You, The Leader
Whenever I hear or say the word “leadership,” somewhere in my brain an image of Napoleon Bonaparte pops up. It doesn’t stay long, because he is absolutely not a model of leadership I want to follow, but it’s still interesting that somewhere I acquired the notion that he was a notable leader.
I find that clients often have similarly irrelevant or even objectionable images of leadership hidden away in their brains which make it hard for them to recognize their own leadership style. My goal is to guide them to identify their own potential as leaders. I remember one client whose department was expanding. With more direct reports, she needed to lead in ways that were new to her. When I asked what kind of leader she wanted to be, at first the most important things she could point to were the kind of “leader” she didn’t want to be. That turned out to be summarized for her in the term “wheeler-dealer,” someone who focused on objectives without accounting for the actual human beings they were responsible for. We noted also that this anti-model seemed to be present primarily in older male leaders who are not well tuned in to the modern workplace or its workers. Noticing these mismatches helped us figure out where to look for better models.
I asked her, and I suggest you ask yourself, “What kind of leader do you want to be? What qualities do you want to develop so that you can be that kind of leader?” We explored images of leaders she found attractive and admirable, which in turn allowed us to identify some authors whose writings on leadership really spoke to her. One author she found helpful was Brené Brown, especially the line, “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” This precept, which is directly antithetical to that “wheeler-dealer” image, broadened and deepened her sense of how she could lead in alignment with her own values.
To decide what kind of leader you want to be, I suggest you think about people whose impact can expand your sense of how to lead, such as:
Jane Goodall, who has led change by being a moral authority, a consummate story-teller, and both patient and brave in slowly and persistently inviting chimpanzees to trust her. Now she persistently encourages all of us to respect other creatures and the environment at large.
Steve Jobs, who famously was fired from Apple, a company he had co-founded, yet learned from his mistakes and returned to lead Apple to even greater success.
Your first grade teacher, who would have stood on her head and juggled fire if it would have helped ensure that every child in her class would be able to read by the end of the year. She may not be famous, but she has enhanced innumerable lives by her level of commitment and her willingness to improvise and to learn new methods to accomplish her goals.
MacKenzie Scott, who seems to mostly stay out of the limelight yet has given an extraordinary boost to organizations which had been struggling to build their impact.
I don’t recommend that you take any one of these people individually as your role model. Their personalities, temperaments, and experiences are different from yours, so it is unreasonable to expect their exact styles to work for you. I believe we all need multiple role models. People who inspire us in different ways can help us get out of mental and emotional ruts like “leaders are manipulative wheeler-dealers.”
When I notice people who have been leaders or teachers for me, I ask myself, “what specifically makes this person inspiring or admirable?” I remember specific incidents or events, which allows me to try the thought experiment of asking, “How am I like that? How can I be like that?” Often a specific moment will stand out for me. I’ll see someone respond to a verbal challenge by asking a question that draws out the other person and starts a more respectful conversation, and I’ll think, “I could try that!” As someone who grew up believing that people would respect you if you had all the answers, learning to ask good questions has been an ongoing process of discovering how much other people already know. With that awareness I have become a better manager, teacher, and coach because I actually listen to and learn from the people I am working with.
I also notice how combinations of teachers have unknowingly worked together to help me grow my capacities. For example, I learned to value facts and reasoning from my parents, but it has been from dance teachers that I have learned to speak from my heart and to let my body tell me when I'm not being true to myself. Both approaches have shaped who I am as a leader.
The important task before you is simple, but it is far from easy. I still sometimes have a hard time applying what I've learned on my own behalf, so I am enormously grateful for the ways I get to collaborate with my clients. When they trust me with the dilemmas they face as managers or when they need support in advocating for themselves at work, I am usually able to apply what I know in order to help them take direct action, have difficult conversations, or cultivate alliances to bring about change. And that is an effective summation of my own approach to leadership - not very Napoleon-like, but not quite like any one other example either.