Disruption: The Surprising Key to Leadership Growth in a Chaotic World
How Strategic Disruption–Especially External–Can Transform Everyday Chaos into Opportunities for Innovation and Leadership Development
SUMMARY: Leadership productivity is often undermined by workplace distractions and urgent demands, a norm that stifles innovation in leadership. However, when strategic disruption is intentionally cultivated, it becomes a powerful catalyst that surges creativity and fresh achievement in an ever-changing professional landscape. This type of disruption is most effectively implemented through the involvement of an executive coach. A leadership coach stimulates internal reflection, enabling leaders to confront and overcome leadership challenges with newfound strategies and perspectives that were previously inaccessible on their own. Embracing disruption, particularly executive coaching, will transform your leadership.
It's Monday morning. You just got to your computer and already life is spinning at a dizzying pace. Loads of unread emails, un-swiped notifications, and urgent messages from your partner/kids/clients/team/boss. A thousand thoughts, a million to-dos.
In the midst of this chaos, you're trying to do something valuable: to lead, make progress, make a difference. Yet, you are constantly plagued with the noise of the day, the incessant demands of the hour, and the never-ending need to multitask.
As leaders, in particular, the constant rush of responsibility has caused us to normalize this frenetic pace. Distractions and interruptions are the norm, something so woven into the fabric of our lives that we are calloused to their chafing. Often, we believe the best thing is to try to focus more, do 'deeper' work, resist the temptation to do two (or twenty-two) things at once. If we can only get a few minutes to spend on one thing, we think, that will make all the difference.
But for many of us, that chaos has become comfortable, the devil we know. We often choose insanity (doing the same thing and expecting a different result) solely because we’ve always done it.
The answer to it all feels like a contradiction:
Disruption.
At first, that seems like the last thing we're looking for. Our whole lives feel disrupted. And yet, what if disruption—from an external source, in the right form and at the right times—is exactly what we need?
Navigating the Chaos: the Important Difference Between Distraction and Disruption
First, let's clarify something. Distractions draw us away from doing our best and most important work. They are the fires we put out, the pings on our phones, the noise. They're unnecessary, but inevitable, needing to be managed, even battled.
Disruption, on the other hand, is different. It can be external, things like pandemics, market crashes, protests or war. It could be employee shortages or increased costs or new governmental regulations. These things can't be ignored; they require a response.
Disruption can also be internal—an intentional, purposeful choice to catalyze change. It's a process of asking (or being asked) the right questions, seeking diverse opinions, and examining various angles. It's exploring ourselves and situations with 'What if?' and 'What else?' and 'What could be?' It’s resisting the temptation to believe that what's known is all there is to know and what's seen is the only way to see it. It’s poking and prodding the norm. It is, in fact, required for growth.
The Power of Strategic Disruption in Leadership Development
Wind is an essential part of our natural world. It disperses plant’s seeds in a process called anemochory (*See the pesky patch of dandelions in your lawn. Thanks, Neighbor.). As the wind blows on seedlings, another benefit occurs, the stress produces auxin, a hormone in the plant that stimulates growth of its cells, in turn strengthening the stem.
We understand the metaphor and can see it in our lives. Our personal and leadership growth doesn't happen without the winds of disruption. If we choose only to shelter in the protected calm of our comfort zones, we won't grow.
However, it is in the liminal space between this comfort zone and the next, that growth occurs.
We discover more about who we are, what we are capable of, and how we must lead. In that space, we shake the stagnancy that has calcified into our routines and can restart with a new focus. It's there we re-engage old tasks with renewed interest and replace exhaustion with renewed energy.
But we must open the door to disruption. If we believe in its benefits, how do we cultivate it?
Personal Development Through Embracing Disruption
On our own, we are unlikely to change. Humans are change-averse in ways big and small–it’s how we’re wired. And yet, disrupting ourselves is possible. We can ask the right questions, mull over the right thoughts, plan solutions to the pertinent issues. In fact, a regular cadence of daily, curious reflection is one of the best ways to identify areas for growth and leverage them.
In Karl Martin's book, The Cave, The Road, The Table and The Fire, he encourages us to ask two simple questions every day:
What did I learn today?
How might I act tomorrow?
While this regular reflection is incredibly healthy, we need an extra nudge (and sometimes a big kick). Most of our thought patterns are repetitive. We resist change. We need something outside of us to help us wrestle with what's inside of us.
Executive Coaching: The Most Effective Catalyst for Transformation in Leadership
With the leadership landscape as complex as ever and the bar set impossibly high for those willing to engage, support is essential for leadership. Executive coaching has seen a steep rise in demand the last five years and those taking advantage of it are winning; the ROI of executive coaching is staggering—a Metrix Global study indicated executive coaching yields a 788% return on investment, based on factors such as increased productivity and employee retention. And yet, Stanford Graduate School of Business found that while nearly all CEOs would love this type of outside coaching, nearly two-thirds do not have a coach, and nearly half of other senior executives don’t either.
Perhaps distractions are beating disruption for most top leaders today.
So why is coaching so effective, leading to 70% increases in individual performance, 50% increases in team performance, and 48% increases in organizational performance?
