Leadership during Uncertain Times

Every business leader comes across phases in their career, where they are named to take roles/duties which comes as unexpected to them. In such situations, individuals often find themselves surrounded by a very few people that they can truly trust and a whole host of people waiting in the side-lines expecting them to make one wrong move or scrutinising, their moves made, through the lens of traditions and established practices. Often such times and situations lead to the emergence of a new breed of leaders, admired for their success in adversity. Sounds familiar? Then, read on….

Unfortunately, typical B-School / Corporate training leadership lessons do not prepare you for such accidental leadership situations for the simple reason that there are no standard answers for such situations. The accidental leader is best described as a person who wasn’t necessarily preparing to take the leadership position, but through “situation” or “being in the right place at the right time” fall into the role. Once in it, you make decisions, sometimes tough calls, based on the best possible intelligence and hope that the decision comes out correct. These decisions when taken with integrity and without keeping self-promotion intentions, more often than not, would get the right results.

But why am I talking about situational leadership??

A Little Context

During recent days, with the Covid-19 forced lockdown, Netflix has been a go-to relaxation for me. While scrolling for something captivating, one TV show that caught my eyes was titled “Designated Survivor”. The trailer looked exciting – an easy binge-watch with just 3 seasons – just the perfect relaxing thing I was looking for. The show is about a Housing and Urban Development Secretary in the US, Tom Kirkman, who was named Designated Survivor. The concept of the designated survivor is that of a chosen person from government, who as part of the business continuity plan, is sent off to a secure location when all key members of the government including head of the country is assembled in one place. This ensures that in a rarest of the rare case of some natural or manmade disaster, the government has an identified leader.

(Image courtesy: ABC; taken from the publically available image from news reports at Deadline; a Hollywood news website)

This rare scenario is what exactly happens in the first episode of Season 1 where Tom becomes the president of the United States of America after an attack on the Capitol, where everyone including the president and entire congress gets killed and an ‘inexperienced’ Tom comes to the helm. The attackers saw him as an easy to unseat candidate. The rest of the episodes are an insider view into the everyday challenges in the life of an American President, ranging from handling issues ranging from NASA to Immigration to Forest fires to N Korea to Espionage to Afghanistan and whatnot, with every episode dabbling with one main issue and one/two parallel smaller issues going on.

What it also reflects is how a political newbie, a good family man, a passionate architect not just retains his leadership, builds his team but also gives hope to his countrymen in times of uncertainty. Having binge-watched the series, over last month or so – all three seasons – I feel I have undertaken a crash course on Leadership. In these VUCA times that the world inflicted with a pandemic is facing, I am happy to share my thoughts and learnings from the series, about traits of courageous leadership in uncertain times:

Leadership Lessons from the Series

1.     Sticking to Values – The biggest learning from the series for me has been that leadership is all about sticking to one’s values and the real test of values comes in the face of adversity. Tom’s leadership is guided by the twin virtues of righteousness and honesty and laced with genuine care for people. Although, in his own words, “Doing the right thing doesn’t always make you feel good” as it may sometimes lead to suffering in the short run.

Personal note/admittance – Recently I told a senior leader in a feedback session, that he is too transparent and he should be cautious about it. Watching the series, made me realise how wrong I was. Fortunately, I was able to communicate the same, to him as well and correct my mistake.

Indeed, one of the dialogues in the series summarises this very well,

“Change does not mean that we abandon our principles”.

Interestingly in business, a leader is governed by two set of values – personal and organisational and they have to live these values every single moment.

2.     Build your team well – When the series started, Tom was left with an administration to run with no ‘expert’ aides. Over the series, he slowly builds his team. A team which is loyal to the core. An often-repeated dialogue heard across the episodes, from his team members is, “My job is to protect the president”. It is often seen at top roles in political or corporate organisations as well, that when a leader moves organisation – he/she takes with him/her their 2-3 close confidantes as well. Some people misconstrue this as nepotism. However, if looked at deeply, it’s about a leader’s comfort, as they go about handling change management, and being able to trust a close group who will look after their leader’s best interests, in all situations – even putting themselves at risk, if required. Higher the role of a leader, bigger the width of control and therefore the complexity of the decisions. Time management keeps becoming more and more critical. It is, therefore, worthwhile for leaders to build a team that they can trust with a blind eye.

Tom is also seen as a leader who delegates, without micromanaging – a trait that team members crave for, at all levels. He allocates tasks and lets his staff take care of the things and never interferes. The team is clearly empowered by this. Seth, the ‘thinking on the feet’ press secretary, a part of the core group – once, on being provoked by his friends’ to leave the Tom administration as it was seen as a sinking ship, comments, “When your ship’s taking on water, you don’t jump, you grab a bucket”, smiles and walks back to his thankless work.

