Why soft power is the new superpower

In the last few minutes, Liz Truss has just been voted in as the new Prime Minister of the the United Kingdom …which means we have a woman leading our country again. But what does that mean? I recently saw an incredible author? Dalia Feldheim ?launching her book “Dare to lead like a girl.” Dalia was the thought leader behind the iconic advert,?AlwaysLikeAGirl.?It still gives me shivers today.?

Goosebumps aside, it got me thinking about what “leading like a girl” means to us. Some immediate assumptions spring to mind when I think of female leaders. An abundance of empathy and vulnerability.?Freedom to express emotions. A natural desire to nurture. Perhaps a willingness to ask for help.?And most definitely plenty of self-doubt. (Which is at least partly responsible for the trendy and pointless obsession of curing Imposter Syndrome - Why? That’s what keeps us striving. It’s what keeps us humble. Learn to love it - more of that later.)?

In other words, leading like a girl, usually involves things that are referred to as “soft skills.”?

In the many leadership talks I’ve given I’ve noticed that a significant number of male senior executives are asking me how they can embody “female” leadership traits. Whether they genuinely want to style themselves as this kind of leader, or whether they just think they?should be seen to want to?is something I haven’t yet fathomed. I do wonder sometimes if we’ve somewhat counterproductively turned male leaders into the underdogs. Either way, the female style of leadership appears to be highly in demand and admired.

Before you roll your eyes and think “here goes another article about how we should be pushing women to the top and annexing pale stale males,” let me offer a candid and perhaps unpopular view. I do NOT believe that the empowerment of women should come at the cost of empowerment of men. Or anyone for that matter. I think we’re better than that. And I do NOT believe that certain leadership traits are exclusively the preserve of women. But I do believe that there are certain leadership traits that have traditionally been more prevalent or even just visible in women. And that it’s socially acceptable for females to demonstrate these “soft” qualities where as their male counterparts may feel trapped in the no-longer-fashionable idea of leading from the front and being a dominating presence.?

Having hopefully having established myself as an advocate of INCLUSIVE empowerment for men AND women, I’d like to share what I think great leadership looks like.?

I think great leadership comes down to INFLUENCE.?

In the military we used to refer to this as soft power.?

What is soft power?

Soft power was always something I understood as the way to influence your opponent without using rockets and bullets. It might originally have been invented because we didn’t have the necessary military might to use force (and hence not surprising why soft power has a feminine feel to it.) Instead one might use information operations, (think leaflet dropping during WW2 for the uninitiated) or economic sanctions. Put that like it has a kind of manipulative quality. Nefarious even. (Another reason why we might think it has a feminine feel to it?) But think about the effect that soft power has and why it was used. It was used to break the opponents will to fight. In other words it was used to infiltrate people’s minds and change how they think. But what if soft power could be a force for good? What if we could use it to influence our team mates, as opposed to our adversaries. What if we could use it in the work place and at home to increase our performance? To increase resilience and self-reliance? To accelerate growth? To make every employee a force multiplier?

I think we can. And I think we do this through a campaign of influence.

Let me be clear by what I mean by INFLUENCE.

I’m talking about going below the waterline of observed behaviours and influencing what is in people’s heads, perhaps even before they know it themselves. I’m talking about creating a space where every individual can be an autonomous proactive and confident team member who thinks like a leader, who is as invested as a business owner and who has the self belief to see things through. I’m talking about changing the way people think, feel and ultimately what they believe in order to effect meaningful and lasting positive change.

Think about if you want people to be more proactive and reduce the tendency to delegate upwards for example. ( I hear this complaint A LOT in organisations I work with.) You can’t simply order them to stop delegating upwards. You can’t tell them to take more initiative. Well you can, but good luck getting them to buy in. What other people think is their prerogative and their privilege. We cannot force people to think differently. And nor should we. Not only is it disempowering it’s usually a waste of time. So if we want people to be more proactive we ultimately need them to think differently about their remit, their ability, their motivation and the repercussions of action and inaction.?

So…. the key to lasting and positive change is to change how people think, BUT we can’t control how people think. So how on earth do we achieve a campaign of influence??

You see now why so many people don’t bother.

