Leadership and the Courage to Confront

Recently I had to reflect on the meaning of leadership, responsibility, trust and confidence. I was confronted with a moment that called on me to think seriously about how much I attach importance to values and principle, and how prepared I am as a person to accept something that I may feel is not properly thought through. And when this impacts both the decision of others or other interested parties, how much are you prepared to withdraw your specific interest for the benefit of a bigger group. As I went through these thoughts, I was concerned about causing unnecessary conflict. I tossed and turned, thinking how do I deal with a vexing situation that I knew would not necessarily make everyone happy.

I spent time thinking a lot of what is the right thing to do. I had to draw on all my learning and understanding of what leadership and responsibility is about. That it is called upon not when things are easy, but in very difficult and tough moments. And it requires a lot of you in order to either communicate what you want or effect the change that you see. But the more I thought about the situation I was having to deal with, truth and responsibility took me to one decision: rather than simply keep quiet in order to have an artificial peace, it was critical for me to raise the issues and challenges I was seeing.

It is easier to talk about what is the right thing to do than to always do it. Especially when one thinks that it can cause conflict. But I had to tell myself all the time that I needed to have the courage to confront. This is not the confrontation of a person, but to confront the issues. As I thought of the best way that I could approach the problem and communicate it, it became clear to me that I could never live with myself for not speaking my truth. Regardless of how potentially damaging it could mean in terms of how one is seen, I had to draw on every strength I had to raise an issue that I felt could have worse consequences if not addressed.

What did I learn? Most importantly, I learnt that courage is something that draws from another very important aspect that I sometimes take for granted: being principled. It was my understanding of the importance of principle that allowed me to have a voice that allowed for the expression of the courage needed to resolve the issue that I was dealing with.

Secondly, that, even if people may not always like what you say, there will be an ear if the issue comes with clear reasoning, and explanation of the consequences if a particular course of action is taken.

Thirdly, that not every issue arises because people have a wrong intent. They may arise because people make mistakes, overlook something or just do not have enough information. Sometimes they underestimate the consequences. Thus, I learnt that I have more courage to highlight an issue if I speak about the impacts on me rather than worry about the reason why people may have done something. Otherwise I become totally paralysed into inaction.

Fourthly, I learnt that one must always accept that things will not be immediately accepted, and therefore I had to be prepared for a negative response. And also that, if you have the reasons for raising an issue, it allows for people to reflect and review any course of action they have taken.

Lastly, I learnt that one’s own record tends to have an impact especially where people have prior knowledge. It is much easier for people to deal with you on an issue if you do not have a track-record of raising frivolous issues than if you are always seen nagging negatively. Related to this, if you have developed the relationships of trust over time, people will always listen to what you say even if they do not agree.

But I would not have reached where I did if I did not, in the first instance, have the courage to confront.

Package Your Value and be not a CV Bullet Point Prisoner

Continuously in mentor journey I meet a lot of people who are in transition either to the next stage of their career or preparing to get into a different job. I have recently interacted with three where I found they faced a common problem and had to answer a fundamental question: "what is it that I am capable of?” But what I have found missing is the second part to that question that I think is even more revealing: "who is likely to value what I can bring".

The difficult thing with being in transition is that you need to convince others you are capable of this new step. In functional organisations, if this means taking a promotion within the same function, then it tends to be easier if you have been "selected" as either a top-performer or part of a talent pool. The limiting factor though in this case being that you can only really be considered within the functional framework that the superiors have defined for you, which may also be limited by what tends to be their narrow view of capability.

It becomes more complex if one decides to either take a job outside the previous functional lines, or even in a different organisation or industry where it may both be a different technical area or even a different level. How does your previous functional experience show your credibility for this?

I have my own personal experience with this, having transitioned industries twice in my career, and changed functional groups within organisations as part of my growth. How do you even begin to do this in a way that does not lead you to take backward steps since the new people may be telling you that you need to "learn" first? How do you find the kind of opportunities that will play to your strength, and for which you will be valued.

Since a résumé or CV is the tool most used to identify who we are and what we can do to the outside world, I asked my mentees to think very critical how they project what they are capable of or competent in when they write it. The question I ask is whether they expect the the CV to speak for them, or they speak for themselves through a package, of which a CV is but a part. And I ask them to look at a package as broader than what you could write in a CV.

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In the complex world we are in, we are finding that tasks increasingly need people who can think and solve interrelated problems than perform straight-line functions. In this instance, a list of functional tasks on a CV will serve to only illustrate the work that one has done. Sadly, a lot of us assume the reader can then get a sense of the actual capability of the person. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth.

