Mastering the art of hosting

Digby Scott, leadership specialist, asks how we navigate the uncertainty of change and suggests a road from hope to hero to host, to lead people through organisational transformation.

“IT ALL FEELS A BIT SOUPY TO ME RIGHT NOW.”

So said a participant in a recent change workshop. In this, they captured the essence of the challenges leaders face in navigating through uncertainty.

As a senior HR leader, do you ever feel like it’s “a bit soupy”? Maybe even more than a bit? In my experience, this sentiment resonates with most senior leaders embarking on high-stakes transformation programmes. The quest for clear answers in the face of ambiguity can be frustrating, akin to travelling through fog. Glimpses of possibility emerge, only to be shrouded again. How can HR leaders master the art of leading change, embracing uncertainty and creating an environment where people can thrive in a transforming environment?

Change leadership, at its core, involves bringing people together to forge something entirely new. This demands a skill set that includes being comfortable with ambiguity, knowing when to step back, and adeptly navigating through uncertainty. But how to master these skills?

EMBRACE THE UNKNOWN

Afew years ago, a client of mine was undergoing a complex global business transformation and faced a myriad of challenges. Leaders at all levels were tasked with maintaining business as usual while preparing for the impending changes. I was involved in leading workshops around the world to help leaders understand their roles, instil confidence and build the capability to navigate the transformation. During these sessions, the organisation’s senior leaders were confronted with a barrage of detailed questions from the audience about the intricacies of the transformation. Rather than providing definitive answers, the leaders surprised everyone by admitting, “We don’t know. We need you to help us figure it all out”.

“WE DON’T KNOW.”

In a culture where good leadership equates with having all the answers, that’s a pretty courageous response. Yet when was good leadership ever not about being bold, courageous and authentic?

What happened? The senior leaders’ transparency immediately shifted the dynamics, inviting participants to become active contributors rather than passive receivers. Rather than the leader being the focal point, the challenge and the ideas got the spotlight. And when ideas and questions are at the centre of the conversation,

rather than the leader, the leader can become an integral part of the conversation. The focus shifts from the person to the question.

This approach, rooted in acknowledging uncertainty and seeking collective solutions, aligns with the principles of managing complex challenges, as outlined by Dave Snowden and Mary Boone in their classic Harvard Business Review article A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making . In complex scenarios, answers emerge through experimentation and learning rather than relying on pre-existing solutions. This mindset shift opens the door for collaborative problem-solving.

When you put ideas at the centre, the conversation thrives.

This example is a microcosm of the type of leadership that we need to experience more of in our organisations and society at large. Author Peter Block wrote a thought-provoking article called From Leadership to Citizenship where he challenges the notion of how we think about what leadership does for us. He wonders what would happen if the leader put down the microphone, came down from the stage, sat with us in the audience and had a conversation with us about the challenges we face, together.

Back to our story. Here’s the beautiful thing. In all cases, on the morning of the third day, the majority of leaders had got it. To quote one of them:

I came in with a huge list of questions I needed answered. Now I know I don’t need all the answers. I’m okay with working it out as we go along. I’m going to lead my team to try some new things, see what works, and learn from our experiences. I’m on board

DIAL DOWN YOUR HERO

Last year, I went to an unforgettable comedy show. As the comedian came on stage and began the show, she invited all of us in the audience to help make it an awesome show. She said she wanted us to contribute to the experience, not just to sit back and expect to be entertained.

Guess what? As we, the audience, warmed up and got over our trepidation, we leaned in. We were no longer simply witnesses to comedy brilliance; we were a part of it.

To this day, it’s one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. No. Not seen. One of the best live shows I’ve ever been a part of. There’s a big difference.

What made the difference was that the comedian saw herself, first and foremost, as the host of the audience, not simply the hero on the stage. She created the conditions for us to get what we came for: to feel good!

Create the conditions. How can this idea apply to your leadership?

When we’re in a leadership role charged with leading change, we can operate in three modes:

• HOPING: abdicating responsibility and hoping it will all just work itself out.

