Leadership Horizons
This podcast aims to help leaders understand current and future leadership trends and encourage leaders to explore their horizons and understand the skills that will help them become even more successful moving forward.
Welcome to Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership at its most transformative through two unique perspectives. I am Lois Burton, an executive coach and leadership development specialist and I've witnessed first hand how great leadership can transform organizations across sectors - from global corporations to public services, from manufacturing to the arts.
"Each week, I'll bring you either an in-depth conversation with a visionary leader who's redefining what's possible..."
"...or be inviting you to join me for focused explorations of critical leadership themes, where I'll share proven strategies and insights from my years of leadership development experience and research."
"Leadership Horizons, helping you to lead beyond boundaries -- Because the future of leadership knows no bounds. I'm looking forward to you joining me there"
Leadership Horizons
Who Do I Need to Become? Navigating Leadership Challenges with Lynn Scott
What does it take to lead effectively in a world of constant uncertainty and rapid change? Lynn Scott, executive coach and international bestselling author of "Leader Unlocked," joins Lois Burton to tackle this pressing question through a deeply human lens.
Leadership today requires navigating a perfect storm of challenges—from AI advancement and geopolitical instability to workforce fatigue and change resistance. The most profound question emerging from these complexities is deceptively simple yet profoundly difficult: "Who do I need to become to lead well in these times?"
As Lynn astutely observes, "What got you here won't get you there," highlighting how yesterday's successful leadership approaches may not serve tomorrow's demands. The conversation explores the rich opportunity for reinvention that today's challenges present. This isn't about becoming someone you're not—it's about developing adaptive intelligence that allows you to be "clear under chaos" and recalibrate your leadership identity when necessary.
Lynn shares a compelling client story about a self-described "people pleaser" who transformed her approach after being passed over for promotion because she wasn't strategic enough. Through "anti-people pleasing experiments," this leader developed new capabilities without abandoning her core values.
Perhaps most compelling is the discussion around the emotional toll of leadership. Many leaders operate from dysregulated nervous systems while trying to appear unshakable. They carry the weight of shame when emotions surface and guilt about not being enough for their teams, families, and organizations. Lynn emphasizes that emotional regulation isn't about suppressing feelings but working through them with self-compassion—and having the courage to ask for help when needed.
The episode concludes with a powerful practice: visualizing your "future self" as a leader. By clearly imagining who you want to become six months from now, you can identify growth opportunities and aspects of yourself that need to be brought "out of the shadows and into the light."
It's not about self-criticism but possibility—a perfect starting point for leadership reinvention in uncertain times.
Ready to transform your leadership approach? Lynn's book "Leader Unlocked" offers additional insights and resources to support your journey toward greater confidence, influence, and impact.
Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries
Hello everyone and welcome back to Leadership Horizons. I'm Lois Burton and this is where we look at leadership at its most transformative. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to welcome my guest, lynn Scott, my friend, my colleague, my fellow executive and team coach, and also an international bestseller. So today we're going to hear from Lynn and she's going to share insights from both her practice as a coach and also from her book Leader Unlocked. So over to you, lynn, it's great to have you with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, lois, and I'm speaking from France, where we have lived, as you know, for the last 11 years. So it's great to be speaking with you, and you know we have known each other since 1997. So there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go. Always been a pleasure. Okay, so we'll get straight into the questions, and one of the things that I want to talk to you about is I've been sharing quite a lot on the kind of questions that I'm hearing from the leaders I'm working with at the moment, and I'd love to hear what the biggest questions are that leaders are asking you right now.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's a fair old few isn't there, and there's sort of the really big, what I would call general, almost global ones in terms of what's going on in the world, and that's around AI, digital cybersecurity, geopolitical things, climate volatility. When we're running organizations or we're leading in organizations, how do we make sure those things aren't blinding us and what are the opportunities available to us with all of those things? I think one of the other questions is how do I manage today, how do I lead today, as well as horizon scan for the future, because there is so much that feels unknown and different right now and, of course, as we know, so much is shifting on its axis on a daily basis. And then I think there are some very sector specific concerns, you know, and these will vary from sector to sector, but in some sectors there's uncertainty around automation, workforce fatigue, we know, is a very real thing in some sectors staff retention and attracting the right talent, funding, availability, role insecurity, redundancy and all of those things. So there's an awful lot that leaders have to juggle on a daily basis, on an hourly basis even.
