Leading something? Find your opposite
Jane Hirt
Marketing + content consultant | creative and strategy + | former journalist + media exec | LinkedIn Top Voices | [email protected]
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of teaming up with your complete opposite.?
Someone with totally different strengths. If you’re impulsive, they’re more thoughtful; if you’re good with words, they make killer visuals; if you’re loud, they’re quiet; and if you grew up in a small town in Nebraska, they “grew up on the West Side of Chicago.”
Those were the words my RedEye co-editor famously flung in the face of the Sun-Times editor when they both appeared on a TV news show to talk about the so-called newspaper war that RedEye had sparked.?
“I don’t know where you’re from, but I’m from the West Side of Chicago.” Joe told that Sun-Times editor with a British accent. It was a drop-the-mic moment. Real Chicago vs. UK transplant. And I was in awe of Joe’s brashness, quick-thinking and confident swagger. I possessed only one of those qualities at the time.
We were named co-editors of the upstart Chicago tabloid in 2002. With two more selfish people, shared leadership could have been disastrous. We would have squabbled over the way to do things or tried to back-stab and one-up each other. But we didn’t.
We worked with each other – never against. And our opposite strengths added up to a powerhouse duo. Joe is also very smart, a great writer and damn funny.
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I learned so much from him in the trenches and simply could not have made it through that startup experience without him. We could not have done it without each other.?
In my next job, I had the good fortune of being paired with another person with different and complementary strengths. Same with my next job. All of the most successful phases of my career have had this one thing in common: I had to lead something with someone who was the opposite of me.
It’s tempting, I think, to choose to work others who are like you; who speak the same language and move at the same pace. It may be more comfortable at the beginning, but if you have the same strengths, then you also have the same weaknesses and blind spots.
Will there be friction? Absolutely. Your opposite pushes you out of your comfort zone. And you will learn.
At each career stop, I’ve ended up absorbing some of the strengths of my opposite, which has meant growth. By the end of our partnerships, we were weren't such opposites.
Am I more sassy and confident today than I was in 2002? Hand me a mic and see.
Thank you Jane - this was terrific!
Building remarkable corporate, personal, and employer brands that deliver the highest return.
2 年Yes! I can think of three extraordinary women I teamed up with on various initiatives and thrived on our collective albeit different synergies. Denise Carrozza Katie Henning Shannon Tipton
Spreading intellectual capital to those who weren’t meant to have it #CatchCris??♀??? | Executive Development Advisor
2 年Rae Wright-Burrell! ??♀?
Integrated Marketing-Communications leader | Former Journalist | Advancing brand growth through content marketing, stakeholder engagement, issues management | Co-founder, Immigrant Women Initiative. *Views are my own.
2 年Thanks Jane. This resonates in a big way. I've also thrived working with colleagues who bring opposite strengths, personalities, perspectives to a project/initiative/team. Variety truly maketh a good team, great! ?? I was once told by a senior leader that he preferred to work with a subordinate and/or teammember who would be his clone or more "like him"?! Boring, I say. ????
Growth & Transformative Leader | CEO | Advisor | Private Equity
2 年Thanks Jane. And love the retro picture — which also reminds us that FREE is opposite of 25 cents!