How loyalty pays back, can be in most unexpected ways. In one of the episodes, after surviving a no-confidence vote, Tom is told by his VP about the reason the vote shifted at last moment – “Your staffs’ loyalty to you through everything.

Loyalty is a consequence of leadership and leadership is a touchstone of competence”

Having said enough about the need to trust in the close group, the series also shows the other side, that of, removing the team member if there is a breach of trust. It might lead to some short term pain but will help in nipping in the bud what might lead to bigger complications later. Also, there are times, when he has to investigate one of his core team members, he does that non-challantly.

In short, choose your team carefully - sometimes, you’re only as good as the people you surround yourself with. If you are able to build a team you can trust, the battle is already half won.

 3.     Decision-making ability – If there is one single most important aspect of leadership challenges which has been captured well in the series, it is about decision making. Every episode, Tom and his team are thrown into new, unfamiliar and difficult situations and in the end, it’s for Tom to make a decision. He listens to all – from his loyal close team, to people in general as well as to those opposing him and then often makes an empathetic and original decision.

Often in difficult times, one doesn’t have the level of information that might be needed to make the decision – but a decision has to be taken. You have to go by your gut. As Hannah Wells, an FBI agent character in the series says, “Sometimes you need to take what you think you know, throw it out the window, and follow your instincts because your life depends on it”. Another situation in decision making is when all obvious options are exhausted and you are left with choices, all of which will take you backwards / downwards. A situation, which Cornelius Moss, an ex-President character is seen saying, “Sometimes you have to decide between a bad choice and no choice at all”.

In these situations, a good leader is able to see beyond the immediate problem and visualise the potential impact of the decision in the longer run and that too on multiple stakeholders and then take the decision, howsoever unpopular it is.

4.     Assertiveness and Authenticity – Communication coaches worldwide tells that leaders need to be assertive. Often corporate leaders misinterpret assertiveness with authority. What I learnt from the series is that to be assertive, one needs to be authentic. Tom has been able to tell others exactly what he felt, thought and believed, candidly and uninhibitedly. While he prepares well for his meetings, knowing about participants and their agenda, his assertiveness on being able to put forth his point comes from the genuineness of cause that he stands for.

Another important factor for assertiveness is information. While Tom is not a military or foreign policy expert, he is shown as being assertive on one thing, he wanted to know all feasible options and their repercussions, enabling him to make his decision

Most of my favourite moments of the series were the speeches made by Tom, when in tough situations, he went ahead and connected with the people on the ground, heart to heart, whether it was during rescue efforts at Capitol Hill or during the power cut in DC or during the early days of his re-election campaign. This genuineness made his people love him and believe in him and added authenticity to his presidentship.

5.     Standing up in face of adversity

In one of my previous blogs, I had written about the topic of Resilience, which is the reservoir of strength that people call upon in difficult times to carry them through adversity without falling apart and overcome stress and hardship associated. While Tom’s adversaries try to project him as weak and inexperienced, he goes about his business with honesty and humility and showing a lot of resilience moving from one adversity to others. Every single time, when it seems that the world around is falling apart and nothing seems to be going right, leadership is about pulling oneself together and getting back to work. Tom says in one of the episodes that,

“We’re not defined by our difficulties. We’re defined by how we respond to them”.

Even the current pandemic scenario and associated economic challenges is a test of resilience for every single leader, political or business, in their domain.

6.     Finally, being a gracious loser – Accept the fact that after all, you are human being. Shit happens! You will not win all battles that you take up. It is all right.  In one of the episodes, Tom, facing job fitment scrutiny after his discussions with his therapist gets leaked and he is deemed unfit to be in the office by a section of the senate, says – “The truth is, I’ve made mistakes but not for any of the reasons that you’ve heard here today. I’ve made mine because I’m human. And it is human to err.” Actively acknowledging mistakes and growing through them, is seen as a sign of courageous leadership. Tom makes mistakes through episodes but is also shown being apologetic and direct about it. He commits publically and vows

“to each day try to be a better man”

The graciousness of a remarkable leader is in being a humble loser – accepting defeat with grace. Getting over the loss, taking your learnings from it and moving on, should be the focus.

If you have recently taken up a new managerial position at the top, this series might just be something which can be your go-to source for insights on leadership. Value-based, Accountability, Authenticity, Empathy and Integrity are the demands on leadership in all social spaces. These are virtues which need to be ingrained – the good thing is these can be nurtured. Organisations will do well to pursue these as leadership traits.