Leadership Altitude - What the storming of the US Capitol shows us

The worldwide shock at the scenes on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday also shined a light on an important leadership lesson that may not be immediately apparent.

For much of his presidency, Donald Trump has enjoyed strong and stable support from the Republican party, the business community and broad swathes of US society as a result of his election to power, passing business-friendly legislation and giving the disenfranchised a voice. For many, though, the Faustian pact involved was graphically exposed as protestors forced entry to the seat of USA democracy, a symbol of its constitution, having been revved-up by the President himself.

Although the invasion was serious and the symbolism shocking for many, the media coverage has quite possibly made it appear more dangerous than it was. Indeed, looking at the photographs of cheerful souvenir hunters and selfie-takers it is hard to credit it with the label 'insurrection'. Actually, it's possible to look at Wednesday's events through a different, and much more positive lens.

Just as Wednesday was a low point in the US political landscape, it was also most likely a turning point where everybody started listening to the boy who had cried all along that the emperor had no clothes.

A moment where a radical elevation of perspective takes place.

Just as a heart that is beating irregularly can be restored to normal function by an electric shock, this may well be the moment where large swathes of Trump supporters realised that the love for their institutions, constitution and the rule of law is greater than their support for their President.

This is evident by the speed at which Mr. Trump has been isolated, shutout of social media and quickly deserted by many previously loyal supporters. Prominent business leaders who had been supportive of his economic-boosting policies and tax cuts have been queueing up to criticise the President's actions. Whether or not it was the suspension of his Twitter account that finally brought him to his senses, President Trump's televised statement on Thursday, now being referred to as 'the hostage video', was toe-curling in its change of direction and its emollient tone. It's easy to imagine someone handing him the statement with an instruction along the lines of "if you want to stay in the White House for the next two weeks (and possibly return to it) ... just read this."

Such a broadly-felt moment of clarity, a resumption of perspective, contains within it an important lesson for all leaders as all of us lack perspective in some way. Just as passengers in an aircraft can see more of the earth as altitude increases, leaders too can gain (and lose) 'altitude' and its supporting behaviours of curiosity, listening, reflection and weighing alternatives.

Leadership is frequently described as lonely and any individual in an ultimate position of authority will inevitably lack both objective advice and an understanding of what is really going on. Not only is it not possible to have a close grasp of everything happening in many large complex organisations, leaders rightly distrust much of what they are told as being filtered and having some sort of 'angle'. This can lead to a dangerous lack of perspective at the top and a self-reinforcing echo-chamber of opinions where challenge is rarely heard, the range of views narrow and the whole top team succumbing to 'group-think' (this is the main reason that any leader should not stay in their role for more than 8-10 years).

There are steps that leaders can take to create and maintain greater altitude (perspective):

• Consciously build a culture where it is safe to dissent and challenge.
• Air your mistakes in public and show that you seek to learn from what you get wrong.
• Build teams of the greatest diversity possible (in backgrounds perspectives and styles).
• Constantly seek to upgrade and mix up the dynamic in your team. Comfortable as it may be, teams that are too stable for too long lose the dynamism and innovation that is key to long-term high performance.
• Seek the broadest range of inputs as possible, both inside and outside your organisation.
• Don't allow yourself to get so busy you have no time to stop and think.
• Ask yourself regularly 'what am I missing?' and 'how can I be wrong?'

This is not to recommend a descent into indecisiveness nor an insistence of group/consensus-based decision making - both of which can be fatal in business. Rather, maintaining a healthy level of doubt to avoid complacency creeping in, along with its accompanying loss of perspective.

Get an external advisor (preferably more than one) and build moments into your day to check that you and your team are seeing the whole picture and you're not falling prey to a familiar or comfortable narrative. Most leaders may not run the risk of a rabble storming their headquarters but all will want to avoid a moment where the gap between the narrative and the reality is put into stark relief and their assumptions they were working under up to that point are found to be false.