Leader as an Agitator-in-Chief

It would be wishful thinking to assume the leadership styles, techniques and approaches of previous century will continue serving us well in the world on the cusp of the 4th industrial revolution driven by robotics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual and augmented reality. 

Previous industrial revolutions have displaced and changed work tasks, routines and processes of 40% of the population, and the transition was never an easy one. The speed of the current wave of change further complicates the situation - never before has humanity experienced such drastic changes in such a short period.

It is our responsibility to prepare our organisation and people, and this calls on us to experiment with a different and more future and change focused leadership styles. However before I explore the notion of leader as an "agitator-in-chief", let me summarise what I believe the critical attributes of a successful leader.

What do I believe the leader should provide for their team?

I truly believe the primary purpose of the leader is to facilitate and create clarity around "why we do what we do". The why, the purpose needs to be painted in all the colours and with enough details so people around you can visualise and internalise it. Once the why, the blue sky is established, you can look at short and medium term deliverable, e.g. what we are going to do and let the team find the best way of how. The ability of the leader to communicate and get their peers and team behind this long-term future state determines how we, as an organisation, will approach solving the problems faced today, tomorrow and well into the future.

This approach in, my experience, allows people to safely experiment in how we achieve our view of the future, whatever it may be. It facilities people willing to take risks and be prepared to try, fail and learn and then ultimately succeed. One of the best mental models an organisation can adopt is a learning mindset, or in simple terms, paraphrasing Thomas Edison, a mentality of "I have not failed, I just found another way it won't work".

An employee is genuinely “engaged” when they are first, giving 100% effort, second, utilising their full talent potential, and third, working to develop their talent even further. When employees are meeting all three criteria, their emotional state will also be characterized by a deep sense of fulfilment, pride and even excitement. So, it is our responsibility as leaders to create such an environment to allow them to be genuinely engaged.

I believe that great leadership can be characterised by three fundamental tenets, which when working together, create the right environment for the employees to shine.

• A leader must be able to define and explain "why we do what we do", aka create clarity of purpose. In a coherent team, the shared purpose becomes a shared consciousness - it is the primary lens the team uses to validate all actions, inaction and decisions.
• Secondly, the leader needs to remove obstacles of the team success, including providing them with the tools and empowering them to try.
• Finally, they need to create a safety net for the occasional situations when the team fails as well as create an environment for continuous learning and feedback allowing them to thrive.

Importantly, if a leader fails to create clarity of purpose and get people behind the shared story, it creates lack of trust within the team as no one knows where they are going and how they contribute to the shared goals, so everyone starts doing it for themselves rather than for the benefit of the whole.

So why is the right leader of the future also an agitator-in-chief?

Leadership is about achieving results through people and in the world, which is continuously changing, agitating for change and supporting people through change becoming synonymous to good leadership.

So what does being agitator-in-chief means to me?

Firstly, I see it as someone who starts conversations. I fervently believe that you can't know what is going on without asking people. Moreover, this means everyone. Talk with customers, talk with developers, talk with operational personnel, shop managers, senior leaders, talk with random people who are willing to share their opinions or use your products or services. Primarily it is important to talk to dissenters, i.e. people having an opposing point of view or not believing in what you believe in.

Also, while you talk to dissenters, it is vital to emphasise but also challenge their point of view. If they can't defend it, if they can't share their belief, their passion - how they will feed the fire to get this implemented and get others to believe in what they believe - it takes determination, resilience and that fire, the fire which keeps us going. While respectfully challenging the dissenters, you are helping them with an exploration of their beliefs, reasoning and underlying assumptions which in turn makes it easier for them to explain, internalise and embrace change.

Secondly, it is about being realistic about your capabilities and boundaries of knowledge. Being the agitator-in-chief also means exposing your views and beliefs to scrutiny, it is being prepared to be wrong, learn and change views and positions as you engage with people around you. If you are talking to all of these people, you can't pull punches or gloss over deficiencies. By being open about your foundations and building blocks of your beliefs, knowledge gaps and limitations, you do the following things immediately:

• you open up what your opinions and views are grounded on, and
• you demonstrate a willingness to be self-critical and make yourself available for improvements, and
• you encourage them to be more open and honest with you.

This style of behaviour is more congruent to a growth mindset which research has proven helps people to adapt to change 

Finally – and this is where the “agitation” part comes from – we as leaders need to be that someone who occasionally shakes things up. People don't like change. Whether you are talking about new tools, policies, people, etc., they don't like change, even if they receive an immediate tangible benefit from it. 

Closing the loop

However being the agitator has no value if you can't get people to join your movement, and this is where the loop closes. The clarity of purpose and the absolute belief in your vision of the future allows you to create a movement - the movement of people working together to achieve a shared goal.

The change and technology will keep on coming, but people with a clear purpose, moving in the same direction will be able to manage the transition and uncertainty much better.