No silver bullets
...but leadership is an "X factor"
What the F is an X Factor?
I was standing in line at Starbucks last week and I overheard two young (younger than me, OK?) patrons discussing a mutual acquaintance with awe and wonder. Apparently, this third person had crushed a recent task at work, garnering the attention of bosses and co-workers. At one point, one of the energized interlocutors, chirped that the wunderkind had an X-factor.
As usual, my mind dipped happily into a vocabulary rabbit hole: what the f*** is an X factor, I wondered.
So, I looked it up.
The Cambridge English Dictionary (online) says that an X-factor is a “quality that you can not describe that makes someone very special.”
This got me thinking about the week I was having with its usual professional undulations, peaking at the point when the person I am coaching “gets it” and dipping when they are in outright rebellion against “it.”
Generally, the ones who are “getting it” tend to be self-learners, highly motivated to succeed, and open to new ideas.
Maybe they have an X-factor: something that defies me putting my finger on it, or—even better—being able to find it as the basis for deep organizational change. For example, if I knew the X-factor, I could start making organizational change with this so-called X-factored-coalition of the willing.
But, alas, by definition, the X-factor is elusive.
Not without hope
As I sipped the first few magical sips of my bespoke drink, I began to realize that there is one common connection between the successful encounters I had this week. It was this: each person who was leaning into the change was being influenced by their manager, who was also leaning in. In fact, in all of the cases I could remember, those managers were under the influence of their managers to change for positive reasons.
There was a collective positive influencing pressure to change behind each case of positive change.
I should note at this point that influence is the outcome of the process of leadership. Leadership is the process of influencing a group to attain shared goals (Northouse, 2019).
Could my willing coachees’ X-factor be something that they are experiencing from outside themselves?
Could leadership be an X-factor.
Leadership as the X factor: how does it multiply?
Before you leave me comments about shaping a new definition for X-factor, let’s just be clear: that’s what I do.
Again, back to vocabulary. Words matter. A factor is a factor. In mathematics, we learned that a factor is something that another thing is multiplied by. When you multiply positive whole numbers, at least, you get something bigger.
(Oh my goodness, how I want to dive into two more rabbits holes about positive (leadership) and whole (people or followers)! But, no: let’s stay here for the moment…)
So, if leadership is an X-factor, how does it “multiply to get something bigger.”
If you haven’t recently, maybe take five and read my post on teaching and Toyota’s emphasis on self-learning or self-development as an identifier for future leaders.
Trust me on this: leadership multiplies when it is a factor alongside self-learning.
Taking this just one step more: when leaders develop leaders who are self learners the change goes deep. And, it goes fast: faster than a leader developing an unwilling manager.
Get to the point
If you are bumping up against resistance to change, and if you are applying your influence to change equally across your managers, your might stop to ask yourself if you are influencing managers who really don’t want to self develop.
Many of the executive leaders I have had the honor to coach express so much frustration about change resistance.
Change resistance is perfectly normal, at first. When you begin to emphasize change and put pressure on your managers, the collective response is fear-based. Managers want to know WHY you want the change. For more on this concept, check out this post and this one. For a short hack, start and end each influencing moment with why the change is vital to survival.
Consider though, if you have been at this change business for awhile—only you can put a timeline on it…the timeline only starts when YOU get serious about changing yourself, by the way—and you are under the impression that your collective group of managers is resisting, take a closer look.
Are good managers—potential powerful change leaders—being supressed by powerful change resistors?
And, more importantly, how is that happening?
A good look in the mirror
It’s sobering to slow down and take a good look into your own eyes in the mirror. It’s doubly so when you ask yourself whether something you are doing is holding you back. Or, holding back your team.
There are no silver bullets here. But, if there is an X-factor, it may be in the way you influence others to change: how you are leading them to find the why behind the change and how you guide them to be different may be your X-factor.
If I could describe a quality…I’m just saying…
Enough for now.
References
Northouse, P. G. (2019). Leadership: theory and practice (Eighth Edition. ed.). SAGE Publications.