Becoming a great leader – seven points to consider
The contemporary challenges facing corporate leaders are well documented. The context for leadership is one filled with complexity, ambiguity, volatility and uncertainty. They are challenges that aren’t going to go away or change any time soon, and if leaders hope to thrive in this new reality and context, new thinking and behaviour are required.
Here are seven things that as a leader you need consider, should you wish to be a great leader in such a context.
1. Think about how you think about leadership
Driven by a relentless deluge of “how to” insights and easy applications, the leadership market has become one of short-cuts, “five things to do”, and a host of effortless add-ons that make light of the responsibility that is leadership, reducing it to a mere role and responsibility.
Authentic leaders think about how they intend to practise and live their leadership. They understand the importance of an underpinning leadership philosophy that steers all that they do.
They know that, when it comes to the fuel to power their thinking, they dare not run dry. Smart leaders understand how they think and they know when the way in which they think will prove helpful – and when it won’t! They are not lazy when it comes to building the insights and capacity to understand their own leadership and the demands being placed on them as they exercise that leadership.
Albert Einstein once said that thinking was the “hardest work of all – that is why so few engage in it”.
2. Disengage the autopilot: be intentional in everything you do
Intentionality is one of the basic principles of a powerful theory known as Invitational Leadership. Sometimes leaders are doing the “right thing” and it is working, but they don’t really know why it is working. They get used to cruising on autopilot in such circumstances.
The problem arises when what they are doing stops working for them. Because they didn’t know why it was working in the first place, they don’t know how to fix it when it doesn’t work quite so well. Being intentional allows a leader to better understand what works and what doesn’t, and why. Being intentional directs and guides leadership action and activity in a manner that produces results and focuses effort.
Intentionality is built off the platform of a determined leadership philosophy that helps ensure that not every wind or current is considered the right one. Intentionality draws purpose out of the mundane and provides meaning to the routine.
When did you last sit down and map out a series of intentional activities to guide your day, week or month as a leader? That targeted conversation that appears totally informal? That intentional cup of coffee served in a way that sets a powerful example? That intentional “seeing” of someone who doesn’t expect you to notice them – even less, pay attention to the role they play in your organisation?
3. Understand how you see – and where that is helpful and not so helpful
Your world view determines how you interpret the world around you. If you don’t understand your world view – the lens through which you see – you are incapable of recognising your own biases, prejudices and blind spots. Understanding your world view is the inner work that leaders need to do. It is that interior landscaping that results in a deepening self-awareness that is the bedrock of emotional intelligence. There is simply no shortcut to this work, and it is fundamental if you are to lead successfully in a world of difference and diversity.
This is one reason why it’s great to travel – to places so different from our world that they expose our own world view and all its shortcomings. Places where basic constructs and understanding are so different from our own “normal” and “logic” that learning and unlearning is simply not optional.
Seeing how you see is a leadership imperative in a world that is both connected and complex. We have seen senior leaders in global leadership programmes, located in foreign and exotic locations away from what they are used to, refuse to see any differently from how they would were they back home. The result is a refusal to learn, grow and engage that invariably leads to a judgemental disposition that merely highlights their ignorance and just how “stuck” they truly are. Fortunately, we have also seen the opposite, and the results can be quite spectacular!
What are your lenses that influence how you see the world? Age, nationality, culture, education, gender, health or physicality and experience would all be influential lenses that determine how you see.
Can you think of an occasion when your world view was challenged? How did it come about? How did it make you feel? When last were you in a situation where you realised that the way you see things was totally inadequate? What did you do about it?
4. Get rid of the dog: perspective is your best friend
For leaders leading in today’s context – one described by futurists as a “VUCA” world: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – perspective is essential. In the adaptive leadership model a distinction is made between the dance floor and the balcony.
Being on the dance floor, and the expertise you displayed there, is what got you noticed and promoted into the leadership position you hold. The problem is that too many leaders are spending too much time on the dance floor, because that is what they know, that is what they are good at, and so the lure of the dance floor remains a strong one. However, when you are on the dance floor you cannot see the entire area or dance floor. Your sight or perspective is restricted to your immediate surroundings, and therein lies the problem.