Speaker 2:And then I would say there are the sort of human questions, if you will. So how do I, as a leader, unify that sometimes fatigued and fragmented workforce when the external world is feeling very fractured and uncertain. What is all of that doing to everyone's internal world, including mine and yours and every leader's, and how does that play out across the systems we work in? What's the impact that that's having? And how do I, as the leader, hold people steady when I'm carrying that uncertainty myself? And then this isn't a new one, but I think, and I'm sure you find it too, it's in the conversation. Every day is around what we used to call work-life balance or work-life integration. But how do I manage all of this and have time for my team, for my family, for my hobbies, for my friends? And how do I do all of this without heading for burnout, which, as we know, can be a real, real thing? But I would say, in terms of what about that?
Speaker 2:The question that I find plays on a lot of people's minds is given all of that, who do I need to become, what do I need to step into to lead well in these times, and who can support me with this, and what's the support that I actually need to be able to do all that? And you know, marshall Goldsmith wrote a book, didn't he a few years ago now, called what Got Me here Won't get me there, and I think that kind of sums up a lot of what we know, what you and I know, but also what leaders know that the skills and the ways of working, the ways of being that worked even three, four years ago are probably not the same things that are going to get them to whatever that next level is. So I think that's a very real question and it's certainly something I talk about in my book. We often talk about who's the future version of me? What does that person look like? Who do they need to become in order to lead those organizations, with all of those things that I've mentioned going on?
Speaker 2:Then I would say there's the ever challenging question of I'm using inverted commas here managing change, leading change, because I think and this has been the case for a while, I'm sure you found it too there is real change fatigue out there and people are tired of initiatives that you know it's the latest shiny object or that's how it feels, and what they're really yearning for, I find, is some integrity and some reality around the whole change process. So I think that's a very real thing, not new, but it's continually in the discussions that I have with leaders. And then there's the old one about balancing urgency and pace with just slowing down and thinking. Well, and we know that many leaders are really good at the first, but they are not so good at the second. So some of those questions, those are certainly some of the things that are coming up in my conversations with leaders.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and so much in there that resonates with what I'm hearing as well, and also some of the things that I've been talking about, and in last week's episode I was talking about flexible thinking and also building in a pause which really resonates with what you said in, you know, in that last question about leaders being very good at speeding up the pace, you know, dealing with dealing with urgent stuff, but not so good always at stepping back, and how important that is at the moment. And I also think the thing that you said about leading change and change fatigue because I think there's that balance between people are tired and they're still asking that question when do we get back to normal? I mean to terms with the fact that that's not going to happen, that change is constant and has as a hotted up even more, is really, is really important. So, thank you, thank you, thank you for those Just falling out of that lane. What do you think are the best opportunities for leaders right now?
