Welcome to the ninth instalment of my reflections on Julian Stodd‘s 100 Days of Social Leadership. My journey started HERE. This page, the penultimate, looks at the area of social capital.

80 – Do what’s right

Sometime people, teams and organisations get pulled off the “right” path. This day gets us to reflect on how we can influence or subvert the organisation to get back on track and share an example. I personally had a coaching client a few weeks ago that was struggling with this issue. Their organisation was engaged in a very significant change in its operating model and was bringing twenty plus operating companies in to one. The senior leader and peers though they were moving too fast and missing important issues that need resolving. We spent an hour strategising on how to influence directly and indirectly a small set of executives within the company. The direct route is not always the most effective or sustainable.

81 – Consequence

I really liked the reflections on this day. We have a choice to stand up to things but sometimes that is perceived as difficult, dangerous or job/career threatening. Sometime the anticipation of consequence prevents us from standing up or out. Social authority can help us. Beyond the content of the day I think people should work more collectively. Often the silo / protectionist mentality blocks us from standing ups for or helping others.

Consequence is experienced through our emotions, minds and actions. Being brave means we need to step over the threshold of concern. 

82 – Skills for the social age

This day was a pretty easy one compared to some. it asked “what are the skills to survive and thrive in the social age?”. There are probably many, but I have think the following are pretty critical:

  • The ability to enter and maintain dialogue with people of differing opinions
  • The capacity to search / verify truth & facts
  • The capacity to be highly effective at managing time/energy

83 – Etiquette

Etiquette is about the rules we have for behaving with and around others. This day asks us to reflect and list out three “unwritten” rules we have. I thought about this and came up with quite a few. I narrowed it down to three that I thought are very much “me”:

  • Assume the person is trying to do something positive (even if it doesn’t feel like that)
  • Seek to understand before being understood
  • Make more time than you think you need for dialogue ( I struggle with this a bit)

84 – Humility

This day asks us to think of someone who is humble and why. To be honest I really struggled with this. I know so many people.A few stand out. They had achieved amazing things: 6th Dan blackbelt and another who had climbed Everest twice. You would not know, unless you specifically asked. They were always there for everyone else and in away quite introverted. The day also asks us to reflect on what is one thing stopping us being humble. For me I think it is possibly believing I know more than I do or possibly wanting to share my ideas before listening to others.

 

85 – An Action DAY

This day asked us to help someone. I supported a person in my community by doing a coaching session. It certainly helped them get their mojo back and gave them a strategy to reconnect with their community. A great day!

Day 86 – Equality

This day asks us to reflect on equality. For me equality is being supported and having access to the same opportunities, day in and day out. We have a big societal hill to climb with this and I think one of the biggest challenges is the hundred of years that society has been dominated by certain groups of people. This has created a massive unconscious bias. One of the key things we can do is to call out the bias when we see it. Social Leadership is open and equal to all.

Day 87 – Feedback

Gathering feedback across the my constellation of contacts across the UK is pretty difficult and so for this day I used it to get feedback from outside the OU and a few OU people. Generally the feedback was quite similar to that I have had in the past:

  • I need to be more assertive in order to get my ideas across – Nothing new here! It fits very much with my introverted style. It also aligns with my results on the Conflict Styles Instrument.
  • Be more proactive in sharing my ideas AND resources – Certainly working on this.
  • Aim to be notices more by others – This is tricky, I need to figure out how, with our coming across  as too pushy or clever.

88 – Listen

This was a really interesting reflection for me. I was thinking about what I am hearing now versus one year ago at the OU, when we were in the middle of upheaval around the “Student First” and Vice-Chancellor’s role in imprinting his strategy on the organisation. This ended in resignation (News article). Now I am hearing a lot more positiveness around direction and more importantly the way of working. Culture shift takes time, but I am hearing it is going in a good direction. I certainly sense less angst and more stability.

Day 89 – Taking stock

This is a reflection day on three questions:

What is the key thing you have learnt: The power of such a simple idea, such as 100 days of Social Leadership has the potential to unlock and expand social networks.

Greatest frustration: Not being able to connect and engage with more people. Impacted I think by being a remote Associate Lecturer.

What I am proudest off: Being and more importantly keeping involved in this small movement.


This is the end of the section on Social Capital. The FINAL section is on collaboration. You can find it over HERE.

Thanks for reading. I would love to get your feedback and ideas!