For every event we organise or piece of content we publish about innovation and technology, there’s another about culture, or the wellbeing of the people that are part of BIMA. It is, after all, the people behind the technology that count most right?
Nothing brought this home more than last month’s BIMA round table. The discussion was how can we be and inspire courageous leaders and the conversation blew us away with how open and vulnerable our community is prepared to be. But what we noticed most was who leaders are prepared to be vulnerable with…
Jo Howes at Change Creators helped to chair the discussion and provide some thoughts to get us going. We started off with some insights into what it means to be courageous in leadership. Vulnerability and empowering others came out top from a list that included vision, being decisive and confidence. It brought it home how things have changed in terms of how leaders are prepared to act.
For years BIMA has been providing an outlet for leaders to meet each other and be vulnerable. A round table of leaders can often be therapy and that’s not new…our senior leaders group meet every month to prove this. But what does feel different is how leaders are benefiting from being vulnerable to everyone else, especially those who report into them. There’s more transparency than ever before, everything from business planning, finances and personal wellbeing and that also breeds a culture of openness and trust. As a result leaders are less likely to feel the need to put up the barrier of being super human and having all the answers.
The conversation of being courageous quite quickly moved onto resilience and how both things are so tied together. Vulnerability doesn’t mean wrapping it up in cotton wool it means being there for them. Our favourite comment was “I tell my team it’s inevitable they will F**k up. You cant stop it, but I will be there for you and it’s how we react that’s important”. That togetherness rather than the barriers is such a good thing.
It feels like a huge step forward for us all, from being prepared to be vulnerable to everyone you work with not just your leadership peers.
I know most of the group will also be heading to the Change Creators event later this month to explore more. We hope to see you there.
We finished off the session by sharing good habits that will help us all. We thought we’d share a few of them with you.