Speaker 2:And I know that you do talk about this in your book- yeah, I think there are a lot of opportunities available and I think it's an opportunity for reinvention, and this isn't because those leaders are not good enough as they are. But again it goes back to that question what does the world require of me, what does the organization require of me, what does my team require of me? So you know, we can really look at it both the macro and the micro level, and that can create some wobble sometimes. And you know, there's the question that often comes up well, am I really up to this? Am I really able? How I operate in the world, does it mean that I have to become somebody? I'm not, and of course it doesn't mean those things at all. And I think one of the ways we describe adaptive intelligence, which I know you talk a lot about, is about being able to be really clear under chaos and to be able to recalibrate that identity. So most of us have a preferred way of being and doing, don't we? And we tend to bring those styles out or those ways of being so much of the time that we forget that there's almost an opposite skill that we might need to develop. So I talk in the book about the three-legged stool of influence, you know, and one of the things that people I find can rub up against, one of the words in particular is the word authority, and people will sometimes say, well, if I have to be more authoritative, it's not what I'm talking about, or being authoritative is not the same as being authoritarian, and when people struggle with that, it's often something that they haven't maybe addressed, about what authority means to them, what authority meant to them in their early lives. So how can we help them understand that being authoritative while still having empathy, compassion, kindness it's not an either or, you know, it's just being able to flex and do what's necessary, use the style and the tools that are available to you, depending on the moment and the situation that is in front of you. So I think there's a real opportunity for reinvention, for flexing, for experimenting with new ways of doing things and new ways of being.
Speaker 2:I've been working with a leader recently who and I've known her probably for three or four years, and her narrative was always up until recently, oh, I'm a people pleaser, oh, I'm a people pleaser. Up until recently, oh, I'm a people pleaser, oh, I'm a people pleaser. And you know that played out in a number of ways, always being the go-to person, always being the person who fixed everything, the person who was relied on, the person who was always available. And she went for a promotion in her organization and didn't get it because she was told that she's not strategic enough. No surprise there. So she, you know. She realized that, as we said before, what got her there is not what got her here is not going to get her where she needs to go.
Speaker 2:So there was a whole piece of work around what people-pleasing gives you, because it can be very seductive. You know, everybody's amazing, she's wonderful, she gets everything done, we can rely on her, but of course there's all the downsides that go with that. So she went on a real anti-people policing experiment, which meant that some people were a little bit upset at first, but, as I said to her, they will get over it and you know. So it's being able to hold that discomfort, isn't it?
Speaker 2:That feels hard, but actually it is such an opportunity, I think, for all of us. So I guess the opportunity is not to shy away from those questions and to be able to speak about those fears, to be able to recognise where they come from, what they're grounded in, how they serve us and how they don't, and to really be able to think about a new way of operating that doesn't take away from their humanity and their humanness. So I think that opportunity to flex and adapt and to build that leadership presence from a really strong core, I think is such a great opportunity. And, of course, a lot of these human skills adaptive skills I don't think AI can do those yet. Adaptive skills I don't think AI can do those yet. Maybe we'll speak in a couple of years and see. But these are the kind of things that are human. They're based in humanness and humanity and I think sometimes we can overestimate, or leaders can overestimate, the impact of their decisions and what they do, but underestimate the impact of their presence and who they are in their leadership roles.
Speaker 1:I agree, I agree wholeheartedly. And you know, I think we both know that this you know that ability to flex can feel very scary Because, as you said, if somebody has kind of built a narrative and they've built a way of doing things that has always got them results and now suddenly they're having to think differently and be different, then that can feel, you know, extremely scary. But I think you know what you said about this doesn't mean to say that you lose your integrity, your values, your sense of purpose. It means that you flex on the path and you can flex your approach without losing who you are. And and I think that, as you say, is is one of the one of the biggest opportunities right now and I think you know it is that rising to the challenge, so that, so that people realize that even if what got them here won't get them there, that actually they have the opportunity here to build something better, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:And it doesn't have to be done all at once, does it, lois? And I think often the difficulty is the starting point. But, as we know, one of the core beliefs in the book is to start before you're ready, just by doing one thing. And then that thing that became, that that was a huge, big, scary monster. The more you do it, the less of the scary monster is there with you. So we can over complicate it, can't we?
Speaker 2:But there is just a sense of start before you're ready. Do one thing, set your intention, make a decision yeah, even if you don't know how you're going to get on that path, you don't know all the steps just making that first decision is the best place to start, and then people like us can, can help you with that, and other people will be around to support as well yeah, yeah, and you know I was just reminded I spoke about it in one of the episodes about three weeks ago that you know, when we, when we developed the ultimate team coaching program, we definitely started before we were ready because we kept asking the questions about will it work, people, will people want this?
