This is another signal year for me. Just over 25 years ago, I sold a company and created the brand named after this website. It continues to be dedicated to the mission of proving that leadership is an act of intention and evolution – having the savvy and courage to outgrow one’s limitations and step up when new circumstances demand. In a world where complexity, volatility, misinformation, ambiguity and rapidly changing but incessant stakeholder pressures exceed traditional leadership capabilities, sustained effectiveness depends less on expertise and authority and more on a leader’s willingness to remain curious, question the fundamentals and continually reinvent how they think, decide and relate.
The purpose of this blog is to explore and challenge the recurring themes, underlying assumptions and emergent issues that smart leaders are forced to confront almost daily. Apart from my work with some very smart clients, as well as a few who were unable to hack the grind, I’ve written well over 200 of these blogs. I do so for several reasons, including the selfish purpose of formulating and framing my own arguments for leadership growth and competence. In this journey, several themes puzzle and intrigue me. Among them are the following.
Leadership plateaus, stalls and confusion are inevitable, not pathological. While sometimes self-inflicted, they’re a normal consequence of successes, failures and random events. Emergent or unexpected situations create what are now called “wicked problems” that seem to defy definition, and certainly easy solutions. They’ve outpaced traditional leadership competencies and now exceed what they were trained to deal with or learned by osmosis. Leaders are human beings; they get better by making mistakes (although some stakeholders rarely understand that), recalibrating on the fly, and remaining open-minded when push comes to shove.
In a paradoxical business environment, success can become its own constraint. Prior wins harden into bad habits and many overestimate the transferability of their earlier accomplishments and so double down on what worked in the past. Much to their disappointment or misfortune. In our technology-driven world, intransigence is a road to ruin. Inner renaissance too frequently lags outer responsibility. While leaders invest heavily in growing their enterprises, timewise and moneywise, they often neglect their own evolution, until misalignment and disorientation become unavoidable. They work harder but feel less effective (the subject of my next post). Which is one reason why so many are calling it quits and why so many younger high-potentials are wondering whether leading is really worth the tradeoffs.
Despite the advent of AI and other life-altering technologies as differentiators or game changers, good judgment, wisdom, discipline and self-awareness still matter more than technical brilliance. The more complicated things become, the more vital are our human capabilities. AI can organize, analyze and summarize but it can’t coach, build consensus, negotiate or inspire trust. Leaders must continually strive to elevate their listening, curiosity, patience, humility and courage over their traditional sources of power – things like authority and predict-command-control management styles. The former are learnable skills in need of upgrading; the latter diminish performance. Evolve or become irrelevant.
Courage has always been the secret sauce of leadership. As William Wallace said, “People don’t follow title; they follow courage.” It’s not about bravery or valour. Rather, it’s the ability to remain calm, cool and collected on the outside when stress and anxiety build on the inside. It’s not about being bold for its own sake, but having the temperament to admit confusion and ask for help, to invite dissent and feedback, and to stay true to one’s compass while risking experimentation and reinvention. These are not traits of personality. They are the skills that define smart leadership.
As a clinician, advocate and counselor, I’m deeply skeptical of heroic leadership models, command-and-control reflexive thinking, overconfidence masquerading as decisiveness, and title disguised as knowledge. As does everyone, I have my biases and beliefs about this subject (which I sometimes express with too much candour). These include:
■ Leadership is fundamentally a work-in-progress, not an acquired position in time.
■ Most (not all) leaders today are unprepared for the challenges they will face.
■ The greatest threats to organizational performance are a consequence of internal, pathological forces more so than external competitors, regulatory or market forces.
■ The human condition – ego, fear, overconfidence, avoidance, motivation – matters more than strategy.
■ Learning is not optional, especially among managerial ranks, and stagnation is regression to the mean.
■ Followership is earned by being a credible, trustworthy role model, not through dominance.
Leadership failure is not a consequence of lacking intelligence, experience or effort. It’s an inability to outgrow the mindset and habits that got them to where they are, but that will no longer keep them there. In a phrase, refusing (or not knowing how) to change or evolve. Experience can be as dangerous as it is valuable. So, to the readers of this blog, I will continue to advocate for self-examination over self-assurance, curiosity over certitude, reinvention over same old, perspective over expediency, and listening over telling. I will continue learning about and writing on these subjects in the year ahead. Thank you for sharing this interest.