Packaging involves the painful process of asking the difficult questions of one’s potential value. I link this to a comprehensive understanding of one's competency. Competency can get be proven through experience, which should not be limited only to that which one gains through a job function.

Let me make an example with myself in this instance and the lens that I adopt. I trained and worked as an engineer, and spent time also in economic development through working industrial development. Layered with experience is a career in a financial services organisation that has given me an understanding of both the process of the flow of money as well as the key issues involved in the financing of projects. Outside of work, I am involved in a lot of economic policy formulation work, which gives me interesting perspectives of how issues of development and financing interface with the economy. It would thus be foolhardy of me, for instance, if I only defined myself around my job function, when my overall competency includes this external work and networks through my non-job activities. I have to package myself around this overall, this combination of experience and networks, and ensure it is projected in the way I act, solve problems and pursue business opportunities.

What makes this difficult for many of us is that we tend not to spend time thinking about ourselves that way, and also allow modesty to interfere with an honest assessment of what it is that we have done and achieved. This is further compounded by the narrow focus of recruiters, who even in this complex world tend to have a very narrow defining of the competencies required for what they are recruiting for. But their narrow focus should not be a reason to understate one's competence and limit the scoped of opportunities..

The first article that I read that gave me a hint of this was actually one focused on the value of competence for corporations. Written by C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel and published in the Harvard Business Review © in May-June 1990, the article entitled The Core Competence of the Corporation is one of the most cited HBR articles ever published, and highlights the importance of companies knowing what is it that they have in terms of capability rather than just what they functionally do or produce. Imagine if all of us spent time thinking about ourselves that way! We would not only have a better appreciation of what we are worth, but also a much wider view of the potential opportunities that may be available to us.

Packaging themselves and what they offer as value is what I advised my mentees to focus on doing as they seek new opportunities.

A Bad Boss Should Not Lead You to Abrupt Decisions

I was recently contacted by a friend on a matter that concerns someone close to him who was going through a major dilemma at work. The problem is one that many who read this would be familiar with. Essentially, it revolved around a boss that the person could no longer work with. Of course, I know only one side of the story, but in my understanding the relationship had broken down to the point that the person hoped to move to a different department within the employer or just resign from the job with no immediate alternative. However, with everything seemingly staked against him, as he was much younger and had a shorter history with the company than the boss, he felt that he could not win.

Based on what he had seen, the boss had the capacity to derail any attempt for him to move to another department. Oddly, but something that did not also sound unfamiliar, this boss tends to rely on this person for the most complex assignments, but behaves as if this person is not a valuable member of the team. Layered with the race dynamic that is so prevalent in corporate South Africa, this young person, who had grown up in a world that was supposed to be free of racism and discrimination, felt that he was up against it. In his training and development, he had assumed his historic good grades at school and diligence at work was sufficient for him to succeed.

This caused enough stress on the person that he thought it was better to simply resign without a job. My friend was asking what I would say in that situation, and whether it was not better for the person to simply up and go. I indicated to my friend that in these matters one needed to understand the complexity of things, including the environment that the person was working under. In addition, from my experience there is no right or wrong answer, but an appropriate answer for the context. However, there were fundamental principles and approaches that I use to help me get to the appropriate decision.

Fundamentally, I always ask myself why I am in employment and not running my own business. This is a critical question that informs the choice one makes in terms of pursuing a career. If the reason I am not running my business is because principally I am not attuned to creating and running my own business, then my record as a professional is something that is important to me. In a country that has a high employment problem, keeping a good job, not necessarily under any circumstance, is something that I value. Therefore, I tend to be conservative and not want to take decisions that affect my ability to have an uninterrupted record of employment, because I know interviewers read a lot into unexplained gaps in a CV.

The other aspect I think about is that I pursue my career for myself and not for my boss. It may be that at a particular point in time I may be working for that boss, but I am always clear in my mind that I do not belong to that person or dependant on him or her. We have a relationship that arises out of my contractual relationship with the employer, and my being employed is a function of the value the employer wants me to add rather than the feelings of my boss. Important as they are, I refuse to allow them to determine who I am. In order to even be assured of this, it is important for one to create a professional network that transcends one’s current function, and build relationships independent of your immediate superior. Then the world can really appear in your eyes for what it is: a complex place with abundant opportunities and multiple potential relationships through which one can unlock the next opportunity.