Speaker 1:and then we just decided to get into action and it was very scary at the time but you know, ultimately it was an amazing program that we know a lot of people appreciated and we and we love doing so yeah, yes, you're, you're so right.
Speaker 2:and when you think of the steps on our path from you know everyone who trains as a coach those, those first few sessions, am I doing it? Why don't I know the right question? Why am I trying to give the answer here? You know, and we all, when we start, we all have those fears. I think and I'm sure you doing a podcast you probably didn't feel ready. I didn't feel quite right when I was writing, no, when I was writing my book. But we just have to make that decision. It can be messy, it can, you know, end in some U-turns and some stuff that we wouldn't necessarily say or do or we'd do differently next time. But that's all part of starting before you're ready. And version one is better than version none. I think is one of the comments.
Speaker 1:Exactly Okay. So this might be similar in some ways to the first question, but I guess on that flip side of opportunity and we've talked a bit about fear what's keeping your clients awake at night at the moment? What do you think is scaring them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've talked about change fatigue and you know that word transformation is so overused, probably, I think, and, as we know, many organizations are only tinkering at the edges and you know, often it's little more than buzzwords and feel good and lip service. So we've touched on that. I think we haven't touched so much on the idea of global and remote teams and you know, organizations that work globally have been grappling with this for a while and of course, for the rest of us it became particularly a thing when COVID hit. But I think those being kept awake at night things are still there in terms of how do we build connection, how do we build our culture? How do we communicate when people are rarely in the same rooms together? How do I build trust and belonging and that sense of shared purpose? You know, when there's cultural nuance, there's things going on in different countries across the world that we may be operating in. So how do we create that clarity across all those multiple channels?
Speaker 2:I think that's a real three o'clock in the morning scratching my head question that comes up a lot. And of course then there's the danger of those talented people feeling unseen or unheard, and we all know the stupidity of some of the kind of quick fixes that people try to make and say well, if you're in the same country, you've got to be in the office at least one day a week and everyone spends that day on Teams calls. So there's some kind of stupidity around in some of these areas, the fear of the unknown which we've kind of alluded to. Where are we going? Are we in dangerous territory? Because with everything that's going on in the world at the moment, who knows what the next step might be? And I guess that's a global concern, a global keep you awake night and I think from a personal perspective, from the leader point of view, you talked about that need for flexibility and so on.
Speaker 2:But it's the sort of questions that that that are asked where am I moving? Too fast or too slow? But how do I know? And that pressure.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of leaders have to look unshakable, to look calm, to look on it when of course they're deeply uncertain they're human and to risk that becoming too transactional when they're under pressure, and to not see some of the things that are going on around them and having that real desire to be clear and manage expectations. But of course those leaders are wrestling with the same fog that their teams are and that their organizations are. And I think often for leaders there's that fear of being exposed or losing their authority or their compassion, failing to carry the organization in its broadest sense, which comes back to that identity piece who am I? Can I really do this? Do I have the skills, the knowledge, the experience? Do I have the desire to do this? What else might be required of me? And I find the leaders that are really willing to sit with those questions and grapple with them and not know the answers but look for ways to try and navigate, I think those are the ones I find that have the most impact and have the most success.
Speaker 1:Actually, Absolutely, absolutely, and I think that you know, as you've said, we can overthink, sometimes overworry, and actually manage managing our own emotional state to allow us to, you know, really navigate these times is so, so important.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I think so many people are trying to do all this from a almost a dysregulated nervous system, you, you know, and that is never going to have a long term success.
