Two Undervalued Leadership Skills That Could Be Useful Right Now

Like many of us, I’ve been glued to the news.

Continuing work as usual when there are layers of unthinkable violence and grief playing out is weird at best and completely heartbreaking at worst.

Here are two undervalued leadership skills that might be supportive right now, whether you're a formal leader, a parent, or leading yourself through this difficult time.

Making space for Connected Knowing

The more I’ve learned in my life, the more I’ve realized how much I don’t know. I struggle with the fact that I can never know everything about an issue…so how can I ever claim to know something for sure when there is always more information or another perspective to be taken into consideration?

In college, I became painfully aware of my inability to take a stance. It seemed that the premise of each class was to tear apart the argument in our reading.

My peers would come in ready for battle (whether they’d completed the reading or not!), and even though I did all of the reading, I rarely raised my hand. I’d watch each of them make their points in turn, like an observer at a tennis match, my gaze volleying back and forth across the room.

This was Critical Thinking in action. I think it was supposed to be one of the main takeaways of my liberal arts education. But I couldn’t do it.

In a sociology course my senior year, I learned about a skill set that is the opposite of Critical Thinking: it’s called “Connected Knowing.”

Researchers at Wellesley College uncovered the (undervalued) skill of Connected Knowing through research with their female student population. They noticed that many women responded to a disagreement not by taking an opposing stance, but rather by stepping into each perspective. Connected Knowers have the ability to fully stand in the shoes of each point of view and examine it, even when they don’t agree.

Connected Knowing slows disagreements down, disarms tensions, and creates space for empathy and understanding.

To be sure, Critical Thinking and Connected Knowing are both skills that we need in our toolboxes. One skill set is not superior to the other. It’s important to have range—to be able to take a stance and also to practice suspending judgement and listening to understand.

Coaching is built on Connected Knowing. Coaches sit with you and listen deeply, reflecting back your experience and asking powerful questions to help you understand yourself more deeply, consider new perspectives, and discern your own way forward.

I believe that if we all practiced more Connected Knowing, we could better recognize each other's humanity. The world could be a gentler and safer place.

Leadership is Holding

As a parent and as a leader, I've had many moments over the past three weeks when I've felt almost overcome by not knowing—what to do, what to say, how to respond.

One of the biggest misconceptions about leadership is that you’ll become a leader when you finally know “enough”—that people will look to you for the answers and you’ll need to be ready to provide them.

But leadership is not about knowing the answers.

Leadership is about how you show up when you don’t know.

Not knowing is actually a leadership strength.

I read a piece in Harvard Business Review about crisis leadership in 2020 that has stayed in my heart ever since (which is saying something, for a business article!)

Author Gianpiero Petriglieri writes:

“...when there’s a fire in a factory, a sudden drop in revenues, a natural disaster, we don’t need a call to action. We are already motivated to move, but we often flail. What we need is a type of holding, so that we can move purposefully.”

He underscores the need for another underrated leadership skill: holding.

Especially in crisis, we need leaders who can hold us. Instead of jumping to action, they create a container to acknowledge hurt, hardship, grief, and confusion, and a space to make sense of what’s unfolding so that we can move forward with purpose.

Petriglieri continues:

“In groups whose leaders can hold, mutual support abounds, work continues, and a new vision eventually emerges. When leaders cannot hold, and we can’t hold each other, anxiety, anger, and fragmentation ensue.”

Holding requires presence, curiosity, and compassion. Holding is about bearing witness, not fixing or having answers.

Dr. Brené Brown calls this type of leadership presence “contagious calmness” in this incredible conversation. She quotes Holocaust survivor and social psychologist Viktor Frankl who said:

“Between the stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom and power to choose our responses. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Brown calls on leaders to hold that space between stimulus and response—the longer we can stay in that space, the greater the chance that we’ll respond with purpose and wisdom.

Bearing Witness is Taking Action

Thinking back to key moments of crisis in my life and my work, I can identify the leaders and peers who were there, holding me.

I never considered what it was they were doing before, or the skill involved. I just knew how they made me feel: calm, seen, supported.

Mister Rogers said that when catastrophe strikes, look for the helpers.

I’d like to suggest that you look for the holders, too.

Or better yet, become a holder yourself. Whether or not you’re a formal leader, you can create space between stimulus and response for others—and you can practice holding that space for yourself.

It's by holding that space and by practicing Connected Knowing that we create the conditions for meaning making, healing, and wisely enacting change.