Leadership in turbulent times

“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” General Colin Powell

There’s a growing crescendo around the idea that organisations should aim to ‘build back better’- to learn from the difficult experiences around Covid-19 and emerge stronger, more resilient and more inclusive. One specific area that deserves more focus is how leaders can become more effective, resilient, inspirational and inclusive - a particular challenge right now, when they might be feeling exhausted or stressed. 

The starting point is to recognise that leaders don’t need to - and actually can’t - have all the answers. No one can claim to know the longer-term impacts of the lockdown on businesses and society and that means that even the most senior, most experienced leader is in unchartered territory. What’s more, they can’t find all the answers by themselves. That’s true in more normal times of course but when the problems are acute and the way forward obviously unclear leaders can be more honest about it. While leaders may not have the specific answers to problems, however, they still know how to think, how to behave, and - hopefully – know what’s important to them, what their values are. Uncertainty creates opportunity for brilliant leadership in a way that’s less obvious in stable times.

In this environment, we get to practice the theory that so often gets forgotten. We know we need diverse perspectives to come up with the solutions to complex problems. We know we need to communicate better, to allow people to disagree, to fail quickly, to learn from our mistakes, to be more agile, less bound by red tape. But when things are normal, comfortable, we tend to forget a lot of this. In stable times, when things are going well, leaders often act as if they do know the answers, as if one set of views is enough. BUT now – and at other moments of crisis – the need to listen becomes much more obvious. Our leadership approach in turbulent times needs to be less command and control, more empathetic, to empower others, to listen to them, to communicate frequently and clearly, we need to be honest and transparent as the information changes, we need rapid feedback loops as we experiment with solutions, to be agile, we need to give and be given permission to fail, permission to disagree, permission to learn. 

I’m including us all here because leadership is a state of mind, an attitude rather than a job title. I was talking to one of the personal assistants at one of the companies I’m working with the other day and she said, “well because of lockdown we haven’t been able to work in our usual way so actually we’ve been thinking about how we might be able to work better”. I just love that. It captures leadership. So often we inadvertently end up trying to manage the past rather than shape the future, carrying on with the old tools, failing to learn, just getting more and more frustrated when we know we should be rethinking our whole approach. I am sure you can think of examples during lockdown where necessity has been the mother of invention, where working practices or ideas that didn’t make it through ‘the process’ before Covid-19 are now implemented and applauded.

One of the great learnings from the crisis is that when we focus more on solutions, when we have to find a way to do something, we tend to get there much more easily and quickly than when we focus on the possible flaws in our ideas. We have become more ‘can-do’ because we really need the answers. And that’s a good thing. It’s an approach that you can continue with as lockdown lifts. You can be like the personal assistant, offering ideas because ‘we can’t [or going forward, shouldn’t] do things in the same way’. Organisations have been delegating more during lockdown, empowering people to come up with the right answer to the problem they are dealing with. A more localised approach, again borne out of necessity. In a crisis situation – and now with ongoing changes to the rules around how we interact - the CEO and executive team can’t always get access to the right information quickly enough to make the best decision. In effect, organisations have created networks of teams and leaders at all levels to get them through the crisis – something that again, we should build on.

Even if it’s been a team effort, the crisis has taken its toll on many. Yet it’s vital for a leader to be someone people want to discuss issues with rather than feel they have to hide problems from. You may have worked for people who were more ‘emperor’s new clothes’ - they want to be told good news and have very little patience for anything bad happening. 

In my view, a great leader welcomes the truth. But he or she also needs to be able to steady the ship, to have a calming influence. When the leader panics, everyone panics. We can probably all think of examples where leaders have ‘lost it’ and chaos ensues. Yet we are all human. Remember, even if you are a leader, it’s fine to admit what you don’t know. It’s important to consult with colleagues. But it’s also vital to understand that you don’t have to feel confident to seem confident. I learned this early on in my career. I had experienced a couple of major setbacks and felt quite insecure, but saw that people have confidence in confident people. So I worked out what made me appear confident. Most of this is obvious. Standing tall. Speaking clearly. Smiling. Having empathetic body language and facial expressions. In my case, wearing heels helped - being taller made me feel of greater stature. And clothes help – or hinder.  When I started my career, I wore stern trouser suits with shoulder pads, so-called power suits, but I felt anything but powerful. As I discovered my own more feminine style, I felt more authentic, more me - and became included in more of the key conversations.

Which leads onto my final suggestion: leaders need to be more genuinely inclusive. I’ve heard countless speeches where CEOs have talked about their ‘passion’ for diversity and inclusion – only to act as if they couldn’t care less. One of the main tests of inclusive leadership is how a leader conducts meetings. Does he or she listen, seek out the views of others, especially the quieter, perhaps the more junior members of the team? Or do they barrel into the meeting, having made up their minds already about the course of action, telling people what to do rather than hearing other ideas? Skilful chairing of a meeting, chairing as an inclusive leader, is more than just repeating what you know already, it’s about teasing out fresh thinking, inviting opinions that aren’t convention and having the humility to create space for others.  Inclusive leaders lead through inspiration, not force – to me, the definition of a great leader is someone who others want to follow, not just because they are told to. 

There is a great opportunity now for true leaders to emerge.