Life Lessons in Leadership

Much has been written about the importance leadership plays in the success of any venture. Over the years, many have tried to capture the elusive formula for success. However, to be truly effective, I believe you need to find your own authentic style and approach to leadership. No one size fits all. And no book can teach you everything you need to know. Indeed, throughout my life, I’ve learned more from my failures than any success and I’ve realized a leader needs to be humble enough to embrace those failures to ultimately succeed. Great leaders need to be able to innovate in themselves, in their organizations and in every area of their business – not just in their R&D!

So, what have I learnt? Here is the list of what I call my Leadership “Ls”:

Leadership Listens

Leading begins with listening: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care."[1] True and active listening is respectful, thoughtful, and guiding. And, as with any skill, strong listening muscles take practice. Ask open questions and listen hard for the answers – both what is said and left unsaid, what is affirming the general direction, but more importantly where differences are hiding. Too often, we listen only at a superficial level. Listen for enlightenment, that’s when great ideas can be found. Listen to the surrounding noise and don’t let the signal drown out quieter or lower level voices. HiPPO’s should not dominate (the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion…).

It must be “OK” for teams to express divergent opinions. Especially where a perspective is different from your own.  It may not always be easy but leaders must learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is something I’m consciously working on all the time. I’ve forced myself to be more open and embracing of views and experiences that are radically different from my own. And challenge my own natural biases (we all have them!) – to me, this is at the heart of embracing diversity. 

When I first joined VMware, the company was coming off a period of fast-paced growth. In some parts of our portfolio we lacked a coherent strategy. As a leadership team, we listened closely to a variety of perspectives, and it became clear that we needed to focus – a concept that’s easy to talk about, but decidedly more difficult to achieve. But without the active listening approach, it would have taken much longer for us to reach such a conclusion and more importantly arrive at the right solution.

Leadership Learns

Leaders need to have an unrelenting thirst for learning. It’s about having humility and being open to change - maintaining a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. Even when times are good and the wind is at your back you can be sure there will be a new challenge waiting just around the corner. That means having the courage to explore new approaches, seek wisdom in unusual places and practice new skills.

Make yourself vulnerable by asking others to challenge your thinking, tell you if they think you are wrong and help you learn. Often this requires me to read, study and reflect more. Maybe I have to get some of the engineers or sales or marketing people privately in my office and help me understand what is really going on – and explore the facts behind the facts. I need to be constantly synthesizing new data and learnings against our strategy and plans and making myriad little adjustments as I learn. Over time, I’ve learned that when I open up to others, they open up to me, I get more feedback and I learn more.

Leadership Lifts

Challenges will always arise and that demands resilience. Yet resilience isn’t just about recovering from setbacks, it’s about owning the failure and using it as a springboard to push onward and upwards. By having a relentless pursuit of self-improvement, a leader’s example will influence others to lift their performance too.

Silicon Valley is littered with examples of how a moment of failure – responded to and managed in the right way – became a defining moment to lift the individual or company to a new level or in a new direction. Sometimes the forces against you can be the very thing required to drive innovation. Not every decision will go according to plan but how we respond and build from these moments is key.

I’ve also learned that in challenging times, a leader’s most powerful tool can be a positive and encouraging outlook. When I show up with a negative demeanor, things can spiral down; when I show up in a positive and forward-looking manner, the team is encouraged. This doesn’t mean not being honest about the reality of the situation. People need to know when you are not happy with performance. Tell them when things are not acceptable. But then ask: “How are we going to fix it?” A positive outlook is powerful and contagious – use it regularly.

Leadership Links

It’s up to leaders to help connect the dots across diverse teams to ensure shared understanding, purpose, and inspiration. Great leaders break down silos within organizations to build trust and nurture the exchange of ideas and skillsets.

Ultimately, strong links across teams shape the experience of your end customer. If a customer can infer your organizational silos when they use your products, you’ve got work to do. If instead the customer says, “I can work with any company in the world, but I chose yours because the products are better, the support is better, and the people are better,” then you are on the right track!

Leadership Loves

Ultimately, all the “Ls” of Leadership come together in a word not much seen in business textbooks: ‘Love.’ A great leader loves his company, products, employees, communities, and customers. It’s a passion that every leader should have for every aspect of their business – with all its inherent challenges and rewards.

And it starts with self-love: an authentic leader is at ease with who they are. Bring your whole self to work. Don’t cultivate personas for different parts of your life. Similarly, encourage and expect your team to do the same and be themselves. The skills individuals have in one area of their life are often surprisingly beneficial to another part. It is these differences in thought, experience, background and culture that enrich and empower high-performance teams and ultimately drive innovation.

Remember: in the average week, you will spend more of your waking hours with your coworkers than you do with your family. You are doing life with them – you need to enjoy them!

Ultimately, innovation is the lifeblood of technology, and increasingly this is true of all industries and functions. Create a culture that encourages, inspires and drives continuous progress - where the Leadership “Ls” are visible and practiced daily -  and you will have made an excellent start. 

In my next blog, I will explore the importance of an Organization’s Mind (Mindsets), Body (Skills) and Soul (Values).

1. Grimm, Sheila, and Amy Schakat. "Literacy-Learners to Leaders: Our Journey." Techniques, vol. 89, no. 2. Association for Career & Technical Education, Feb. 2014, p. 10.