative?
How am I standing? Where are my shoulders? Is this the posture of someone who wants to be here?
It’s not easy getting yourself into a state from which you can best lead, but it does get easier with practice. As I said, it can be thought of as a muscle – one that you can exercise at any moment, in any situation, be you an athlete, a coach, an executive, or anyone looking to affect meaningful change.
Stuart Carruthers can be contacted at stuart@carruthersexecutive.com
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