Trailblazing Leadership

Today, Trailblazers are the people that innovate or pioneer. Historically, trailblazing was the practice of cutting marks in trees to define routes and paths. Trailblazers are often seen as heroes, but the act of blazing a trail wasn’t about the person making the mark, it was about leaving clear directions for those that followed. Today, effective leaders can influence their people by laying down their own markers.

Back in 2009 we were living in Qatar – my wife was working for an educational consultant while I was writing. We knew there was an inlet surrounded by beautiful white sand dunes on the border of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It was called Khor al Udaid. I was desperate to get there, but at the time there were no tours and it could only be accessed by driving across an area of sandy desert and low dunes. We had some friends with four-wheel drive vehicles, but no-one knew the route.

I was exploring the area on Google Earth one evening and when I zoomed in far enough, I could make out multiple vehicle tracks leading into the area. By following them back from the inlet I could trace a route that didn’t lead to high dunes or desert camps. I bought the cheapest GPS that money could buy, transferred the co-ordinates of my route onto it and plotted a course into Khor al Udaid.

Armed with my GPS (and otherwise very poorly prepared), we took three vehicles and navigated through low dunes and across salt flats until we reached the inlet. We camped overnight where the clear gulf waters lapped against pristine dunes. It was one of the most beautiful spots I’ve been in my life, and it was made even more special by the fact we’d found our own way there.

Later we moved to Al Ain in the UAE, a town surrounded by beautiful orange sand dunes. I joined an offroad driving club and learned how to drive and lead trips through far bigger dunes, but that first trip in Qatar is one I’ll always remember.

I wouldn’t have had the courage to make that trip if others hadn’t been there before. Without their tracks, visible by satellite it would have seemed a leap too far.

As leaders, the stories that we tell are the tracks we leave in the sand or the blazes we leave to mark the trail. Those stories are how we pass on key messages to the people we lead, guiding them with our experience and giving key messages without micro-managing them through every scenario and situation. They are how we transfer wisdom, not instruction.

Waypoints

In Qatar, when I could follow a straight line from one point to another, I didn’t need to plot intermediate waypoints in my GPS, neither do we have to offer advice when the going is straightforward, but where there are key obstacles or changes that must be made, those waypoints become precious.

When we can see that change needs to be made in an organisation, we can use a targeted story to signal the change and offer a new direction, much like the waypoint in a route.

If our team is:

·      failing to value the people in it

·      being timid where there is opportunity for courage

·      needing to respond to changing demand

a simple story can highlight the problem and lead our people towards a solution. That story doesn’t have to be directly about the problem we’re facing today; it doesn’t even have to be work-related, in fact personal stories can be more powerful when told well. A story from our own lives about:

·      empathy

·      courage

·      change

could be the most powerful way to bring the problem into focus and open the discussion around overcoming it. Stories that address our own mistakes and demonstrate how we’ve grown from them also make it far easier to highlight the problems our organisation faces. It shows by example that there is no shame in making mistakes and that we can all learn from them and move forward.

The advantage of those stories is that they’re engaging, they create an emotional response that becomes associated with the problem and because we’re using an example, not the problem itself, people are less threatened and more likely to address the problem collectively rather than having an external solution imposed on them.

As leaders we have a choice. We can lay down rules, forcing our people to conform to a strict set of guidelines or we can share our experience through stories that act as marks on the trail, encouraging, inspiring and guiding our people towards their destination. Which kind of leader would you rather follow?