How to Become an extra-Ordinary Leader: Lessons in Resilience from Russell Harvey
Understanding extra-Ordinary Leadership
extra-Ordinary leadership goes beyond ticking boxes; it’s about embracing a mindset of continuous learning, curiosity, and the courage to grow through challenges. Resilience coach Russell Harvey captures this with his definition of resilience as "springing forward with learning." Having faced six redundancies himself, Russell turned each setback into a stepping stone, learning how to grow stronger and help others do the same.
Practical Tips for Leaders
Leadership can be downright exhausting sometimes. Juggling shifting priorities, keeping multiple stakeholders happy, and navigating the complexities of things like remote work—it’s a lot. Russell Harvey gets it, and that’s why he’s all about helping leaders get their “mojo” back. His secret? The three-bucket approach—a simple, no-fuss way to cut through the overwhelm, lighten the mental load, and focus on what really matters.
According to this method, leaders are only responsible for three things:
Delegating Responsibilities Brilliantly
Removing Blockages to Team Performance
Creating a Resilient Culture
By sorting tasks into these three clear buckets, leaders can quickly figure out what needs their attention and what can be passed on. It’s like giving your team the tools and freedom to run with things, making them more confident and efficient while freeing you up to focus on the big picture.
Bucket 1: Delegating Responsibilities Brilliantly
Mastering the Art of Delegation
One of the absolute game-changers in leadership is learning how to delegate like a pro. It’s not just about handing off tasks to lighten your load—it’s about being intentional, assigning responsibilities in a way that lifts the whole team’s performance and keeps everyone engaged. To delegate effectively, you’ve got to know your team inside out—their strengths, their challenges, and what makes them tick. And the best way to get there? Honest conversations, a bit of digging, and keeping a pulse on how they’re growing.
Identify strengths through personal interviews, tools like CliftonStrengths, and observing team behaviour during tasks.
Russell: "Delegating brilliantly starts with understanding your team's strengths. You have the simple conversation about the work they've got to do, which is their job description and role. But then you ask them how much of this energises them and make adjustments wherever you can."
Bucket 2: Removing Blockages to Team Performance
Unlocking your team’s full potential means tackling the roadblocks that slow them down. Spotting and clearing these obstacles keeps your team focused, energised, and performing at their best.
Addressing Stakeholder Conflicts
Stakeholder conflicts can often disrupt team dynamics. Open, consistent communication is critical—it clears the way for collaboration and smooths out conflicts. Regular check-ins focused on mutual support and growth build stronger relationships. Feedback, both given and received, is a powerful tool for building trust and maintaining momentum.
Building Rapport in Teams
In hybrid work setups, fostering strong connections can feel like a challenge. However, small gestures—like learning about team members’ preferences and quirks—can make a big difference. These actions shift work relationships from purely transactional to more meaningful, boosting both morale and productivity.
Performance Coaching
Performance coaching helps uncover the "why" behind incomplete tasks. Instead of issuing directives, adopting a coaching mindset creates space for deeper insights and meaningful resolutions. This approach helps teams tackle challenges while fostering growth and motivation.
Steps to Effective Performance Coaching:
Ask Open-Ended Questions: Instead of giving orders, ask questions like, “What’s preventing you from completing this task?” or “How can we support you better?”
Identify Motivational Gaps: Is the issue a lack of connection with the task itself, or is something personal getting in the way?
Develop Action Plans: Collaborate to create action steps that are realistic and aligned with the team member’s strengths and motivations.
By addressing performance blockages and aligning tasks with individual strengths, leaders create a supportive environment where teams feel empowered and energised. This approach doesn’t just make teams more effective—it cultivates a motivated and high-performing workplace.
Russell: "Removing blockages starts with understanding relationships and having the conversations that matter."
