True Leadership - My story

Oh, dear Maximus, you paid with your life

from the hands of a tyrant and his generals.

They could not withstand seeing you being loved

by your soldiers, the people, and everyone that stood by your side.

You lead with compassion, you lived by your values.

your tent was open to any woman or man, to speak their mind, without losing their life.

“I have a dream” once a great leader said, he managed to end some, of the hate

like Maximus, they ended his life, but his legacy will stand forever in time.

Oh, dear Maximus, your death was not in vain,

it set an example for many to come, what true leadership should all be about.

Poem / Spoken words by Eduardo Ibacache Rodriguez

Some leaders are born, others rise from the circumstance, and what is true for all, that becoming a great leader requires the ability, of making others believe and follow you, not because of the title that you have, but for who you are, what you stand for and how you act.

Leadership comes from within, meaning you can go to the best MBA in the world, but you might still not become a great leader. To become a true leader, you must be able to put the people you lead before your own ego or personal interests. You must be feeling that you are almost willing to die, for the vision, the mission that you lead, and you must be flag carrier for the values you preach.

Managers together with Leaders are needed, where you have a clear definition of what is what and do not try to force a manager into being leader, maybe they do not want to be leader, everyone is equally important, usually, managers makes the logistics and everything else around a leader work, or it might be awesome visions, but very undisciplined and uncoordinated organization operation. Leaders lead, managers make the logistics work. But in any modern organization, there is no room for bosses according to me.

The boss is the opposite of a true leader. I will tell you a true boss story from my life. many years ago, I was on a project where another leader moved into my responsibility area, he wanted to take a decision over a topic I was responsible for, where I was the expert, and he was not, he started to act as a "boss" in the matter. So he tried first to shortcut me, someone told me, so I took a talk with him, then he continued finding other ways to shortcut me, so I tried to talk with him again, but he stopped answering my emails, SMS, calls, etc. Then one day I found him standing doing something, so I approached him and said - I have tried to contact you, and we must talk, and he answered - I am so sorry Eduardo, I have so much right now, maybe next month. Now, he had put me in a corner where I had to take this further, because there is something with me, that I do not step back one meter if I am right about something of significant importance, and think most of us are like this when we are experts in an area we have responsibility for. The reason you contract/hire experts is to let them help you with what they know better than you and not the other way around. DO NOT MICROMANAGE people, it will kill the spirit of the company, and the most innovative, intelligent people will leave you.

So I had to go to his leader, and I told him what was going on and I did not accept this, he had to talk with this person. So he thought for some time, and then he told me: - But he is so skilled? I went quiet for some seconds, my brain was digesting what he just told me, then I answered: - You once said I am one of the most skilled persons you have worked with, so for me accepting this, you are saying I am not skilled, secondly he is stepping on our values, so do you mean that values have no value in this company? He looked at me, and he said: - You are right. I and the other leader had a good talk after, and we settled it out. Now, I have also become "bossy" sometimes in my career, because like him, I wanted something very badly, so much I forgot that change requires more than one person to agree, for that you need to have a dialog, not bossiness.

And the lesson from this story is that WE ALL have good values in almost all companies, that can regulate how we should treat each other, what good leadership should be or not, but for some reason, some people get free passes to step on them sometimes, because they are seen as "skilled" or just have a "title" that might give them the feeling they have the power to do so. I see you as a human, just like me, no matter what title you have, and if you misbehave to me or anyone, and step on our values, I will gently remind you, that it is not what we stand for because we are all in this TOGETHER. And if you find me misbehaving and stepping on our values, please inform me, sometimes we may fall into negativity and our actions might not be the most wanted, we are only humans. VALUES is one of the most important things, a company has, to be able to move from GOOD to GREAT.

The future of Leadership for Big Corporate is Intrapreneurs, they need to shift from having only corporate/MBA schooled leaders to having also leaders that are used to start anything from zero, with or without full funding, usually with a background as Entrepreneurs, to be able to think outside the box, to take calculated risks by themselves, in a company that wants to shift, into this fast-changing world, to be able to be more innovative, more flexible, more adaptable. This can also be taught to existing leaders, by the way, you need to let them learn by trail and error. You cannot only solve it with an innovation team or role, you also need natural-born innovators, ex entrepreneurs, etc.

In my coming book "The Digital Culture" I am presenting a concept I call "The Entrepreneur Corporate", where we take the best from two worlds. The flexibility, innovative spirit, moving fast/lean/agile from the Entrepreneur driven startup with the Order, Discipline, Long term focus, and other things that the Big Corporate brings. Something I notice when I mentor Startups where the founders came straight from university, that they might lack the discipline and order that senior leaders from Corporate have.

One last point regarding innovation, I suggest reading "The Corporate Startup" by my friend Dan Toma, that is a practical guide for established companies that aspire to develop and sustain their innovation capabilities.: https://thecorporatestartupbook.com

These are my advices to establish good leadership in any company:

• Be a VALUE DRIVEN company, the most important one, where you should also establish good values that includes Leadership.
• Have clear "Leadership principles/culture" and "Leadership onboarding" that also includes: A) How do we criticize, give constructive feedback as a leader (in a group, individually etc.) B) How to actively show gratitude and compassion C) Empowering Leadership (the opposite of Micro-Management), and more clear guidelines on how to act in different situations, do not expect that leaders you hire are exactly as you want them to be, they might come from a different leadership culture that is the opposite of yours.
• Hire Intrapreneurs, ex Entrepreneurs like me and do not try to "micromanage them", all people like me need, is goals and boundaries, that is it, we know what to do all the steps forward to complete whatever mission you put us on, with a good dialog between the Intrapreneur and the leader above. And in your company there are a lot of leaders that can become Intraprenuers, so nourish them in this direction.
• Teach them "Company Culture as a Strategy", because people in interaction leads to culture and norms, you need to learn about the important pillars such as Positivity, Transparency, Acknowledgement and so on, there is a good book to start to read, "The Power of Company Culture" by Chris Dyer. https://chrisdyer.com
• VERY IMPORTANT to be a true Human Centric PEOPLE FIRST company! Teach your leaders knowledge about PEOPLE what really motivates people (Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose), the psychology behind interactions, growth mind, gratitude, compassion, and so on.
• Strive with your leaders to create an ATMOSPHERE of POSITIVITY, where the best ideas win, and not politics, where people feel appreciated, empowered and are not afraid to make mistakes or fail with projects, because else you might lose on innovation, on creativity. Giving gratitude, showing compassion, is one of the strongest tools you can use as a leader, that is actually my personal most used one, that for me came naturally, at least showing openly gratitude to my colleagues, I do it A LOT, and compassion I had actually to train more actively because I have very high expectations on myself, and I sometimes put these high expectations on everyone else, and that is not doable, we are all different in our own unique beautiful way.

Many more points and suggestions, I could give, but it will all come with my coming book "The Digital Culture".

REGISTER FOR MY COMING SPEAK AT RED HAT FORUM: "Digital Transformation & Culture - Why People first, process second, and technology third": https://www.redhat.com/en/forums/emea/nordic-track

Yours truly

Eduardo Ibacache Rodriguez

www.WayOfThePassionate.com