I was thinking – when did I become a leader?
That is implicitly immodest. It assumes I actually was a leader.
But if I once was, now no one works for me, have I stopped being a leader?
I am a director of a company (an independent co-ed school). Does that make me a leader?
I’ve posted on LinkedIn how I can easily be transported by stuff.
Well, I was reading a nice article by folk at McKinsey – The art of 21st-century leadership: From succession planning to building a leadership factory. Have a read and see what you think. (I haven’t been able to shorten the link, so copied it at the foot of this piece.)
I like the McKinsey article, but if I am being picky, I would like to have seen it touch on the need for cognitive diversity among leaders, the avoidance of echo chambers and to be wary of the affinity bias influencing the make up of the leadership pool. I would also encourage safeguards against those who bring cognitive diversity to leadership being “diminished” by being re-moulded into the cultural likeness of the organisation. But the bottom line is that it made me think, and that is a good thing. About the questions above and many more.
Leadership is clearly a topical subject, because it’s coming up all over the place at the moment.
But I guess set against a background, for example, of the Post Office scandal, Partygate, the Boeing debacle and the rapid advances of generative AI, it’s not that surprising that many people are thinking about how leadership could or should be.
The questions are pertinent because, like it or not (I like it),people talk to me about leadership – how they become a leader or a better leader, or even a different type of leader. And some talk to me about their approach to leadership or want to know about mine.
I trained to be a solicitor. It may be different now, but then it was all about law and procedure, ethics and some accounting stuff. It was not about being a supervisor of anybody, delegating, giving feedback, time management, running and financing a business, building a team, strategizing and so on. All of that had to be learned as I went along. Most of the people supervising me were no different; they’d just served more time and gained more experience.
For what it’s worth, I happen to think I did become a leader. But it was not by virtue of starting and building a team – although that involved the application of some leadership traits. No, at that time I was probably more of a manager.
By differentiating between a manager and leader, I am not at all suggesting managers are somehow lesser. They are not. I would say that a lot of managers are also leaders, good leaders even.
But I would also say there is something qualitatively different between managing and leading. I would add that to be a leader does not necessarily involve some concept of hierarchy. I can think of many people who I consider to be leaders in their social environment – among friends, for example.
But most of the current writing, of course, is about business leaders.
Over a year ago, I was asked to speak to colleagues about what I’d learnt in my time in the business I was soon to leave. I didn’t speak about law or procedure, I spoke about my top 10 more personal lessons.
I am not going to work through all ten here, but here are a few.
At No.6 in my hit parade, I said:
• There will be a moment when you really understand that your experience and position means you are being looked to and relied on for your knowledge, interpretation and view or a decision
• That is on you, not someone else – it will be worrying, but it is also an opportunity
• Accept it, embrace it
• This is not just about, for example, giving legal advice. It can be about being a leader, a colleague others will look to, an effective supervisor, a true friend, a decent human being…
• How you deal with it/behave matters
At No.4, I said:
• It is OK to be vulnerable, even if you are in a leadership/supervisory role
• E.g.to not know something
• But do your utmost to know someone who does
My No.3 was:
• Ensure you are exposed to as diverse thinking as possible – outside and inside work
- There are as many perspectives as there are people” (Colin Wright, cited by Michaela Coel in Misfits)
• Listen
- “true listening happens when you stop waiting to speak”
No.2:
• Learn – be seen to – never stop
And for me, No.1 was:
• Trust
• Be someone who can be trusted (always)
• It’s sometimes inconvenient, sometimes a burden
• Be someone who can trust others
I spoke about those things six months to a year before I read Brené Brown’s “Dare to Lead”, Matthew Syed’s “Rebel Ideas” or The Times piece (“A good boss knows they don’t know it all” – 22 December 2023), and obviously before I read the McKinsey article. There is a lot of similarity between what they, collectively, say and what I had worked out myself.
Does that mean I am a guru on the question of leadership, or is it just common sense?
The latter of course, but it is amazing how often the common-sense view actually has to be spelt out for it to make sense.
If I try very briefly to summarise what, for me, a good leader looks/feels like, it is this: they are a positive role model. That may be obvious, but not all those in what might be considered leadership positions manage to achieve that.
I think being a positive role model means someone always working to “do the right thing”, and being seen to. I’ve spent some time this year thinking about what is required to have a chance of living that goal. For me, the component elements/traits are: ensuring cognitive diversity, maintaining integrity, having courage, and to be caring or kind
Ultimately, though, the interpretations of “leadership” and “doing the right thing” are a deeply personal thing: for the person concerned and for the people who allow you to lead.
© Jason Hunter
October 2024
McKinsey article: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-art-of-21st-century-leadership-from-succession-planning-to-building-a-leadership-factory?stcr=540C42850C47404E8F67F09D4E7CE2DE&cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck&hlkid=b937d760ca8d407084b6e8b0143ae48f&hctky=15024616&hdpid=b1a40021-53fb-4160-80e0-be6e77c14271
