Most of us believe our instincts will make us good managers. We’ve grown up, however, surrounded by command-and-control leadership, which those instincts are likely to reflect, even though that top-down approach has increasingly come under question. Relying on instincts can also stand in the way of improvement.
Rose Patten, a long-time senior executive at BMO Financial Group and the chancellor of the University of Toronto, believes each of us must commit to what she calls intentional leadership, in which we reflect on our instincts to help us grow. She also urges us to replace command-and-control with connect-and-collaborate.
“My own learning grew profoundly when I considered how my beliefs, and therefore habits and practices, were informing how I was leading. When I began to question my mindset on particular topics or issues, I could see why I was not always as effective as I wanted to be,” she writes in her book Intentional Leadership.
A good place to start is by ditching four false beliefs that might be impeding your success:
- Leadership is timeless; once a great leader, always a great leader: In these changing times, that’s simply not true. There is no formula for leadership; you must constantly renew. “Great leadership is all about lifelong learning,” says Ms. Patten.
- Softer skills will improve if you give them time: In fact, you must make it a top priority to develop them, which requires self-awareness and pushing past the latent assumption that soft skills are a sign of weakness. Besides IQ and EQ, she highlights what she calls DQ – decency quotient.
- High performance equals high potential for leadership: Often high performers lack the ability to motivate others, relate in an empathetic way, delegate or inspire. At one point at BMO she realized the term “high potential” was not consistently defined and thus not reliable in predicting eventual outcomes. High potential can be situational.
- Mentors are important primarily for lower leadership levels: When asked for advice by a CEO or other leader, she asks if they have a mentor or confidant/sounding board; if not, she encourages them to consider getting one right away. “It is an unfortunate loss when leaders falsely assume that they are too senior or too advanced or too smart or formally educated to need, or benefit from, a mentor,” Ms. Patten writes.
She likens leadership to a pendulum, shifting and settling as conditions change. You must evolve with it. That means more reflection, more listening, more observation and a more open mind. It requires adaptability and intention. “Leaders can derail without this intention. Instinct is not enough,” Ms. Patten says.
As a leader, she went from the mindset of having to have all the answers to a belief in distributed leadership, involving others – consulting and collaborating. The pendulum is shifting toward that approach from the authoritarian past. Instead of leadership being predominantly vertical – focused on people below the leader in the hierarchy – it also has a large horizontal element currently, leveraging the entire organization’s strengths.
She emphasizes eight capabilities:
- Personal adaptability: This is the first skill she watches for in interacting with others. It’s about mindset – are they open-minded? Do they accept diverse views? Can they let go of being comfortable? Can they handle setbacks?
- Strategic agility: With the rise of digitalization, strategies are short-lived today. Leaders must be dynamic in thinking, not static. They must let go of the tried-and-true, appraising constantly, adjusting courageously and acting urgently.
- Self-renewal: Leaders must become more self-aware, understanding their blind spots and their impact on others. “It is surprising how even the smartest leaders who might mean well have little idea of their true impact,” she notes. Seek feedback. Be teachable.
- Certainty of character: She says everyone owns their character and is responsible for it. Character is about more than honesty. It reflects the depth and breadth of who you are – your core values – and must be consistent. At BMO, everyone was expected before decisions to ask: Is it fair? Is it right? Is it legal?
- Empathy: This is the key to horizontal leadership, being open, accessible, approachable and adjusting behaviour in order to relate. Ms. Patten shares Maya Angelou’s words: “I think we all have empathy, but we may not have the courage to display it.”
- Contextual communication: People in the organization need to know the “why” of decisions and proposed actions – the reasons for it – as well as having some input in some way, even if only through questions and comments to the leader. You can’t just tell people what to do. You must supply the context – the why.
- Spirited collaboration: This is not a choice; it’s a necessity. And it goes beyond everyone agreeing. It requires enabling and encouraging dissent. “A harmonizing group of like minds becomes an echo chamber of agreement,” Ms. Patten warns.
- Developing other leaders – not just followers: Through mentorship, coaching and stretch assignments you want to inspire and develop others to lead rather than teach them to merely follow.
It won’t happen by accident, however, or instinct. You need intention.
Cannonballs
- The most important amenity that attracts people back to working in the office is other people. Neil Murray, CEO of work dynamics at JLL, where his team advises many Fortune 1000 companies on their office locations says if you grant total flexibility to staff to pick their days in the office, they miss one another. That means you must bring teams back on the same day.
- Most ads are not written to persuade, insists advertising consultant Roy H. Williams. They are written not to offend. Evaluating possible ads, the tendency is to soften them. But effective ads don’t hit softly; they have impact.
- Anna Rosenberg is unknown today but was one of the best managers, advisers and negotiators of her time. She was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Mrs. Fixit, taking on innumerable sensitive tasks. When the Korean War broke out, with the United States grossly unprepared, Secretary of Defense George Marshall asked her to run the Pentagon’s male machinery, recruiting new soldiers (she insisted on desegregated units, showing him they were more effective) and cleaning up the military’s tangled processes. Historian Christopher Gorham shares her inspiring Hidden Figures story in The Confidante. If you like learning from historical biographies, give it a try.
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.