Speaker 2:It's likely to lead to stress, to illness, to burnout. So the time, the time to to spend looking at this, working on it, thinking about understanding how we can regulate and I think that's not the same as avoiding things, isn't it? You know, sometimes there's that well, I've got to stay regulated, I'm not going to get into conflict, I'm not going to show how cross I am, I'm not going to burst into tears, and you know, and almost the work that they do, the hard work they can do to try and stay regulated, is the thing that is dysregulating them. So it's being able to understand all of that and work with it. It's something I certainly had to do a lot of work on when I first started coaching, you know, understanding what I was holding back from and avoiding, because I simply didn't even know what to do with all of this stuff. So it's so important and and I don't think it's spoken enough about often in in leadership.
Speaker 1:I agree and I know you did a post on I think you were on both Facebook and LinkedIn a few weeks ago when you talked about shame and I find that with some of the leaders that I work with, if they you know, if they do let their emotions out, they're immediately embarrassed and ashamed of having done that, and of course that you know that becomes an absolute vicious circle in the way that you've just spoken about. So I think that learning how to regulate your emotions, but with self-compassion and support, is really, really important.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? You can't pour from an empty cup or you've got to put your own oxygen mask on, but it? But it is true, and I think, linked to the shame, the the other one that can hide in the shadows, is the guilt. You know, so many leaders are guilty. I'm not with my family enough, I'm not with my kids enough, I'm not with my team enough, you know, and that that can be a huge, big burden to bear, but you know, being able to talk about it and share and find some ways to be compassionate, as you say, with themselves and to work through is is very important work and to ask for help.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you know I talked about this a few weeks ago how important it is. You know strong leaders actually do ask for help.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And are willing to accept help, whereas you know leaders who are struggling often see that as a weakness, and of course it's a strength.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's always that sense well, if I just keep working more, if I just keep working harder, I'll get to the bottom of it. But of course that day never comes and, as you say, really, when that comes from a sense of shame, well, I should be on top of it, I should be able to do this, all those judgmental shoulds. It can be quite a dangerous and lonely and isolated place to be.
Speaker 1:Indeed, indeed. Okay. Well, we're drawing to the end of our time. Now, before we close, lynn, is there anything you know, any tip that you'd like to leave our audience with?
Speaker 2:Oh, there are so many, but I think let's start with one.
Speaker 2:I think take some time to just sit with a cup of coffee and a piece of paper and just think who is it that I want to become, you know, in the future? So if I think about myself six months down the line and really feel into it, see it, hear yourself saying things, and it's not an exercise in oh my God, I'm so terrible because I'm not there now but when we can really see that, almost feel it, almost touch that version of ourselves, we can then start to look at where we want to up level and what things we might want to bring out of the shadows and into the light. And again, it's not about not being good enough, but it's about where's the next thing that's going to really help me grow, that's going to help my organization, my team, grow and help my organization grow, and just spend some time really thinking about that image of I call it and other people call it future self. But that is such a good starting point for reinvention with leaders, for leaders.
Speaker 1:That's great, that's wonderful. I love that, and that whole kind of imagining your future self and really giving that some time and space has always been very, very powerful for me, and I know it's been powerful for many of the people I work with. So thank you, thank you for that, lynn. So we are going to close in a minute. Thanks again so much for being with us today and for sharing your thinking Before we go. Do you want to tell people where they can get your book if they'd like?
Speaker 2:to buy it. Yes, go on to Amazon and there's a Kindle version and a paperback version. It's called Leader Unlocked how to Grow your Confidence, influence and Impact for Leadership Success. And when people buy the book Lois, they also get access to a lot of resources. There's a link in the book that they can access and I'm uploading things regularly into there, so there's a huge amount in there that they can download and use in their daily work.
Speaker 1:So not just the book, but some additional resources to go with it Fabulous and I've seen and accessed many of those resources and I can highly recommend them.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:They're great, okay, everybody. So thanks again. So much to Lynn for being with us today. Thank you to all of you for being with us today. Next week, I'm going to be returning to the resilience theme and one of the things that Lynn's actually been been touching on in a number of her insights the importance of strong relationships to resilience and how you can nurture those relationships. So I will see you next week. Until then, remember, keep pushing those horizons, because the future of leadership knows no bounds.