Related to the above, I always think about what to do to draw on every inch of personal strength I have. This can come from me directly, but also from my support network. It is those who really care for you that can provide an anchor in the most difficult of moments. Whilst it may be true that you may face problems with your immediate superior alone in terms of direct work interface, it does not follow that in seeking to find solutions, you have to do the thinking alone. Getting others to co-reflect with you is an absolutely critical part of the process, and the answers that may come through would not have been possible alone. I never want to be an island.

Part of drawing from your personal strength requires you to have a multiple approach to dealing with the challenge you are facing. I have written before on this topic in 2014 (No One Should Have the Power to Derail Your Progress), where  I outlined a six-step process that includes self-reflection, understanding the opposition, sense of own value, trusted and value network, confrontation and owning the solution. If the problem is also to do with an insecure boss, I can refer to my other article on some tactical approaches to use (Asserting Self to an Insecure Boss).

Lastly, one of the most important things to do is to focus on what has made you get where you are, and how you can use your strengths to leverage for another opportunity. That means starting to get out of thinking that the future will start and end with the current boss. In the interim phase, though, one will have to be patient in working under such a boss, but in knowing that this is a situation in transition, your mental state will not be the same as one who thinks they are in a hopeless and permanent situation. My experience has shown me that such bosses tend to have the naive assumption that they are the beginning and end of one’s career. Nothing could be further from the truth and I always want one to understand and internalise this simple yet powerful truth.

In essence, my response to my friend is that the person should not be making abrupt decisions, but applies a series of problem-solving tools and engage in conversations to look at multiple solutions to their current challenge. Fundamentally, it is about changing the people one works with if the relationship with a superior is irreparable. But simply leaving a job out of anger or emotion, because of someone who does not care for you or your family, may be satisfying temporary emotion, create a negative long-term impact.

I hope the person reflects.

Making Your Growth Natural: How A Friend’s Experience Brought This Home

Last week I had the honour of giving a speech in which we said farewell to a colleague, mentee and friend who was leaving one part of our employer for a significant promotion to head a department in another part of the business. In doing so, she also had effectively jumped levels and given new meaning to growth. I was also personally touched as I had been involved in mentoring her over the years, but I am humble enough never to claim to be the reason for her success. In fact, she is the reason for her success and her lessons are the subject of this writing, which is drawn a lot from what I said when we honoured her.

I started by talking about how, as we gathered there, we all saw her appointment as a natural progression. I can say without any fear of contradiction that all of us felt she had reached a point where the coming assignment was well-deserved and timely. In order to illustrate the point, and how we were all in one mind of her deserving it, I opened my talk by making reference to an event that occurred 100 years ago, which was the sinking of a ship of African soldiers from South Africa who had been drawn to assist our then colonial masters in the World War I efforts.

I borrowed from the words of the great writer S.E.K. Mqhayi (wase Ntabozuko), in his great Xhosa poem Ukutshona Kuka Mendi (“The Sinking of the Mendi”), written in 1943 (translated for convenience).

Ewe, le nto kakade yinto yaloo nto. Thina, nto zaziyo, asothukanga nto; Sibona kamhlophe, sithi bekumelwe, Sitheth'engqondweni, sithi kufanelwe;

Yes, this seems normal. Those of us who know, are not shocked; We see clearly, and say, things have happened as they should have, Through our thoughts we say: it should have been so;

In the statements and reflections made by others, to which I also added, it became clear that my friend had made the choice to exhibit leadership in the manner that she had carried herself in a function that was, at best, middle management.  

In order to better understand the nature of the person, I drew on the lessons and experiences of two very important women in South Africa’s history, being Lillian Ngoyi (1911 –1980) and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn (1938 - ). They both were leaders of the historic Women’s March of 1956. Comparing my colleague to the strength of the person that I understand Lillian Ngoyi was, I also felt important to quote from what she said after she was banned by the then apartheid government in 1957:

I must say I had a tough time, but my spirits have not been dampened. You can tell my friends all over the world that this old girl is still her old self.

I then reflected on the experience of Sophie De-Bruyn, who was 18 when she was one of the leaders of the Women’s March of 1956, and as of this writing is the last surviving member of the leaders of that historic march. Using the metaphor of the experience of such historically significant women was all the more appropriate also given my friend’s passion for the advancement of women in business, which was also the subject of her master’s thesis.

In them I found a representation of the kind of spirit that has given rise to a woman such as my friend we were celebrating. They both defied the unfair rules that seek to keep women in the background, and were prepared to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.

