Conversational Leadership with Gayle Karen Young Whyte

<p class="" data-pm-slice="1 1 []">Today I talk to Gayle Karen Young Whyte, former Chief People Officer for the Wikimedia Foundation and currently part of the faculty for the Leadership programs at the Full Circle Group.</p> <p class="">Together, we unpack the ideas of Conversational Leadership. In a conversation, there are usually at least two points of view, and movement forward comes through a give and take. The world asks things of us, and we ask things of the world...what we get is the conversation that is our lives. We can demand all we like of the world, we will get what we get. And just the same, the world will never get all it asks of us - we get to choose.</p> <p class="">Leadership in organizations is absolutely accomplished through dialogue - leading through dictatorial fiat is not a sustainable model. That old mode of command and control is losing its hold on the world.</p> <p class="">Gayle presents us with this idea of leadership as sensing and steering - of getting data and feedback from the world and “turning up the volume on what works”. Feedback loops are the essence of conversation and leadership.</p> <p class=""><a href= "https://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/season-three/aaron-dignan-brave-org-conversations"> The image brought to mind my episode with Aaron Dignan, founder of the Ready</a> who asks leaders if they would like to ride a bicycle where they get to steer or one with a fixed steering wheel - you can only point the bike in one direction and keep going.</p> <p class="">Everyone always chooses the steering bike, the ability to make little corrections to your course, rather than stay in a line….and yet most organizations are led like a fixed bike, with an annual budgeting and strategy process that isn’t conversational or adaptable mid-course.</p> <p class="">In terms of the Conversation Operating System at the core of my book, this is about Cadence - having a lively pace of feedback, rather than a slow or non-existent one.</p> <p class="">Gayle and I also dive into the importance