Do you have a favourite TV drama or film? When you’re engrossed in a story, you forget, don’t you, that your favourite characters are not real people? They are personas created by a combination of script and characterisation. Did you ever think of yourself in the same way? In professional mode, we are all playing a part – a version of ourselves – and we have certain tools to help us: the script and perhaps a prop or two. As Luke Skywalker had his lightsabre, you might have your standard agenda, sense of humour or keep the conversation focused on a business outcome.

When I talk about a script, I am speaking metaphorically of course, though you may indeed have an actual script. Our scripts are our beliefs, approaches, assumptions, experience, personality, our secret sauce. Actors cling to their scripts for meaning. Even characters who don’t speak have a script.

The script you use probably evolved over the years as you fine-tuned the business and got into your stride, but there may come a time when it is no longer fit for purpose. When a tweak here or an extra scene there won’t cut it, what do you do?

This can a disconcerting moment. I speak from experience. I was facilitating a peer-to-peer forum when it happened. If you’ve attended one, you will know my script, more or less. It has served me – and I hope you – well. My script gives me structure, an agenda, and a mechanism by which I help clients get the results they need. My script helps me maintain a sense of control during each session. If we go marginally went off script, I can always get things back on course.

Actor in search of a script

But on this particular occasion, I had a sense that doing things the usual way would be pointless. You see, the group in question needed something different if they were to move to another level in their leadership evolution. So, I decided to tear up the script. Picture it: an actor, in the middle of a drama, without a script – can you imagine how terrifying a place that is?

I felt totally out of my depth. As a result, the session did not go with the fluency we had become used to and I could feel control slipping away. What was I to do? I decided to take another risk. I told the participants what I was doing. More importantly, I told them that I was at sea and that I was afraid I would lose their business because I appeared to not know what I was doing.

Danger of being written out

My admission of feeling out of my depth and afraid of coming across as incompetent chimed with a participant. It made her see that she feared that her approach to leading her team would not work. She was trying to work with them on a new vision but was not using her normal ‘script’ to do it. She had taken another approach, something not within her repertoire, and it was not working at all. She realised in a moment of clarity that she was afraid that her script – her manifesto, her whole way of seeing things – would not work. She had chosen not to put it to the test because, subconsciously, she did not want to acknowledge that her whole way of doing things, her tried-and-trusted approach, was defunct. Because where would that leave her? A character without a script is not in the show.

Having recognised and named it she felt relieved, plus she experienced a sense of clarity and energy around being more open with the team. This had a profound effect on the other members of our group and as a result the session turned out much better than it would have if I had stuck to my script!

A new character arc

The real learning for all of us during the session was the need to be aware of the script and props we depend on. Setting them aside may well lead to feeling vulnerable but it can be the pathway to reinvigorating our characters – our professional personas – and perhaps change their narrative arc. What better way to make sure we stay front and centre in the show of our lives?

The following are a few of the insights the members posted at the end of the session:

• It is going to be uncomfortable when you try something new.
• Share with your team what you are trying to do, and your potential fears of it not working.
• Be aware of your need to get it right and realise that striving for perfection can inhibit progress.
• Progress is always incremental, which is not the same as kicking the can down the road.

What is your leadership script or props that might need adjusting and what coping mechanism could help you navigate re-inventing how you lead?

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