Leadership: a powerful invitation

I came to leadership by accident, and fairly reluctantly. The principles I've outlined below are what helped me find meaning and joy in leading people, and I believe them to be key to building and sustaining healthy human-centred organizations.

I fell into all of this by channeling my passions for parenting, children, sustainability, and community into a business. This business turned into an organization where I found myself at its peak being responsible for about 50 employees: managers, customer service agents, sewers, cutters, retail employees, bookkeepers and more, all of whom I owe a debt of gratitude for allowing me to practice and learn at their expense.

Despite just falling into this role by accident, leading this organization became an incredibly joyful occupation, and I found myself surrounded by a team that was brilliant, creative, and innovative. There were hard moments galore, and head-breaking scenarios of dysfunction, but in general I was lifted and inspired by these people who made my mission their own yet took it further and made it bigger and brighter than I had ever thought possible.

Later I went to work for other leaders and launched a consulting practice, and thus was privileged to witness other leaders of small to medium size organizations in action and up close. There are as many types of leaders as there are humans, and each brings a unique set of strengths and vulnerabilities to leadership. I have come to believe that leadership is not a science, but a craft and a way of being that can be cultivated by developing yourself and increasing your self-awareness. I'd like to share with you what I learned as I cultivated that craft.

Bring your best self to work

Leadership calls upon us to be our best selves. It is a powerful invitation to sort oneself out enough to be of service to others and to the mission we serve. What does this sorting out look like in leadership? Emotional regulation, good listening skills, awareness of our biases, humility and a willingness to own your mistakes – all of these and more. And again, self-awareness – knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are and learning to leverage and balance them, recognizing your leadership style and making it work for your organization.

You can be a warm and responsive human and still hold the strength and power you need to drive an organization. A leader must balance so many polarities with grace – for example, flexibility and structure, rights and responsibilities, and autonomy and accountability. Being mindful, keeping an open heart, and seeking wise counsel – this is how we balance and adapt our responses appropriately to each situation as it arises.

My experience has been that leadership helped me to step more fully into myself. I felt the wind beneath my wings, empowered by the collective energy within the organization to achieve our mission and live our values. My team helped me become a better person. Time and again they brought me back squarely to my values, and together we built a beautiful business! I could never, ever have achieved what I did without their help.

Model the habits and mindsets you want others to develop

In start-ups and small to medium-sized organizations, I believe that culture flows from what the leader and the management team value. If they value connection, diversity, risk-taking, and creativity – then the culture will reflect this. If it is hierarchy and obedience – then the culture will reflect this.

Leaders model the habits and mindsets that employees will take on, and that will shape the workplace. For example, if you want your organization to be one that values continual learning and is oriented toward developing the capacity to respond to volatile and quickly changing environments, it is you who will set the tone by learning all the time, by placing value on learning, and by providing opportunities for the team to learn together and individually.

Something I have often seen in organizations is the exhausted, overwhelmed leader who is “selfless” and who seeks recognition for their devotion to the mission at the expense of self-care and boundaries. Modelling self-sacrifice creates the expectation that employees will do the same. This creates a culture of overwhelm where nobody functions at their best. People burn out and they leave – because of course, it is unsustainable. Heroes and martyrs don’t make good leaders – they lead folks into the fire. I have been guilty of this myself. But I know now that the most inspiring and motivating leaders put well-being at the heart of the organization.

Devote yourself to empowering others

The way we, as leaders achieve success, is by making those around us successful. When we leverage the brilliance and capacity of the people in our organization, they take us over the finish line. We can’t do everything ourselves – we need the skills, insights, and passions of others to enrich our own perspectives and abilities.

Through mentoring, coaching, and training we develop our team, imbuing them with the values of the organization and infecting them with our momentum. To wax romantic here, in its highest form this can be a transformational process for people, and plant seeds that they will carry out into the world when they leave us, and impact how they work and what they do in the future. It is a way of seeding the mission of your organization far and wide, and also a way in which organizational life can be a vehicle of positive social change.

But as leaders, we must also be willing to be transformed by those who work with us, and be open to the changes they will make in our organizations. Communicate effectively with your employees, seek their opinions, and treat them like respected colleagues. It's a simple recipe for success and will bring their best selves and their best thinking to the fore as well as yours.

As I was writing this piece, I found an old blog that I wrote many years ago for my business. These words seem relevant here:

The values and voices of many people have propelled our vision over the years and shaped what Bummis (bum-eez) is today. Smart cookies (brilliant employees) have come and gone, usually staying longer than they thought they would... and giving more than we imagined they could.

Our team is so important to us - the integrity and intelligence of the people who work with us can be seen and heard in the voice of our customer service, in the intelligence of our products and in the passion behind our excellence.

some of our amazing diaper fairies/smart cookies going beyond

Be an agent of coherence

The leader champions and embodies the values, mission, and vision of the organization, ensuring coherence between how it presents itself to the world, and the internal processes and structures. This means that we are constantly reviewing and evaluating whether those processes and structures reflect the aspirations and objectives of the organization. Honestly, this work is so much easier when done in full transparency and with the help of a team that we empower to challenge our perspective and help us shape our vision.

Striving to achieve this coherence can sometimes be gritty and humbling work. It means that when a crisis occurs and you are on the spot, you must walk the talk. Our values must hold us to account. This can be extremely uncomfortable and meeting it with as little defensiveness as possible will keep your mind clear and your responses wise.

Be willing to be wrong and test your theories on an ongoing basis

Again – humility is a very useful and important tool and attribute for leaders. In fact, it is essential, and if you are not exhibiting it, you will benefit by giving yourself permission to be vulnerable in that way. You can’t have all the answers – nobody does. Please go ahead and risk, innovate, unleash your creativity, and fail, review, re-think, and risk again. This is powerful and effective modelling for your team and will encourage creativity and innovation throughout the organization.

Put forward your opinion and be willing to be proven wrong – more importantly, be willing to let others be right or have better answers and solutions than you have. This is where you get to leverage the brilliance you have cultivated in those you lead. Their solutions could save you and propel your organization to greater heights.

Also - test your assumptions on a continual basis, re-think what you know, and for goodness’ sake, ask for the opinions of others! You don’t have to agree with those opinions, but they will help you by broadening your vision.

My last thought here is to caution you to avoid the cult of personality or the feeling that you might be irreplaceable. Cultivating the excellence of others could make you redundant, it’s true. But if your team can run your organization on a daily basis as well as or even better than you, you have done well. Be willing to share the limelight with them! Bring them together and celebrate with good food and fun, because if you get run over by a car tomorrow, your organization will survive and perhaps even continue to thrive.

But more likely – you will feel the wind beneath your wings. The momentum and influence of your organization will continue to grow, and it could just be an extraordinary place to work and be.