Being authentic; inspire and guide your employees; leading with faith in yourself and in connection to yourself and others. That is what Leadership Development (or Management Development (MD)) is about at Sugato.

What you encounter in others tells you something about yourself. What tings can still upset you, in what situation should you stand up more for yourself? To what extent are you aware of your beliefs and your interpretations, and how they shape your behavior? To what extent can you lead from within, based on your core values and self-esteem? Or are forcing and being forced the dominant ways?

Can you inspire your employees with your leadership ?!

The desired leadership evolves with the right set of beliefs

No influence on organisational culture is as great as the management style. Leadership development is therefore also organisational culture development. Because culture is what we do, see, feel, and hear in terms of behavior, assumptions, norms about right and wrong, and the underlying beliefs.

It is crucial in managing behavioural change to actually work at the level of beliefs, way bottom of the well-known iceberg model. You can’t see them, but their influence is so profound!

We build valuable and value-driven organisations

Different behaviour only makes sense if it contributes to the organisation’s purpose. That is why we also pay attention to the mission of the organisation and its main objectives. Where necessary – and it gets encouraged – firm discussion with each other about priorities and objectives take place. Just like agreements, roles and responsibilities, and of course the content should get discussed properly. But it starts at the core; Why does your organisation exist and what do you and your people live for? Organisations with a clear purpose and with people working in (social) connection live and create value in a sustainable way.

Connecting Leadership

Any development should always start with the why, it is about vision and mission. Connecting leadership means that employees feel inspired by who you are, how you do something, and what you do for it. By intention, empathy and attention. That makes people follow intrinsically, not because they have to. Connecting the purpose of the organisation with value creation on the one hand and the needs and passion of employees on the other requires empathy, vulnerability and coordination. The way you do that is not only about learning. It mainly has to do with the way you look: Who you are determines what you see.

Do you stand for control, to measure is to know, managing by numbers, being on top of it, believing that you can do everything faster and better, or that they cannot fool you? Are you focused on scarcity, concerned that things are not being done properly, not being thought enough, or that insufficient responsibility is being taken on? Is it because you are in control that your employees can perform well?
If you are strongly focused on control, it will affect your feelings, your thoughts, your words and your actions. Your employees will therefore relate to, connect to and anticipate this style of managing and approach.

Or are you more focused on connecting and trusting? In that case you provide more freedom, and employees will trust, relate to and anticipate this way of managing.
Then this will become the cause of effects such as: employees growing in their self-confidence, daring to stand for who they are and what they want to contribute, increasing their involvement and addressing each other, taking more responsibility, and sticking their necks out to achieve joint organisational objectives.

In short, with connecting leadership, you are the one who generates the flow to get the best out of employees and to achieve the best for the organisation by focusing on (your own) awareness; how can I give meaning to trust and freedom through dialogue and in connection with one’s own values and the organisational objectives?

The basis is trust

Successful collaboration requires trust in each other. Of course in each other’s abilities, but equally or even more so, in each other’s intentions. Does everyone pursue the same organisational goals and interests? Is an agreement really an agreement? Does everyone say what they think, and does everyone think what they say?

This question of trust plays a role in every team or leadership development rajectory. And also trust is affected by the way you look t things. Do you give trust first, or should someone earn that trust from you first? Do others have to provide you safety first before you can be vulnerable, or can you create your own safety (and inspire others)? Underneath all stakes that play a part in a group and thus wihin an organisation, are some set of beliefs. Supporting and hindering beliefs. We help anchoring new beliefs and letting go of non-helping beliefs. This creates a new beginning with different behaviour for new results.