A great coach isn't just a sounding board, a cheerleader, or back patter. Effective coaching is like a deep tissue massage or a trip to the dentist—painful, then helpful. The questions we need to contemplate often lack easy answers. The areas we need to explore are often less about our projects, than about us as the project.
But if you're willing to engage in the process, coaching can be one of the most powerful catalysts of your development, for several reasons.
Disrupt to Innovate: Coaching Shifts Thinking Patterns and Sparks Innovation
Today, a leader must constantly evolve in order to lead teams and organizations in a world changing at an ever-increasing pace.
However, the truth is 95% of our thoughts today are the same as they were yesterday. And, inevitably, as we think the same things, we try the same things. Coaching disrupts us from the 'sameness' we're used to, sparking new and novel thought patterns.
A 2022 brain scan study revealed something significant—it contrasted brain activity when (1) a person tried to solve a problem on their own, (2) a person received other people's opinions or advice about their problem, and (3) they were coached through open-ended questions that catalyzed new thinking to solve the problem. Remarkably, brain activity was pretty low and consistent between scenarios 1 and 2, but the brain activity surged in scenario 3.
This tells us something definitive: when we're in our own echo chamber, our fresh ideation is limited and lackluster; when we receive advice, we don't tend to engage much with it (we like our own ideas better); but when outside disruption pulls fresh thinking out of us, we get wildly innovative.
Bartolomé G., Vuka S., Nadal C. and Blanco E. (2022) “Right cortical activations during generation of creative insights: An electroencephalographic study of coaching.” Frontiers in Education, 7:753710.
This is critical in today's leadership world. New problems can't be solved with the same old solutions and discovering outside-the-box answers must happen consistently and quickly.
We must counteract our instincts to simplify, generalize and categorize in order to innovate at the necessary rate.
In his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin has some insightful words about creativity:
“Before civilization, the natural world was far more dangerous. In order for humans to survive, we had to assess situations and parse information quickly. This survival instinct persists today. With the overwhelming amount of information available to us, we are more reliant than ever on categorization, labeling, and shortcuts. Few have the time and expertise to evaluate each new choice with a completely open, unbiased mind...New creative possibilities and sources of inspiration are blocked from view.”
Our instincts to skip steps and oversimplify prevent us from new, and possibly the best, solutions and coaching is the catalyst to get off the hamster wheel of repetition. As an outsider, the coach brings a unique perspective by assuming nothing, then holding up a mirror and digging in. From that posture, insightful, probing questions peel back assumptions, unearth expectations, and reveal new facets of the truth. It is both destabilizing and indispensable.
Practicing Resilience: Building Leadership Strength through Intentional Disruption
First, it’s about doing the reps. The disruption by design that a coach initiates, allows us to work out the muscles that'll do the heavy lifting when life hits us. Living in a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) means it's not about 'if' disruption comes, but 'when.' Inviting a coach to intentionally disrupt our thinking allows us to build resilience on our own terms.
In Adam Grant's book, Hidden Potential, he discusses polyglots, people who can talk and think in many languages. He dispels the myth that this select group is simply a collection of geniuses. Instead, he discovers the aptitude of the learner has less to do with intelligence or even hours of practice than the ability to get 'comfortable being uncomfortable.'
Effective coaching prioritizes practicing discomfort. The discomfort of asking, 'What else could be true?' or 'What if you're wrong?' or 'What could you be missing?' These safe situations help prepare leaders to effectively lead with poise and calm when facing the unexpected disruptions of the world. Practice may not make perfect, but it does prepare us.
Uncovering the Unknown: How Leadership Coaching Exposes and Utilizes Hidden Potential
What is unknown to us makes up the largest part of us. And the unknown can control us if we are ignorant to the way it impacts our responses, decisions, and moods.
Coaching is designed to probe those places, to slowly crack them open and illuminate what's there, giving us a chance to see into places that we haven't seen before so we can leverage what we find or rid ourselves of it entirely. As leaders, we can't become better if we don't grow and we can't grow if we don't know who we are.
In Karl’s book he says:
“Becoming aware of what lies beneath, of what is unconscious, is the gateway to healthy leadership...If you don't know yourself, you can't lead yourself and you have little hope of leading others well.”
The part of the iceberg that's underwater sinks ships. And alone, we can only discover so much of it.
The disruptive nature of coaching helps us expose these blind spots and uncover the uncomfortable. As we begin to know more of ourselves, we can control our response, understand what it feels like to be on the other side of us, and choose to show up differently.
The Benefits of Embracing Uncomfortable Truths in Leadership Development
Adding personal upheaval to this already turbulent world is, admittedly, a difficult sell. It's asking leaders to do difficult work. It's asking those who are asked the tough questions to ask more of them. It's asking those with lots to do to do more.
It's asking those who are already sailing through storms to intentionally rock the boat. It's asking us to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Some of us will dismiss the thought entirely, go back to business as usual with that same manic Monday morning on repeat.
But if we resist that pull and invite a guide to walk through disruption with us, we'll soon see the growth and innovation that comes in that liminal space. We'll be prepared for external disruption through how we’ve welcomed internal disruption. And we'll deepen our confidence as we discover more of our authentic selves.
Can you afford to not be disrupted by a coach?
