Lindsay Wittenberg Ltd

29/09/2022

A sudden threat

It happened from one second to the next – no warning signs, no previous indications that anything was wrong. From simply feeling dizzy I found myself on the floor, having come round 15 minutes after losing consciousness. By amazing good fortune, I was discovered – which probably saved my life.

An emergency admission to hospital, and subsequent investigations, revealed internal bleeding, which was patched up while a decision was made about the best way forward. The date for surgery initially planned for two or three weeks away was brought nearer and nearer as the doctors became more and more concerned about the possibility of a recurrence and the potential negative consequences.

Surgery was carried out successfully, which saved my life for the second time – and, apart from now not having as much of my insides as I’d had previously, everything has been resolved and I’m back to good health.

I had rarely been ill in my life, my most serious complaint having been a bad cold.

Until the surgery had been completed and pronounced successful, and the biopsy showed there was no ongoing problem, the nature of what my life was to be was at the extreme end of uncertainty, with a possible threat to it.



Acceptance, resilience and presence

I’ve reflected at some length on how I travelled the journey from collapse through to recovery, and I see in retrospect that there are a number of key factors. Being present to my own experience without resisting it, and accepting both the experience and the situation on a moment-by-moment basis, have, I realise, been central.

I see that only by ‘being with’ what was happening could I have any of the awareness and freedom that offered me choice about how to respond to it. Strangely, I didn’t at any point feel frightened: maybe the acceptance took the fear away. I feel sure that my years of mindfulness practice accounted for my capacity to accept, and to face in to all the available facts and the possible outcomes.

I also felt (and still feel) immensely and genuinely grateful all the way through, and I imagine that will have influenced my state of mind too.

Just as significant in nourishing what some people referred to as my resilience were the most extraordinary and limitless support, caring and love from those close to me, my confidence in excellent, communicative and attentive medical care (thank you Royal Free Hospital and University College Hospital in London), and the kindness and care of countless friends, colleagues and family members.



A viral effect

During my hospital stay and afterwards I’ve been struck by how many people remarked on my effect on them, and what they referred to as my calm, my serenity and my positivity. Until then, I hadn’t quite realised the extent to which my demeanour impacted on the people taking care of me. My close family remarked on how easy I made it for them as we moved through the steps of tests, uncertainty, decisions, surgery, more uncertainty and its outcomes. Nursing staff said I inspired them through particularly tricky, unpredictable or critical moments. Porters said they wished they had my attitude to uncertainty and risk. And one of the surgeons who operated on me mentioned how rewarding the case had been for him.

These reactions have brought home forcibly to me the power of genuinely seeing the good in situations and constantly feeling grateful: it really is viral, and really does impact the way other people feel and what they see in their environments and those they work with and for. It was returned to me in the shape of warmth, caring and compassion, which will have contributed to my positivity of mind and body.



Learning for leaders

I’ve been reflecting too on lessons for leaders that might be inherent in this story. Heaven knows their working lives are filled with risk and uncertainty, in a context of high stakes.

Every action, every tone of voice, every conversation has an impact – and the impact of those actions, tones of voice and conversations will be rooted in the leader’s underlying values, beliefs, motivations and emotions, not simply from the words or actions themselves. These are what their people will experience, and what will carry them through situations that are uncertain or threatening.

The leader who’s present will be able to pick up trends, currents, and feelings around them – and will be able to tune in to their own authentic responses to people and situations, and thus manage those responses in full awareness.

The leader who accepts mindfully that things are as they are will be realistic and very likely have more insight than the leader who resists a situation they wish was otherwise. They’ll feel calmer too, and that will be viral.

The leader who’s appreciative, supportive and caring (and who encourages that sort of culture) will have a workforce with high levels of engagement, discretionary effort, effectivenes and customer satisfaction.

Leaders who have this level of self-awareness and systemic awareness, and the capacity for emotional self-management, will sow the seeds of building organisational health, flourishing and success in a climate of risk.

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22/06/2022

A potential client, ‘a man in a hurry’, was looking for answers. Now. Another prospective client slowed down long enough to engage with the notion of the challenge – and the benefits – to him of that very slowing down, because he was interested in ‘exploring the hidden in order to grow’. The nature of organisational life frequently means that leaders are pressured to achieve clear, ‘correct’ outcomes – fast and with urgency. While this is standard, it militates against the possibility of achieving richer, wider, more sustainable outcomes because space hasn’t been made for reflection and for experimenting. A leader might consider becoming aware of when speed is the lived priority, and reflecting on the impact and outcomes of that priority. They might also consider putting in place processes, approaches and forums in which people can honestly express what’s going on for them, be truly heard without being offered opinions or judgments, and be acknowledged for who they are rather than what they do.

https://www.lindsaywittenberg.co.uk/slowing-down-to-speed-up/

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Do you know anyone in the nhs.uk, the care sector or the hospice sector who could benefit from free high-quality professional, inclusive coaching?

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Family therapist Barry Mason characterises solutions as ‘only dilemmas that are less of a dilemma than the dilemma one had’. There’s no such thing as right or wrong in the coaching encounter: no predetermined answers, no pre-set course, but rather flow and emergence, and the noticing of these....

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Are you an NHS/care sector worker struggling to manage stress, get your mojo back or work out next steps? If so, Coaching Through COVID and Beyond can help! This award-winning programme offers FREE confidential independent support to key workers who wouldn't normally have access to high-quality coaching. Maybe you just want a one-off chat, or you'd like to sign up to a programme of up to six sessions - whatever works best for you. You can get in touch via the website www.coachingthroughcovid.org , or email [email protected] and the team will be able to take it from there.

Free high-quality professional inclusive coaching and other demand-led resources to key workers (any role or background) in organisations including the NHS and care homes. Psychologically informed coaching from our highly experienced accredited coaches offers a compassionate skilled listening ear, a...

08/12/2021

Pro bono coaching programme Coaching through COVID and Beyond (of which I'm a co-founder and a member of the core team) has won the Coaching at Work magazine award of External Coaching Champion (Organisation). The depth of our psychological safety in the core team has meant that we’ve been able to have difficult conversations in a spirit of openness and honesty, we’ve been ready to take risks in a context of uncertainty, we’ve been agile and responsive and happy to experiment in a spirit of ‘test and learn’, and we’ve welcomed diversity of all kinds. Living diversity means that we’ve constantly called on our collective intelligence - and so we've been able to achieve innovative success in several ways.
https://www.lindsaywittenberg.co.uk/award-for-coaching-through-covid-and-beyond/

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You might recognise a situation where an organisation’s strategy is unclear, poorly-defined, poorly communicated or in constant flux. In this context, the role and place of any individual in the organisation (and especially a new recruit) can be unclear. The criteria by which his or her performanc...

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Fear and courage are intertwined when it comes to leadership of self and others. Fear is inevitable and - if unchecked - inhibits and erodes performance, versatility and the creativity that can be crucial to address the challenge, complexity and uncertainty that are constants in the life of leaders....

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The news emerged that Dame Clare Marx, Chair of the General Medical Council, was stepping down from her post, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She reflects on her career that ‘in my happiest moments, I felt respected, valued and listened to. I felt I belonged’. Her wish is that ‘e...

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I’ve just done something I’ve never done before: I’ve handed back a 4-year contract. At the heart of my decision was an inability to tolerate a client’s terms of engagement – both the formal, explicit terms, and the informal, implicit terms. My deepest values (integrity, professionalism, h...