A campaign of influence requires emotional intelligence, accountability, maturity and above all, an appetite to play the long game and do what is genuinely right by others, rather than ticking boxes.?

But I promise you, it works.?

Let me talk you through it.?

Let’s take an example of a campaign of influence where the objective is to promote growth in the business.?

There are three stages to a campaign of influence.

Phase 1 - Understand.

Phase 2 - Set the example

Phase 3 - Set the conditions

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Phase 1?

Understand (ourselves, others and the science)

The object of this phase it to understand why people might have negative or unhelpful ideas about growth. And in order to understand others, often the easiest place to start is ourselves. For we are all human and we are all ultimately by the same thing; survival. So during the understand phase we could ask ourselves, why do I resist growth? Or put another way, why do I resist continuous improvement. Or change?

I’ll tell you my reasons:

1. It takes effort.
2. I might fail or look stupid.
3. It introduces uncertainty
4. It suggests that something is wrong with what I’m currently doing.
5. I’m scared that I’m incapable of change
6. I’m terrified that I’m not enough as I am

When we understand our own reasons, it can give a lot of insight into why others might resist growth too. I don’t know about you but a lot of my reasons come down to fear. Fear of failure, looking stupid, fear I’m not good enough, fear of the unknown….. And when we understand that it’s a lot easier to muster the patience and empathy for others who are most likely held back by similar fears.

It’s also helpful to understand the science behind these fears; for example, the brain doesn’t like being confronted with unfamiliarity or uncertainty because it doesn't have an established behaviour to fall back on that has been proven to work. And if we don’t know if it will work then there’s a chance we will die. In other words, unfamiliarity and uncertainty feels like a threat to life.?

Add to this that at some point we evolved to be tribal because there is safety in numbers. So we feel a primal urge to be liked and accepted as part of the tribe. Which means we worry all the time about being rejected or looking stupid (which usually results in us being rejected). So we are loath to stick our head above the parapet.?

It’s worth spending time on the Understand phase so we can understand WHY people think the way they do. This is not so we can create excuses for poor behaviour, but so we can make it safe for people to make an important realisation; our biggest barrier is usually our own assumptions and learned thinking patterns. In other words, our biggest barrier is ourselves. And that’s not because we are weak or lazy. It’s because we are human. When we put all this together what we are creating is an environment where we can understand the barriers to growth without judgement. And that’s great news. Because if we can put them up, then we can also take them down.

The next part of the understand phase is to appreciate the science behind growth mindset. I’ve written other articles about this but I’ll summarise two important points here.?

• It is human nature to continue striving - this is why we evolve. So there is nothing “wrong” with us for having a bit of imposter syndrome. In fact it can provide motivation and fuel for continuous improvement. There is nothing wrong with being a Work in Progress. In fact we can learn to embrace it.?
• There’s a wonderful thing called neuroplasticity. It means that the brain is capable of creating new neural pathways. Indefinitely. Which means we can learn new behaviours, new thought patterns and even new emotional responses. It is literally NEVER too late to teach and old dog new tricks. So there is no need to worry about not being the finished article, perfect as we are. We have been blessed with the possibility of infinite self-improvement.

Phase 2?

Set the example?(operating within our circle of influence)

Now we’ve understood the barriers and the reasons it’s perfectly possible to remove them, we can start to set the example. We need to have a good understanding of Covey’s Circles of Influence and Concern for this phase to work best. Remember we can’t force people to think differently. What people think is in our circle of concern. But we can be a positive influence (by operating in our circle of influence) and others will follow.?

Remember that we all want to fit in, so set the example and others will follow. It is the simplest and most effective influence tactic in the book. And there is good reason to be optimistic about the reach we have from simply modelling positive behaviour. I recently learned about the rule of 3 in a fabulous book called Zest by Dr Andy Cope . We all know the game “6 degrees to Kevin Bacon.” Well it’s a bit like that in that is uses the inevitable interconnectedness of humans as a force for good. Simply put, if you show up as your best, with a growth mindset, you positively influence the 3 people next to you. And THEY positively influence the 3 people next to them. And THEY positively influence the 3 people next to them. This is exactly as Covey predicted. Ie the more we operate in our circle of influence the bigger it gets.?

A REALLY easy way to set the example is by choosing our narrative and making it growth oriented.

