On boundary-less, authentic leadership

During my early leadership journey, I found Jim Collin’s Level 5 Leadership (from “Good to Great”) to be a particularly useful mental model to look at, to inspire, evolve & step up leadership skills across all levels of the organization.?Over time, it has served as a ready reckoner for me, personally, as well as for leaders that I mentor, manage and advise along their professional growth journey.

Over the years, and more so in my current role, a particular set of leadership traits has proved to be extremely effective in inspiring people, managing scale, grow business, take risks, encourage innovation etc. Particularly at a company like Rakuten, with 70+ inter-connected business verticals & dozens of horizontal technology groups.

This is an attempt to summarize a few of these leadership traits that have made a real, on the ground difference to our organization and continues to elevate and let leaders operate at what I call “Level 6” Leadership.

1)?????Boundary-less: Organizational boundaries are drawn for convenience of managing complexity and giving focus to teams. They are a means to an end, but unfortunately end up becoming an end in themselves. Boundary-less leaders tend to ignore those hard boundaries and work across the spectrum of the org. They inspire, motivate, break down barriers, and always bring the frame of reference to the “us/we” vs “them/I”. The ability to operate as boundary-less itself requires perspective at both a macro level (looking at what value is being generated or what problem is being solved at a company/customer/employee level) as well as at a micro level focusing on fixing on the ground issues, putting in the right processes, taking the right decisions, exhibit high levels of inclusivity while collaborating with colleagues towards common goals. Boundary-less leaders have high sense of self drive, combined with a ability to think company/mission first, as opposed to self/team/org first that makes them invaluable for taking on massive, high priority initiatives that requires company-wide collaboration.

2)?????Ability to Zoom In / Zoom Out: The ability to zoom in and zoom out of any business/product/tech/marketing problem differentiates a Level 6 leader from others. The ability to correlate a business need (for e.g. launching a new business vertical in E-commerce in the next quarter) to (say) a technology constraint (the technology stack is not yet multi-tenant or micro services based) and take a middle ground w.r.t. a solution (say launch just a bare bones MVP to test the waters in the next quarter, while re-architecting the stack in a cloud native stack) and then zoom back out to how the PnL gets re-drawn over the next fiscal year because of the trade-off that was just done, just completely cuts out inefficiency in decision making, as one leader now has the ability to take decisions and doesn’t get caught in the organizational hubris and bureaucracy and hence brings immense credibility to the leader and value to the company.

3)?????Well rounded functional management: Leaders come in all shades of strengths. The most evolved ones tend to have built product, tech, business, strategy & operations muscle / thinking over time and generally have a converged view, that tends to be extremely effective when taking bets, or making investments or solving for challenges on the ground. Level 6 leaders consciously take on multi-function grounding / rotation every few years in different organizational roles to prepare them for a general management / C-Level leadership role in the longer term. It also helps them appreciate the opportunities and challenges of different functional teams and earn respect and credibility needed to pull off a general management leadership role.

4)?????Bar Raising / Disruptive Growth Mindset: Level 6 leaders never, ever, ever accept status quo or business as usual. Rakuten itself as a company and Mikitani san, our CEO has grown 70 different businesses in every possible industry vertical one can think of, by taking profits from one profitable business and investing in a new growth business. Its Day 1 every single day, as far as pushing boundaries, challenging status quo, removing roadblocks and inefficiencies in the system, and creating new businesses. At Rakuten India, this Day 1 spirit is a central driving force, as we embark on our journey of launching many B2B Enterprise technology & AI solutions in APAC markets, to complement our B2C businesses. Day 1 Leaders follow the cycle of Zero to One almost every year on a new business/product/vertical/partnership. It’s a forever treadmill running at 60 degree incline at full speed. This the trait that is absolutely necessary in a growth company like Rakuten.

5)?????Possibility Thinking: I love this trait the most. Possibility thinkers are never daunted by complexity, opposing priorities, lack of resources, fuzziness of the problem statement, timelines etc. etc. In fact all of them above has the opposite effect on them. They are intrinsic optimists and extrinsic realists!! One thing possibility thinkers do effectively is to create a mental space where they can look at a reasonable path towards an outcome, while keeping the harsh current realities in separate mental space to deal with later. This helps them diffuse their optimism to all their stakeholders and motivate and focus everyone on how to compartmentalize challenges and make the impossible, possible ! Possibility thinkers are far & few in any org. If you do have them, hold on to them for dear life !!

6)?????Deep & Authentic Empathy for people

I have never seen a High LQ leader who has not touched the hearts of his/her people. End of the day, a business is but the sum total of its people, their passion, values, creativity & productivity. Leaders that continuously recognize & reward the hard work, passion, outcomes & victories that individuals and teams bring to work everyday, touch their hearts and motivate them to do their absolute best for the team and the company. This empathy also extends to lending a helping hand with any personal or emotional issues teams and individuals are dealing with and enabling them to overcome those. Almost all Level 6 leaders I have mentored or admire, always come out on top on this key leadership trait.

7)?????Make It Happen Culture: This is all about execution. At the senior leaderships level, “Getting Things Done” is a given.?Overcoming challenges, priorities, resources, striking business partnerships in days, squeezing in additional sales/revenues into a quarter to hit revenue goals, putting a team together in a week to launch a brand new product within a month or two, is all fair play. Level 6 leaders have a well honed execution muscle and leverage skills that are part art, part science, part deep domain knowledge, part diplomacy & relationships, to make things happen, no matter what the circumstances.

I have seen these skills stand the test of time in a massive heterogenous internet conglomerate like Rakuten, which operates 70 businesses in 20+ countries.?I am particularly proud of the leadership team of Rakuten India that I have had the privilege of leading, that strives to accentuate Level 6 Leadership traits.