An Impact podcast with Agata Stanik, created for the Impact leadership playbook.
Do the challenges you face at work always feel simple? Can they always be fixed by one person alone? And can they always be solved with the same solutions that you’ve come to rely on in the past? In a BANI world, we are increasingly confronted with complexity, ambiguity and disruption. It's often said that these challenges require leaders to draw on, not what they know already, but who they know and what they can learn together. So how can leaders get started?
"What leaders really should and could and can do in organisations is to help people understand what is going on and where they are heading. Of course, not to one hundred percent because no one will ever know it all. But giving people this feeling of, ‘Hey, we are in this together, right? You don't know and I don't know.' That really makes a difference."
Latest listen
In this mini podcast (24 mins), created exclusively for the Impact leadership playbook, Dan chats to Agata Stanik about navigating complexity. Based in Warsaw, Agata is General Manager of Impact Poland. With 15 years' experience at Impact across a range of different roles and functions, Agata is known for her courage and risk taking, engaging approach, big picture mindset, and for being a true global collaborator.
What do we mean by complexity?
"We are trying to operate in a world that is becoming very challenging. Challenging in terms of understanding what is going on, why it's happening, what it means, and where it's all heading.
So complex means unknown, or only temporarily knowable – you can only figure out what's happening right in front of you, not what's happening in the long term or in a different direction. And it's continuously changing. It’s changing all the time. It’s like this movie I saw recently, it’s ‘Everything, Everywhere, All At Once’. It’s all happening in parallel. It can make people feel that they are being taken by a wave, that they have little influence on what is going on, what is happening to them. Making meaning out of these situations becomes tricky, challenging, exhausting."
What tangible steps can leaders take to improve their ability to navigate this complexity?
"The humanity, the human factor, this is what we find really makes a difference. Because when the challenge is impossible to comprehend by scientific means – you cannot measure it, you cannot test it, you cannot even name some of the things happening – it’s impossible to find the one best solution. But you can think about the approach that will be helpful.
We find it very useful to help people get back to the roots of being really human, and that means staying in connection, investing in real relationships, building trust, building psychological safety, creating community, depending on people, and working together towards the common goal. Because the role of the leader is, on one hand, caring for their people and developing them, but also providing the direction in which the team or organisation should be going. And that can and should change, as the complex situation is continuously evolving and changing. So the leader needs to not be afraid of change You just need to make the best out of it and make sure that your people are being taken care of. [...]
What leaders really should and could and can do in organisations is to help people understand what is going on and where they are heading. Of course, not to one hundred percent because no one will ever know it all. But giving people this feeling of, ‘hey, we are in this together, right? You don't know and I don't know. That really makes a difference."
Listen to the podcast on Spotify
This mini podcast was created for our leadership playbook, an interactive resource capturing 45 years of learning about leadership.