Category: Business

Leadership for 2021 and Beyond

We now have an opening in this country, and this is what I would like to see

Since we are in the waning days of the Trump administration and the Democrats may take the senate as well (we’ll see what happens in Georgia), I’ve been thinking about what sort of opening could exist if those two things come to pass. One thing that I hope for is a retiring of an old form of leadership. A form that Trump embodied, but that certainly didn’t begin with him.

I think that, for most of my life, I’ve been looking for a certain kind of leadership. I’ve found it many times, but never where I wanted to find it. I have wanted to find it in our government leaders, in the leaders of our businesses and organizations, in my community. Instead, in my experience, I’ve found it at random. I cherish the folks that embody what I’m about to describe, and I have found them in the most unexpected places.

So what am I looking for, in leadership, that I am so rarely finding? Wisdom and patience are the first things that come to mind. To speak metaphorically; to be able to guide the ship without over-steering. People who feel the extent to which their employees and customers rely on them, and do their best to honor that commitment at all times. I am looking for people who are honorable. It’s one thing to understand and appreciate that some people get things done by backstabbing people and leaving people out in the cold. It’s another thing to do it. I’m interested in leaders that understand that any business or organization is also a community, and who honors that community. It’s also important that a leader honors the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of other people. If you are a leader, reasonable and respectable people will come to conclusions that are different than yours. Reasonable, respectable people will also make mistakes. The type of leader I’m looking for will respect that and will respect them. I’m looking for grace. In a leader, I want someone who can give others grace. Who can distinguish what someone means to do, and who can lift people up and help them grow when they fall. If I’m an employee, I’m looking for a leader who will protect me. If I’m employing, I’m looking for a leader who will protect the people they work with. I’m looking for leaders who ask questions; of themselves, of their staff, of everyone. People who are curious, and who know to rely on the expertise of the people around them. To extend the boat metaphor, I’m looking for leaders who do just guide. Who don’t get hung up in the color of the lifeboats, or the fuel mixture ratios in the engine. Leaders I’m looking for have delegated those decisions to people that they’ve empowered to make the right decision. I also want a leader to have enough knowledge and wisdom to know when they are being buffaloed. A great leader who otherwise always takes bad advice will inevitably look on blithely as their happy ship full of people sinks to the bottom of the sea. Yet, every leader will take and act on bad advice. I’m looking for leaders that can recognize their mistakes, acknowledge them, apologize to any aggrieved parties, and then correct course quickly.

A leader must also, always, be cultivating other leaders. Why? Because all this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I know that when I’ve been most effective as a leader, a large part of that formula has been having advisors and mentors of my own. A leader must have and continue to cultivate; people in their lives who give them guidance, help them process their feelings when they are upset, and people who are unattached to their work who can give them unvarnished advice and perspective. A leader needs to be delegating to people nearly all the time. Those people that are being delegated to need to all be on the same page. One day, the leader will have to delegate the entire operation of the organization they are leading. I think it’s important to have people around who can step up to the task, and that doesn’t happen without cultivating leadership.

A leader must want to be held accountable, and must be able to hold others accountable. We all make mistakes, and we all have errors in judgement. We all have impulses occasionally that aren’t the best. A leader that can be held accountable will have their own worst impulses held in check, and a leader that can hold others accountable will do the same for the others around them. For all of us, being held accountable is an opportunity to grow. Accountability is a gift… give that gift.

This is the sort of leader that I have always attempted to be. I cannot say that I have embodied these principles all of the time, but I can say that I have aimed to. What I am hopeful for, that in this new opening we have in our country, is that leaders of this kind can get more space to operate. I am hopeful that we all can see what good can be done from leading this way.

I Think Our Leaders are Failing Us

Let me be more specific: People want to feel like the leaders in their life have their back.

I’ve got a hypothesis, but I have no real way to test it out besides testing it on you folks. So here goes: I think that there is a large portion of the population (in this country at least) that does not experience being served by the leadership in their life the way they want to be served.

This article’s incredible image is courtesy of my friend Joshua Coffy. Check out his work here.

Let me be more specific: People want to feel like the leaders in their life have their back.

And for most of us, at least at work, that experience is lacking. The other aspects of leadership are important as well. You need good strategy, tactics, and execution. You need to make sure that money continues to flow into your organization. There is a lot of expertise to accumulate and decisions to navigate as the leader of an organization. If your organizational leadership is highly innovative and pushes their team to innovate as well, that is great.

But how many organizations are going to have your back when the shit hits the fan? How many organizations do the work to make sure you are deployed in a way that inspires you and gets the best work out of you? How many organizations make sure you are getting paid a wage that works for you? How many work with you during organizational changes to make sure that your needs are also met?

Heck, how many organizations listen to feedback from their front line staff – the people who make everything work on a day to day basis? How many actively develop the talents of the folks already working for them, so when greater expertise is needed they can call on people who already have knowledge of the inner workings of the organization?

How many organizations make sure that there is enough institutional knowledge among their staff that there is always someone to train people who are ready to grow? How many organizations are constantly trying to cut labor costs, or cut front line staff costs so they can show a bigger profit and/or give their leadership bigger bonuses?

HOW MANY ORGANIZATIONS EVEN TAKE THE TIME TO TRAIN PEOPLE PROPERLY?!?

My thinking is that this is a big thing that is missing in the development of leadership today. That is, that people who are leading organizations don’t receive training in how to handle the fact that they aren’t just running a company or a non-profit – that they are in a leadership role in a community. That they are responsible for the health of the community, and the health of that community as well as the people inside of it often determines the health of the organization. That if you, as a business or non-profit leader, don’t realize that you are also in charge of nurturing a community you are missing the point.

I know that there is a line of thinking among some capitalists that labor should be interchangeable. But if labor is interchangeable, that means that any one person doesn’t matter. Everyone wants to matter, in their day-to-day life. They want to be treated like they matter.

I myself have seen firsthand what happens when employees feel like their leadership has their back, and it’s a beautiful thing. The things that I’ve seen those teams accomplish have been off the charts. It didn’t take fancy management training, or some whiz-bang consultant. It just took making sure everyone knew that the leadership had their back.

I would argue that political leaders in our country understand this. That they make sure segments of the population believe that they are going to have their back. The issue there is that they are often only playing to certain segments. But that’s another blog for another day…

My experience is only anecdotal. I’m not totally sure how this could be tested on a larger scale, even though I’m sure it could. What I’m looking for, for those of you who have stuck with this post this far, is more anecdotal evidence. Do you feel like leadership having your back is missing for you too, or missing for people around you? Have you experienced what it was like to feel totally supported by the leadership in your organization, and what was it like for you?

 

PS: Don’t take this as any way influenced by my new job. I frickin love my new job (more on that later). But I am at the point where I see this everywhere, when almost everyone opens their mouths to talk about their work. It’s been on my mind quite a bit, so I figure it’s time to put it out there.