https://youtu.be/8qOmMjL008Y
Want to become a more adaptable and effective leader? In this episode, Kevin Eikenberry—trainer, author, podcaster, and founder—shares powerful strategies from his latest book, Flexible Leadership. As a leadership expert dedicated to helping organizations, leaders, and individuals unlock their full potential, Kevin reveals how to flex your leadership style to navigate uncertainty, make smarter decisions, and empower your team.
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Flex Your Leadership with Kevin Eikenberry
Good day dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Kevin Eikenberry, a trainer, author, podcaster who's empowering organizations, leaders, and individuals to fulfill their potential through transformative and effective learning strategies. Kevin, welcome to the show.
Steve, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Well, I was excited to have you because you have some really cool ideas about leadership and how to make it flexible, which is what the people need. I mean, it cannot be one size fits all solution. But let's start with my favorite question which is, what is your personal 'Why' and how are you manifesting it in your practice?
Well, I am fortunate that my personal 'Why' is directly connected to our organizational 'Why'. I suppose when the company has my name on it, that's a privilege. We are in the business of helping leaders to be more effective because we know that if leaders are more effective, we can make the world a better place.Share on X So ultimately, that's our goal. As you introduced me, we talked about helping people reach their potential, and that means people as humans and leaders. If we can do that for leaders, then leaders can help unleash that in others.
Yeah. So there's a multiplication going on there and that's a great opportunity, but also a great responsibility.
A Hundred percent, for sure. I mean, when I think about leadership in general, Steve, that I think about those two things, right? Leadership is a tremendous responsibility, right? If we're a people leader, a capital L leader, we have positional power, people are watching us. We have the responsibility to make sure that what we're doing is modeling what we want from others. We have the responsibility of setting goals and outcomes that are desirable to reach.Share on X We have a responsibility to help our people get to those things and build their skills and confidence. All of that is our responsibility, and when we do those things, the opportunities that we have to make the world a better place, our organizations more effective, our team members more satisfied and more committed to their work. All comes with that, 100%.
Love it. I love it. So, let's talk about your brand of leadership, because you developed this concept of Flexible Leadership. So can you explain to our audience what you mean by Flexible Leadership? And then what is your framework around it? Because you also have a framework that you developed around it.
All of this is related to my new book, Flexible Leadership: navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. And so let's start here. What does it mean to be a flexible leader? To be a flexible leader is to be a both and leader. Too many folks think, well, I'm either this or I'm that. I'm either going to do this or I'm going to do that. Leadership is about reaching valuable outcomes, or leadership is about developing the people that work for me. It's either about tasks or people, and I would suggest it's about both of those things.Share on X And if you think about the tree that you could see outside of a window or you could walk by on a path, that tree is stable and consistent and rooted, and it is also flexible. I'm looking out at a tree right now in the breeze, and it's blowing in the breeze. So it is both consistent and flexible. Many people would say, well, am I supposed to be a flexible leader or a consistent leader? And so Steve, my point is being a flexible leader is being thinking both end, holding two ideas, intention, recognizing that either end of that tension is probably not always the right answer, even if that's our natural tendency. And to be intentional about being able to flex to a place that allows us to help our team reach the outcomes we need in that moment, which might be different than what we would've done six weeks ago, six months ago, or whatever.
Okay, so let's dissect this because you talked in our pre-interview, you talked about Intention, Content, and Flexor. So how does that all come together? What do you mean by each one of these ideas?
Sure. So that is the Flexible Leadership approach, right? Intention plus Context plus Flexors equals being a flexible leader.Share on X And so intention says, I'm willing to, I'm open to the fact that the 'How' of my leadership might need to change. That's how I do it naturally, or my first inclination, or my style, or my habit might not always best serve us. So the intention is to recognize that, hey, number one, flexibility is useful and valuable.
And number two, intention to say in this moment, perhaps I need to flex. It's both a mindset and a skillset and the skillset comes from the other two components. But if we don't have that mindset right, it doesn't matter. I mean, I can teach you skills and you can say, those are fine and dandy, Kevin, but I'm not going to do 'em. They don't match up with what I believe. They're not what I believe will be most effective. I don't think they'll work. So get the mindset with intention, and then the next part is context. Let's just say it this way, Steve. All of us have had this experience where you have a decision to make as a leader or just as a human, or someone comes to you for advice. And when they ask for it, or when you think about the situation, you say, well, what should I do? Well, it depends.
Well, what does it depend on? Well, it depends on the context. Like, what's the nature of this situation? And it is understanding the nature of that context that gives us the chance to say, well, maybe I should do it differently. I'll stop there. I've been talking for a long time. Anything you want to add or comment on before I go any further?
Yeah, I like this idea, the mindset that be ready to be flexible if you need to be, so that you can serve your purpose. And then the context service determines that. But can you give an example of different contexts and then the leader being manifesting differently?
Yeah, absolutely. So in the book, I share the work of Dave Snowden with what's called the Cynefin Framework. And in the Cynefin Framework, it's think about it like a map. Like, if I put you in the wilderness and I said, okay, get out, leave to this location. The first thing you'd ask me for is a map. I mean, the first thing a lot of people ask me for, is there a GPS on their phone? I say, well, there's no cell signal. I say, okay, I'll take a map. And the Cynefin Framework is like a map to help us see the terrain. In this thought experiment, once you see the terrain, it gives you a clue about which direction you should walk to your desired destination. And the Cynefin Framework is like that. It gives us a picture for us to help us see where are we now so we can decide where to go next or what to do next. So the Cynefin Framework has four parts. There are four parts to the framework, and one of those is called the clear context. And Steve, that's the one that most of us are most comfortable in. Most of us have spent the most time in, and importantly, assume that we're in most of the time. And the clear context is a situation where we sort of know the causes and effects. We sort of know what will happen. We've done it before.
Our expertise or someone's expertise is enough and policies will work and best practices reign, and if we've got the right process, we'll probably get the right result, clear context.Share on X And yet, as I just described that to you, well that sounds comfortable. You might say, well, that's not where my work is a lot of the time. And I would say, yeah, more often than not, your work isn't clear. Even if it might've been 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 5 years ago. Some of the time, our situations are that, but much more of our situations are either complicated or complex, and when things are complicated according to the map, the Cynefin Framework, when things are complicated, we know there are things we don't know.
Maybe we can find them out or get a clue about them. We probably can't do it alone. We probably need to do it with others. We might be able to develop some good practices that might help us a lot of the time, but there are unknowns that we either need to try to figure out or at a minimum, we have to recognize. But a complex situation, well, a complex situation is the ones that we're in a lot of the time. There are unknowns that we don't even know about. Like anytime you think about a situation that happened six months ago and say, man, I wish I would've known all those things. I would've done something differently. I didn't realize those dominoes were going to fall. There were going to be those unintended consequences. If I had known that, I'd have done something differently. And that's an awful lot of our work today. And so if we find ourselves in that complicated or complex situation, the way we need to lead is different than when everything's clear.
The fourth context is what's called chaotic. And my observation is that a lot of people say, well, that's where I'm at all the time. Kevin, it's either clear or it's chaotic. And I would say, and Snowden would say in the creation of this framework, that there's very little that we live in. That's chaos, truly. And even if it is, it very quickly becomes complex because when things are chaotic, we just need to do something. Think about where you live. It was about 5 years ago, Steve,