I felt in them one finds a representation of the voice of both militancy and empathy; friendship and conflict; independence and dependency; war and peace. But importantly I felt one sees the endurance of a spirit that defies the difficulty of a moment, and sees into a future that many so desire but do not really want to fight for. And I found the mixture of youth and maturity at the time of the march quite instructive.

Speaking of youth, I felt my friend also challenged many of us to realise that age should not be a reason not to give people responsibility when they show they are ready for it. And this she had done by firstly being there to assume responsibility in the most difficult moments, but also showed preparedness to take on tasks that were beyond her simple function. As I have written elsewhere, she was “practicing that which you want to become”.

I reflected on how she had become an inspiration to her colleagues, her generation and those who follow her. I spoke about how she could engage those who had more experience than her, and, in this instance, show the youthfulness of a Sophie and the maturity of a Lillian. I spoke about those who had come to observe and admire the fire in her belly, her drive and determination. But above all I spoke about her selflessness, her willingness to grow others, and share her experiences.

Some also admired here thirst for knowledge, and the ability to use her curiosity to build enduring relationships. I spoke about how my friend did all this and her work with absolute professionalism.

When all the above is noted, we could not but be describing someone who had the aptitude to lead others. Even though her behaviour had shown her leading others, in the corporate world it becomes important that this also gets recognised through formal appointment. Being confident that she would make success of the new task that she had been given, I was bold enough to quote this Ethiopian proverb:

Where a woman rules, streams run uphill 

Many of us always wonder where and how the next growth point in our careers will come from. Not as a matter of praise for a friend, but as a form of learning, I thought the experience I have outlined shows how growth can seem natural. This does not mean that in her journey my friend did not meet hurdles. It does not mean she had been perfect in what she did. But to me her experience shows how your next assignment or growth point can be determined by the manner in which you carry yourself; how you impact on others; how you invest in learning; and also practicing that which you would like to be. Having put her energy into her growth agenda, she made true one of the 7 Huna principles:

Energy flows where attention goes

Where is your energy focused?

Avoiding the Failure of Success

A colleague was sharing with me her joy in having won some excellence award at work. It was interesting for me to listen to her reflect on her journey over the last year and the things that changed in mind-set and attitude that set her on a journey that culminated in this excellence award. I then asked her what she saw as the meaning of this, and how it impacted on the way she would be seen in future. This was an aspect that she had not given herself the luxury to think about, she said, at which point I asked her to reflect on some of those she knows had won this award. She felt some of them had built on this recognition, but some seem to have disappeared from recognition. This was not so much whether they would win awards again, but more that their impact at work was no longer being felt.

We broadened our discussion to examine the phenomenon of some reaching a high point of success and the inability to maintain that. I told her about the leadership professor who once told me that “nothing fails like success”. It took me quite a while for me to grasp the meaning of what he said, but he explained it to me.  And the key point he made was that when you reach a very high point, it is not easy to stay at that level forever. His advice was that one could use the analogy of sports; where some are one season wonders, yet others find a way to display a level of consistency over time. They will have moments and seasons where things do not go well, but notwithstanding, they continuously exhibit the behaviour of champions.

For those who have been able to do this, we recognise them not so much for the triumphs, but for the consistency in terms of effort, determination, hard work, drive, initiative, engagement and many other similar traits. Interestingly, in organisations, we do not walk around with the results of our performance evaluations written on us. People see us for the manner in which we approach things, and conclude about us based on that, than some mechanical view of our performance. Those who are success-minded are never victims of negative results, but rather victors over the challenges they face.

The great Brazilian footballer Pelé is not recognized simply because he was a world champion at seventeen, but for the efforts that he put over many years. These were seen by an admiring public even during the times Brazil could not win the championship. Pelé himself said that “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”

Bill Gates warns that “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.” Those who maintain consistency and success over time understand fully that they need to have the ability to journey on undulating paths, and survive different seasons. They fully appreciate that failure is a key component of the success journey, from which great champions learn. In our conversation, I emphasised to my colleague that the recognition she had received was not the final destination, but simply a platform on which to build. But, as we reflected on the experience of others we observed, she was alert to the risk of her being lulled into a place of complacency, thinking that things will happen easily for her.

The biggest lesson from our conversation was that we never forget those things we did to get to a point of recognition. Whilst those would not be a guarantee of results in future, at least we know we have something that we can build on. Being a one-season wonder is more dangerous than maintaining even an average performance over time. Performing with the characteristics over a champion consistently, even during the periods where things do not go according to plan, is likely to result in the success we aim for.