• HERO-ING: taking charge yet trying too hard to control what happens and owning too much of the responsibility.

• HOSTING: creating the conditions that enable positive change to happen.

For sustained and thriving human performance in changing environments, we need leadership at the higher end of this spectrum, with an eco-centric focus (attention on the ecosystem in which the change is occurring) rather than an ego-centric focus (attention on the leader’s performance).

Fortunately, I don’t see too many leaders in ‘hoping’ mode. Yet, all too often, I see leaders wearing the ‘hero’ hat. That’s the hat we wear when we tell ourselves, “It’s on me to provide the answers, the direction, and the confidence that people need”.

I see it, particularly with people newer to leadership, where cultural conditioning and role modelling have taught us that this is what it means to lead.

When we wear the hero hat, we talk at people and do presentations to them. And we expect people to be clear, satisfied and motivated!

“As a leader, people don’t need your expertise. They want an experience they can be a part of.

In times of change and uncertainty, we tell ourselves that people need information. That’s true, yet what people actually yearn for is the space and time to make sense of things, and to be involved in the unfolding process. As a leader, people don’t need your expertise. They want an experience they can be a part of.

When you’re charged with leading change, don’t just fire off more comms, or do endless ‘talking head’ roadshows with jam-packed, 20-bullets-perpage slides. That’s like pointing a firehose at me when all I needed was a drink of water.

When you’re leading change, consciously dial down your inner hero. Instead, create the space for people to engage with the information.

Give them the space to talk about it, explore it and reflect on it. Invite them into the conversation and help them shape it. That’s what they need.

Go beyond merely information. Deliver a deftly crafted experience that blends information, conversation and reflection. Even better, set up the experience, and then get out of the way so people can do the work they need to do together. In times of uncertainty, people crave not just information but the opportunity to make sense of it and actively contribute to the unfolding process. As Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering: How we meet and why it matters , suggests, leaders should reverse engineer the desired outcome, considering what they want to be different as a result of the gathering and working backward from there.

What’s clear is that, in our ever-hurried world, people value space to slow down. To connect. To think.

DIAL UP YOUR HOST

Instead of wearing the ‘hero’ hat, what if we wore the ‘host’ hat? That’s the hat we wear when we tell ourselves, “It’s my job to create the conditions for us to get the outcome we need”.

The host brings people together. They create the conditions for people to do the work that’s needed. That work might be sense-making, or it might be decisionmaking. Or maybe it’s simply connecting with each other.

What’s clear is that, in our ever-hurried world, people value space to slow down. To connect. To think.

Influential leaders know this, and they know how to create the conditions for it.

To lead change effectively, savvy HR leaders wisely adopt the role of the host rather than the hero.

The shift from hero to host involves recognising that effective leadership is not about having all the answers but about creating an environment where collective intelligence can thrive. Like throwing a great party, great hosts know that their work is to set the scene, and then allow their guests to create the magic. Lao Tzu’s ancient wisdom is apt here: “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: ‘we did it ourselves’”.

BECOMING A HOST

To embody the role of a host, consciously dial down your ‘hero’ instincts. This involves:

• being comfortable with saying “I don’t know”

• inviting others to shape ideas collaboratively

• prioritising questions over answers

• listening more than talking

• devoting significant time to defining desired outcomes and the conditions necessary to achieve them.

We need to redefine what it means to lead, which is, in the end, about inspiring hearts, engaging minds and catalysing deliberate action.

We need to shift from providing answers to facilitating experiences. We need to move from being the sole expert to creating an experience where everyone plays a vital role.

In the face of complex changes, HR leaders need to ask themselves, “How can I dial down my ‘hero’ and dial up my ‘host’”?

Digby Scott, is a speaker, facilitator and mentor for leaders and change-makers. His work is about deepening leadership capacity and growing collective brilliance so we can get on with tackling our organisations’ and society’s biggest challenges more effectively. You can learn more at digbyscott.com.