The Daring Leader- Catalysing a narrative that is beyond “ME”

We expect leadership to be heavily coloured with intellect, not so much with vulnerability or compassion or empathy or nourishment. Our cultures show that the best leaders are competent, even if they don’t feel so, they need to look the part; that brings them acceptance. They need to be competent at dealing with situations, managing people, bringing in business and handling clients.

A lot is expected out of leaders; but the one thing that’s not expected out of them is vulnerability. It is alright to be out of your element, it is ok to lean on others when you don’t know what’s to be done and that it is ok to fly air cover for team members who may be in that position too.

Leaders in their truest sense are facilitators of excellence. The hallmark of a great leader is their ability to read the context and match their behaviour to the needs of that particular context. If leaders operate in a “not to lose” stance, they will always be at their defensive best and not at what the organisation needs at that point of time.

How do we as leadership development practitioners influence leaders today to be more complete?

1. Realise that “overwhelm” and “vulnerability” needs to be worked through and not ignored.

When Dara Khosrowshahi took over as Uber’s CEO, London government officials had just announced that they would not be renewing Uber’s license. Khosrowshahi responded to the news with a remarkable email to employees saying “while the impulse may be to say that this is unfair, one of the lessons I've learned over time is that change comes from self-reflection. So it's worth examining how we got here. The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation. Irrespective of whether we did everything that is being said about us in London today (and to be clear, I don't think we did), it really matters what people think of us, especially in a global business like ours, where actions in one part of the world can have serious consequences in another.”

This is what I call “Daring Leadership”. With that one email, the new CEO started off on a journey of trust and personal responsibility. He got out of the win/ lose mindset and moved the company forward while taking responsibility of thinking through how Uber got there.

2. Embrace the ability to learn from other perspectives.

Following an incident at the Q&A at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, where Satya Nadella told the largely female audience that women in the tech industry should forgo asking for raises and instead trust in the system, he was forced to explore his own biases. Nadella realised his mistake, and the next day issued an apology. Microsoft stepped up internal messaging on making people aware of the diversities in their teams and to combat their unconscious biases. Microsoft was finally leaving behind its rank and file system. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/transforming-culture-microsoft-how-satya-nadella-turned-walke/)

Nadella could have been defensive or self-protective, but that was not a constructive response to what he was feeling. He recognized his privilege and his bias – and knew that there were many women in Microsoft too who were looking up to him to correct it, to stand out from being just another leader who brushes these things under the carpet. That acknowledgment of what he did wrong was a show of strength.

3. Tweak language to fit the context

Here’s what you can do: 

Instead Of Can I give you my view/ feedback? Try Here’s what I thought

Instead of Here’s what you should have done. Try Here’s what I would have done

Instead of You are not clear. Try I began to lose you, when you said-

Instead of Here’s where you need to improve. Try May I share some pointers that may be of help?

And don’t just stop there. When you get a reaction from your peers/ boss/ team members that say “I love what you are doing!”; ask them “which part”. You do this to get a better perspective on your own performance, so you know what to do again. So you know how to replicate success. Don’t be bogged down by the right way of saying things, figure it out as you go along. Courage and fear aren’t mutually exclusive, and to be able to tweak the language to fit the context, you will have to examine your feelings too. These stepping stones are fundamental to human nature, and aren’t meant to avoid risk. Rather the change in language helps you to share risky messages in a safe way. 

As people, we do not excel when someone whose intentions are unclear tells us where we stand, how good we “really” are, and what we must do to fix ourselves. We excel only when people who know us and care about us tell us what they experience and what they feel, and in particular when they see something within us that really works. 

That’s what a leader does. And a leader trusts first. Be brave enough to trust first, to enable the system to trust you.