Big Leaders, and How To Be Them

“The small man builds cages for everyone he knows. While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners.” - Hafiz

It has been the privilege of my career to have worked with some of the ‘Who’s Who in Global Executive Women in Leadership’: Thia Breen, Denise Clark, Tracey Travis and Mary Callahan Erdoes immediately to come to mind. Working in the company of powerful leaders at keynote points throughout your career will yield dividends far beyond just what you do from your desk.

When you work with leaders like these, those who are seeking alpha in every step they take towards the successful delivery of a global multi-million dollar initiative or return value from a fulfilled key strategic commitment —you can feel the difference they make. These leaders command presence in every room they are in, their teams are energized and work at a high throughput with minimal disruptions, there is an elevated degree of camaraderie and the palpable sense of a shared mission. When you work with Big Leaders, there are clear lines from individual contribution to bottom line value that are communicated broadly and understood well across the organization—everyone knows what “success” means and what it takes to do a “good job”.

Big Leaders are easy to spot when you see them, and hard to let go of when you move on. These leaders are deep listeners, exceedingly self-aware and possess the unshakable confidence that their ever being wrong doesn’t mean they don’t know what they’re doing —they are not afraid of not knowing. These leaders inspire confidence within their teams and in turn, those teams are empowered to demonstrate the full scope of their capabilities. Confident teams do more, do it better and tend to create and deliver at higher levels than demoralized teams who are unsure if what they’re doing matters or are left wondering whether their work is any good at all. Big Leaders demonstrate trust. They do this by being trustworthy, by advocating for their people, by creating opportunities to actively apprentice the next generation of leaders and by instilling “Big Leader Values” in everything they do. These leaders are legacy minded and impact focused.

Big Leaders know that people work for people, not for organizations or companies. Big Leaders “have your back”, and they demonstrate it. They are the tiger in the tank, and can herd a room full of cats into a straight line for a dish of milk without breaking a sweat. These leaders know how to capture an audience, how to effectively lead a meeting in spite of technical issues, vague agendas or conflicted stakeholders —they turn project dross into spun strategic gold.

By contrast, small leaders are outsized in their posts and have likely arrived there before they were ready to learn how to lead. By chance or the glad happenstance that they were well-connected and in the right place at the right time, these types of leaders have not had to think about what makes up the anatomy of a Big Leader. As a result, small leaders are often easily threatened in their positions and most times can be found doing just enough to get by; fighting the fires as they come, while shielding themselves from accountability and blithely maintaining the status quo.

When it comes to bringing groups of the smartest people together, in the hopes that you can help them to deliver top tier results—the biggest leaders know that the most important thing they can do is make it easy for their teams to be productive. By tackling the hard things for their teams head on, making the toughest decisions first, holding standards high, being fair and consistent —Big Leaders keep the road ahead clear for good work to be done. These leaders create a culture that encourages teams to challenge the organization to aim higher, and rewards them with the credit they deserve when they bring us over the line.

Big Leaders strive to inspire their teams, not by showing how elevated or immovable they are as a leader —but by creating opportunities for their teams to do amazing things in direct benefit to the broader organization. These leaders know that today’s markets require the best teams to be able to work together in a hyper connected way, a microservice based organizational architecture —tightly integrated, loosely coupled and able to deliver efficiently at scale. Winning teams today are doing so with predictive, elastic service: expanding intelligence or specializing on demand in response to the real-time needs of their organization. This type of team requires a different breed of leader.

Creating high performance organizations also depends largely on environment, Big Leaders know this. A lack of clearly defined policies and standards, broad consensus-based decision making and sentiment driven technology strategies all serve to work against achieving higher levels of productivity. A results driven culture is born from the collective conscience of high performing management teams and strong executive committees. The tools which Big Leaders use to build strategy and set direction, result in the organizational “house” their teams live in 10 hours a day, 5 days a week (or more)—and Big Leaders know this. These leaders know that expecting a team to deliver when the “roof is leaking” or the “windows are all smashed out” is almost a guarantee for missed milestones and buggy code. Big Leaders also know that strong shared values and a healthy work culture are the foundations on which you build big results and record breaking metrics. These leaders invest in talent, leveraging strengths first and minding the gaps as they develop.

What I’ve learned in working with Big Leaders, from following their footsteps and taking good notes as I go, are the qualities it takes to address truth to power. As in “Telling Truth to Kings” by Reinhold Schneider —Big Leaders know what hinders contemporary holders of power from hearing truth, and they craft their message accordingly. I’ve learned from these leaders that when you are ready, you will come to view your career and your leadership contribution as a legacy—not as a political game. I’ve learned that military precision, and fervent pragmatism are best served to assess the truth of theories and strategies in terms of the demonstrated success in their practical application. Big Leaders have taught me that blindly leading your resources towards only the voice of the most influential stakeholder or the functional team that complains the loudest, as a long term strategy —is a losing proposition. Big Leaders have taught me that elegance is among the most prized of leadership qualities. Demonstrated by ineffable grace, simplicity of speaking and explanatory power the biggest leaders are often the most refined. I’ve learned from Big Leaders that you don’t need to wait for boardrooms and corner offices to be filled with people who look like you, in order for you to take your place as a Big Leader. You can be the first. Big Leaders often are.

Most importantly, I’ve learned from Big Leaders that none of these things matter unless you begin and end by living and breathing your mission —whether that is delivering exceptional ‘high-touch’ service to your customer, or making the best product on the market. Without a clear and compelling mission, it can be hard drum up people to assign tasks and get them to work. Being a leader who no one is following, is just a title taking a walk.

I’ve learned from Big Leaders that you don’t have to have a classroom to teach, and you don’t need a title to lead. If you pay close attention, you’ll see Big Leaders everywhere you look—from the go-to guy in Desktop Support to the young lady from Office Services who makes sure everyone always has what they need when they need it, from the Executive Assistant down the hall to the new Intern from Carnegie Mellon.

In an era starved for real leadership, a fragile economic climate filled with breaking news headlines and uncertainty about what the world will look like next —be on the lookout for Big Leaders when you see them, famous or little known. All of them energizing their followers, making the world better and inspiring others to do the same.