Bucket 3: Creating a Resilient Culture
Confidence and Team Cohesion
Confidence is the backbone of resilience. As a leader, building the confidence to tackle tough but necessary conversations is a must. It’s this confidence that helps you push through challenges while also deepening trust and strengthening relationships—both within your team and with stakeholders outside it.
The Role of Coaching in Building Resilience
Coaching gives leaders the chance to hit pause, take a breath, and reset their direction. Russell brilliantly connects the act of pausing with the ability to move forward—an idea that might sound counterintuitive but is absolutely vital for recharging and re-energising leadership.
Russell describes various forms of pausing techniques such as activities like meditation, exercise, creative hobbies, or reflective team meetings.
Defining and Living Your Leadership Purpose
Purpose is a cornerstone of resilience, and Russell often pushes his clients to dig deep and define their leadership purpose. He reminds them that purpose isn’t static—it grows and shifts over time.
A clear purpose acts as a guiding star, aligning intentions, actions, and values to navigate challenges.
The Importance of Adaptability
Adaptability is the secret sauce of great leadership and resilient teams. When the usual approach—like simply “telling”—doesn’t get the job done, it’s time to switch gears.
Russell highlights the importance of staying flexible. Sometimes, giving instructions just isn’t enough. Engaging in meaningful conversations opens the door to deeper understanding and better results, helping leaders and teams thrive in the face of change.
Russell: "Resilience is springing forward with learning. The behavioural norm that you need to get into, to achieve is one of pausing, re-energising and reflecting."
Conclusion
By incorporating these strategies into your leadership approach, you’ll build a team that’s more resilient, confident, and ready to perform at its best. Focusing on continuous learning and aligning with core strengths doesn’t just fuel individual growth—it creates the foundation for your whole organisation to thrive.
Listen to the full episode here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2230417/episodes/16206079-s3-01-how-to-be-a-resilient-leader-with-russell-harvey
In this episode, you'll hear:
00:00:00: Introduction to Extraordinary Leaders podcast
00:00:12: Introduction of guest Russell Harvey
00:00:26: Simplifying resilience
00:00:32: Russell's three bucket approach to leadership
00:00:40: Welcoming Russell Harvey
00:01:16: What does extraordinary leadership mean?
00:01:48: Understanding leader responsibilities
00:02:07: Russell’s career journey and interest in human behavior
00:03:02: Russell's journey in resilience
00:05:03: Resilience in the workplace at the co-op
00:06:00: Setting up as the Resilience Coach
00:07:05: Explaining VUCA and VUCA Prime
00:08:06: Challenges of leadership in changing landscapes
00:09:10: Delegation and cognitive overload
00:10:05: Dealing with stakeholder conflicts
00:10:46: Importance of stakeholder conversations
00:11:52: Simple strategies for removing blockages
00:12:53: Confidence and resilience
00:14:01: Confidence and support networks
00:14:42: Strengths-based approach to resilience
00:15:37: Practical steps to harness strengths in daily life
00:17:51: Understanding the Client
00:18:36: Coaching Through Blockages
00:19:01: The Head, Heart, and Gut Approach
00:20:06: Importance of Congruency and Integrity for Leaders
00:20:42: The Aeration Chamber and Coaching
00:21:55: Finding Opportunities for Resilience
00:22:10: The Paradox of Pausing to Move Forward
00:23:31: The Role of Coaching Conversations
00:24:06: Defining and Harnessing Purpose
00:27:01: Impact of Positively Affecting Others
00:30:00: Engaging with the Resilience Wheel
00:30:39: Delegating to People's Strengths
00:32:48: Dealing with Resistance in Teams
00:33:35: Introduction to the discussion on attention
00:33:58: Understanding the "why" behind actions
00:34:42: The importance of line manager adaptability
00:35:30: Consequences of not following through
00:36:42: Transactional vs. transformational leadership
00:37:27: Quality conversations in leadership
00:38:09: The importance of strength in leadership
00:40:17: Steps to understanding and utilising strengths
00:42:08: Conclusion and key takeaways on resilience