In a world of exponential and non-linear change, being on the balcony, from which you can see the entire dance floor, is essential. Smart leaders know the difference between the dance floor and the balcony, and when they need to be on one or the other. We recall sharing this powerful analogy with a CEO, who immediately added his own insight: he said the reality was that his day was spent running up and down the stairwell between the dance floor and the balcony! Maybe you can relate to that situation!
What constitutes your balcony? It can be a place, a habit, or even a way you think. You can access your balcony in the midst of a meeting or discussion. It is a place that affords you perspective that you otherwise wouldn’t ordinarily have, and it is essential for leaders. How can you cultivate the balcony within your leadership team, both personally and collectively?
5. Leadership is lonely only if you make it so
You often hear the refrain “leadership is lonely” or “it is lonely at the top”. That doesn’t need to be the case. It depends on how you see leadership. There is no doubt that leaders are required at times to make unpopular decisions or to say what no-one else is willing or able to say – and at that moment it might seem a lonely place to be, but that ought not to characterise the entire landscape or leadership journey.
Smart leaders stay connected both inside and outside their leadership domain. Smart leaders seek out mentors and forge relationships where they can be vulnerable, open and honest. Smart leaders know that to be lonely is ultimately their choice, and not automatically the cloak that accompanies the throne they now occupy. Lonely leaders can be dangerous leaders, as their loneliness ultimately erodes feedback, loosens bonds of accountability, and can lead to a narrowing of perspective that can prove to be dangerous for both themselves and those they lead.
As a leader, are you lonely? If so, why? What can you do to change this, and if you aren’t lonely as a leader, what can you do to safeguard this situation?
6. Know what to keep, what to discard and what to rearrange: your future survival depends on it
Evolutionary biology embraces three things in the evolutionary process: what to keep; what to discard; what to rearrange. These simple yet very complex questions form the key to helping you lead the change you need in order to thrive into the future.
Leaders lead through change, and today’s context is one of continuous change. Ensuring that your organisation has the DNA to enable it to be nimble, agile and quick is your chief responsibility as a leader. It starts with you as a leader. Understanding how these three questions – what to keep, discard or rearrange – can form the backbone of all you do and the processes you follow will go a long way towards ensuring that you are able to adapt to whatever disruption is sure to come your way.
The challenge is that too many leaders cling to past success, the way things were, and change is often regarded as the enemy. A simple yet profound perspective when it comes to leading change in an organisation is the maxim that the fear of not changing must be greater than the fear of the change.
So, for your organisation to be “future fit” – to be able to thrive in the uncertain future – what is it you need to keep, discard or rearrange? With whom should you be having these conversations?
7. Respect: you need to earn it, period
Too many leaders today go on about “loss of respect”, and mourn the change in attitudes and behaviours that they believe has eroded respect as they know it. The challenge is that respect is viewed differently from one generation to another.
For an older generation, respect is given by virtue of position and status. For a younger generation, respect is earned. “It doesn’t matter that you are the boss, the adult, the parent or the teacher … you need to earn my respect” is the basic construct for the younger generation.
You can immediately see why this (the difference in approaches to respect) is problematic – and is so misunderstood! Almost every corporate values list incorporates “respect” in the list somewhere; we delight in asking those on the inside just whose respect they are referring to when they list respect as a corporate value. It invariably leads to some interesting conversations!
As a leader, don’t assume that your position gives you respect. Far better that you intentionally go about earning it on a daily basis, regardless of the ages of those reporting to you. Of course, the matter of respect plays out in cultural settings, in addition to the generational one mentioned.
Why not reopen the internal conversation around respect in your company? What it really is and how it could be more meaningfully understood and lived? Where has “respect”, as you have understood it, proved limiting and been open to misunderstanding?
In conclusion, here’s a thought for your consideration. Each of these seven areas invites deeper exploration – an exploration that will require bold and courageous leadership. Before you are tempted to embark on that journey with others (your team), may we suggest you first spend time engaging with the points yourself. Doing so might provide some deeper insights and wisdom as to how best to approach and start the journey with the others you have in mind.
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To discuss the leadership challenges you are facing in your business, contact me by email or call me on +44 (0)20 7099 2621.
Terry Irwin is a management consultant with international experience in strategy development, business turnarounds, venture capital, sales and marketing, M&As and project management. He is a founder director of TCii Strategic and Management Consultants and has helped a broad portfolio of international clients to achieve profitable, sustainable business growth.
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