For example instead of saying “I can’t play piano” we can say “I can’t play piano YET.” Instead of saying “I hate giving presentations” we can say “I find presenting challenging.” Instead of saying “I should have asked for advice” we can say “I?could?have asked for advice.” Instead of saying “I am enough” we can say “I’ll be ok.”?

Try these phrases out. And please, pay attention to how you feel about growth when you adopt this kind of narrative. And how you feel about yourself.?

You may notice that you start to feel just a little bit more confident. And start to think a little bit more positively. And other people will notice that too. And they’ll want what you’ve got. Which means they’ll start mimicking you. And they too will start thinking differently.?

And you didn’t have to drop any leaflets or put any sanctions on them.?

Phase 3?

Set the conditions (for others to operate within their circle of influence)

This is where we start to really master Coveys’ circle of concern and influence. This is about setting the conditions for other people to grow within THEIR circle of influence. Remember we CANNOT force people to think differently. We cannot force them to LOVE change, unceratinty, failure etc. So phase 3 involves determining where our circle of influence ends and where someone else starts. It’s about understanding that our circle of concern is someone else’s circle of influence. And it’s about respecting what is in OTHER PEOPLE’S circle of influence. Ie the rate other people grow. Or how other people see themselves. How they value themselves. And setting the conditions so that they can operate healthily and confidently within their circle of influence.

So when we think about setting conditions I often start by asking myself the question, “How do I make it safe for them to…. (Insert objective.”)

Let’s take the objective of growth. In phase 3, we can make it safe for them to grow at their own pace. For that to happen it needs to be safe for them to do their own learning. And we learn by making mistakes. So we can make it safe for people to make mistakes. We can make it safe for them to admit to their mistakes. And we can make it safe for them to take responsibility for their mistakes. (Of course a great place to start is by leading by example. Share a mistake we made. Admit when we don’t know the answer). Let’s take a meeting where we are leading a review of a project. As the leader, we can set the conditions from the start. We can place the emphasis on determining the root causes of any setbacks so everyone can learn, by biasing our questions that way. We can show respect and appreciation to people for sharing their mistakes, by simply thanking them for their honesty. We can demonstrate that it is safe to try a new strategy by agreeing it collectively and then LEAVING PEOPLE TO GET ON WITH IT. All of these tactics means we are making it as safe as possible for others to work within their circle of influence in a growth-orientated way. And in my experience if you give people the trust and the space to operate like this you will be rewarded. For the simple reason that most people, when it boils down to it, want to do their best and they will want to please you. All we need to do as leaders is get out of their way. When people starting thinking for themselves in a growth minded way your organisation will become more proactive, more cohesive, more creative and more resilient. Of course this requires a leap of faith. And can sometimes appear counter-productive.

Remember, no matter how inspirational you are as a leader, no matter how well you execute a campaign of influence, everyone still gets to choose what they think. And if they want to stay stuck in a fixed mindset, they will. That’s the bummer of free will.

But take heart, a campaign of influence doesn’t need to immediately change the mindset of every single person. In fact, according to the rule of 3, you only need 1 in 3 people to engage with this style of leadership in the first instance. And the rest will follow. Just give it time.?

“You have the watches. We have the time.” Afghan proverb.

Key takeaways

?? Effective leadership helps people to think differently using a campaign of influence

??We cannot force people to think differently?

??We can however understand ourselves to understand others and what they are thinking.

??We can model desirable behaviour which can positively impact on how others think

??We can make it safe for others to evolve in their thinking, for example, to foster a growth mindset

??Effective leaders operate within their circle of influence and create the space for others to operate within theirs.?

Sarah Furness is an ex-helicopter pilot and RAF Squadron Leader. She is now an executive coach, keynote speaker and writer and her mission is to help tough capable people feel as strong as they look. Her first book ”FLY HIGHER“ is about self leadership and will be launched at?Henley Literary Festival?on the 3rd October. Tickets are now on sale (virtual and face to face.) Discounted copies will be available on Amazon on the 5th October.?For reminders and an advance read of Chapter 1 sign up?here.?

If you are looking for a keynote speaker contact?[email protected]

For support with workshops or coaching contact?[email protected]