LOOKING GOOD VERSUS DOING GOOD

Whether you lead one individual or a thousand, every leader in the corporate world has to strike a balance between how they show up to their own management and stakeholders and how they relate to the people in their own team. Both serve a purpose- a leader who shows up poorly in front of their own managers and stakeholders is likely to have a short shelf life. However, as with most things in life, it’s about finding the right balance- of ensuring that your need to look good and in control in front of your own management does not come at the expense of helping your people succeed. If anything, the best leaders I’ve seen and admired look good because they help their people look good.

A good starting point is to anchor yourself as a leader- ask yourself a simple question- do I want to look good or do I want to do good?

The leader who focuses on looking good defines their key audience as their management. The need is to show up as being in control, with everything buttoned up. Time is spent on preparing for management meetings and explaining performance. The relationship with their own people is often transactional- because the signal such leaders often give out are that their people are just a means to an end- the leader’s success. Such leaders probably spend much more time in reviews and meetings than ‘in the trenches’ and most employees get to see them in ‘management visits’ instead of seeing them roll up their sleeves and helping with operational matters. You’ll find their people spending more time making presentation decks than actually talking about ideas or solving issues together.

The leader who focuses on doing good defines their key audience as their people. Their focus is on inspiring their people towards a shared goal and dive into the details with them, spending time ‘in the trenches’ to build empathy for what their people need to succeed. This doesn’t mean that these leaders are not strategic or cannot engage with their management on strategy- just that their strategies are built bottoms up on what they see in their organization and markets, not created in a conference room. They don’t only need ‘town halls’ to celebrate- they’re with their people often enough to give pats on the back, share feedback and solve issues together.

Doing good does not mean ‘being soft’. These leaders often are more decisive and take hard calls faster than the leader who focuses on looking good. The leader who wants to look good will want to have the right ‘message track’ on failures and want to ensure nothing sticks to them, often delaying decisions. The leader who wants to do good has that relationship and trust with their people to deliver bad news in person versus having someone ‘deploy’ it and knows enough of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the business to know whether an issue is salvageable or not. When it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the leader who wants to look good may have a review or ask for research data to validate that it is indeed a duck so that they can ensure they’re covered with their management. The leader who wants to do good will spare their team that added work and call it a duck. 

I’ve been clear where I stand for some time- always anchored on the side of doing good versus focusing on what it means for me individually, not because it came to me in a flash of brilliance, but because I had the fortune of working for, around and being mentored by some truly inspirational leaders- people like Chip Bergh and Shantanu Khosla to whom I owe a big debt of gratitude for role-modelling the difference a leader can make, not just to a large organization, but to each individual whose life they touch.

I’m nobody to tell you what to do. I’m just another guy trying to figure it out as I grow as a leader myself, but I firmly believe that one core part of doing good is to pay it forward and am sharing this so that as you grow in your own leadership journey, no matter where you find the right balance for yourself, at least you pause and ask yourself the question- what drives you more- looking good or doing good? And perhaps you’ll reach the conclusion I have- that in the long run, the best way to look good is to keep doing good.