Sarah David II, the leader as philosopher, learner and listener

This is Chris’s second podcast with Sarah. In the first, which is episode seven of this series, you can hear her backstory, some of her work-related achievements, and her approach to learning and to self-care.

They gave this podcast the somewhat ambitious title of “the leader as philosopher, learner and listener” and imagined that it might be more of a conversation than an interview.

Sarah has said previously that our politicians are no longer philosophers. She believes this matters because we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous (VUCA) world and things are grey rather than black and white. Philosophers embrace the idea that changing our mind is a legitimate, in fact healthy, thing to do. And politics matters more than we might imagine: politicians enact the laws that govern our everyday lives.

Chris thinks that there are parallels in business. His favourite quote is from Emmy van Deurzen, who is an existential psychotherapist, and she says “Passive living comes easily; one can always fall back on it. Actively living requires much practice and study, as does any art.”

Sarah is a big fan of the stoics. Stoicism acknowledges that life is a struggle and rarely goes according to plan. It helps her to appreciate the highs but not get too attached to them and to weather the lows in the knowledge that they too will pass. We have a tendency to ‘gloss over’ things when they aren’t OK and to say that they’ll be better in the future. In reality when one challenge goes away another will replace it.

Chris would say that it helps in an organisation if the leader has a clear sense of purpose and can articulate what the current struggle is for. Without such meaning the organisation is in danger of becoming a product of the system in which it operates. Chris cites Tracy Allen (episode 12) as such a leader.

For Sarah values and purpose help with prioritisation. However, she understands why some people don’t have clarity around values and purpose; she says “it’s scary.” Chris says it’s what Jean Paul Sartre would have described as “existential angst”, the anxiety caused by a person’s awareness of her unlimited freedom and the corresponding responsibility.

In his book ‘Compassionate Leadership’ Chris includes ‘a spiritual journey’ under routes to development and asks Sarah where she is on that journey. Buddhism and the stoics have been reference points for her, along with Alain de Botton, Christian Tippett and David Whyte.

Chris describes himself right now as a ‘Christian Existentialist.’ He believes in God, but also believes we need to take personal responsibility. He has found the books of Richard Rohr helpful, along with a lot of one-to-one conversations. He has come to a point where he can be comfortable with uncertainty.

Sarah says that “a lot of therapy” has helped her, as have podcasts, in that you hear people’s thought processes out loud.

When it comes to helping leaders clarify their values and purpose, Sarah sometimes uses the question “Which are those moments in your life when you have most thrived?”

Beyond philosophy, there’s a whole lot more for a leader to master. Chris makes the distinction between informational learning – lectures, training, what passes for learning in most universities and business schools – and transformational learning – learning that enhances our ability to handle complex thoughts and ideas, and to consider our thoughts themselves objectively.

Sarah says that she thinks this idea is useful and that transformational learning helps us close the gap between the knowing and the doing. For each person, the nature of the transformational experience that is most effective will be different, but what is important is that we get out there and experiment. Sarah recommends the writing of Seth Godin, who writes so well about mustering the courage to experiment.

Both Sarah and Chris agree that talking with friends can be transformational, and Chris cites a book group that he is in where relationships have become more trusting and conversations have deepened.

Sarah floats a theory that we are having more conversations about activism at a grass roots level, and Chris postulates that those conversations have been displaced from the political arena to the public.

Finally, the leader as listener…

Chris quotes Nancy Kline ““The quality of your attention determines the quality of other peoples’ thinking." For Chris, listening is the start of the compassion journey. Unless we attend and listen, we cannot understand or empathise. And unless we understand or empathise, we cannot help in any meaningful way.

Chris has been trying to identify common denominators in the way that compassionate leaders work, based on his first 17 podcasts. He’s found: they seek and value honest feedback; they look for a partner or a team with complementary skills – they don’t try to do it all themselves; they ask their peers in other organisations for business advice – they’re not afraid to admit they don’t know something; they know, in the words of Tracy Allen, what their leadership is for.

Two out of these four behaviours require advanced listening skills.

Sarah has just been on one of Nancy Kline’s ‘Time to Think’ courses. Nancy talks about generative listening, which helps others to think more deeply. One of her approaches is thinking rounds, where everyone in the meeting has the opportunity to speak on the topic uninterrupted.

Sarah and Chris end the podcast by talking about what they have learnt over the past decade and their plans for the coming one.

The past decade has been the most challenging of Sarah’s life. Sarah has learnt to appreciate the relationships she has with the people that have supported her during that time. She has also learnt that grief never vanishes, it just becomes different over time. She is grateful that she is able to look forward with joy to the coming decade. She is going on a mindful self-compassion programme with the intention of bringing this more broadly into the leadership context.

Towards the end of the decade Chris ended his corporate career and wrote ‘Compassionate Leadership.’ He learnt a lot writing the book, but has learnt at least as much through the companion podcast. The emphasis in Chris’s recent life has changed from doing to being. In a sense he is returning to his early years as a child on a council estate when relationships were central and life was simple. Richard Rohr calls it ‘Falling Upwards.’

Sarah is intent on making space for the clients she really wants to work with, and generally becoming comfortable with space, silence and doing less.