Why True Leaders Make Us Uncomfortable
by John Elkington
via CSRwire
You know the feeling. The elevator doors are closing behind you – and you are suddenly alone with someone you have long wanted to meet and influence. How to connect? I have often been encouraged to develop a 20-second elevator pitch, but have always refused. My counter-argument is that if busy people insist on getting all their knowledge in 20-second sound-bites, they are unlikely to be open to the sort of deep conversations that the sustainability agenda requires.
But, if pressed, I will say that I am grit in the corporate oyster which, if it doesn’t get spat out immediately, can become the nucleus around which business wisdom can form, like a pearl. One executive described the result as “constructive discomfort.”
Looking back, many senior executives I have worked with have been opened up to a wider world by a personal, painful, unexpected experience. Whether they were hit by activist campaigns, market disruptions or hurricanes, these companies and their leaders were forced to engage a different reality.
Motivating Business Leaders To Go Beyond
All of this ran through my mind as I was waiting to speak at a leadership conference at the Swiss business school, IMD, an event co-hosted by the World Environment Center and the drug giant Novartis. As I listened to executives from companies like Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Chiquita, Danone, Nestle and General Electric, it struck me that the need for epiphanies is now less urgent than it once was. Today a growing number of leaders get to the same point through cold, hard business logic.
Sitting in the comfortable conference center, I kept hearing stories of leaders – and intrapreneurs – who had pushed themselves (and others) beyond their comfort zones. Then, on the train to Geneva airport, I read a Fast Company blog which reminded that we really do need to keep pushing leaders well beyond their comfort zones – and helping them do likewise with those they lead and otherwise engage.
Learning Journeys Spark Creative Solutions
Written by Riley Gibson, CEO of social innovation company Napkin Labs, the blog looks at the key role of discomfort in evolving creative solutions. Gibson defines ‘creativity’ as “the ability to solve problems in an unexpected or surprising way.” Creative solutions, he argues, come when we force our minds out of their comfort zones, challenging our assumptions.
So how do we do this for powerful people? It usually isn’t possible to conjure up a hurricane in an elevator. Instead, some imaginative companies now take senior executives on learning journeys. Done well, experiential learning can have a dramatic impact on the way we see the world.
Alternatively, once in that elevator, don’t do a sales pitch – ask that senior person a question that catches their attention. A question that will unfurl slowly in their brains, like a chrysanthemum in a teapot.
What Greenpeace used to call a ‘mind-bomb’, a simple idea that you hear almost without thinking, but which then opens the windows of your mind to a totally different world. Not a simple task, clearly, but one we must all get much better at.
From Mind-bombs To Solutions: Ray Anderson & Wal-Mart's Lee Scott
When I sent in a first draft of this blog, the Editors came back with: Can you give examples of ‘mind-bombs’ or experiential learning journeys? And preferably ones with a personal angle? Well yes, indeed.
Think of Ray Anderson reading Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology of Commerce. Just another book, you might imagine, but the impact on Anderson, he used to say, was akin to having a spear driven through his chest.
Or think of Lee Scott, as CEO of Wal-Mart when Hurricane Katrina hit. A big hurricane, but surely a hurricane is a hurricane is a hurricane? Not in this case. Scott had an epiphany, with the experience of coping with the aftermath of Katrina opening him up to the wider sustainability agenda.
Most of these experiences – and I have seen a fair few companies go through them – are painful and disorienting for those forced to shift in short order from one paradigm to another. And much of my work over the years has been designed to help trigger such moments, particularly when coining and promoting terms like environmental excellence, green consumer or triple bottom line.
Study Tours And Exchanges
Another way we have helped tip executives into a different reality is through study tours, learning journeys and exchanges between companies and social enterprises. These have ranged from bringing top Canadian policy-makers or leading Chinese foundations to London, to meet innovators in related fields, through helping guide 19 CEOs and founders of UK cleantech groups around Silicon Valley, to facilitating exchanges between companies like Allianz and social enterprises in Europe, North America and Asia.
Done right, such out-of-the-box initiatives can open eyes, change hearts and minds, and – by taking leaders and led out of their comfort zones – blaze the pathways to transformational change.
John Elkington is Executive Chairman of Volans, co-founder of SustainAbility, blogs at http://www.johnelkington.com, tweets at @volansjohn and is a member of The Guardian’s Sustainable Business Advisory Panel. This article originally appeared on CSRwire and is republished with permission.
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I have grown weary of this image standard of a disruptive leader in the form of a CEO or executive manager that makes peers and subordinates uncomfortable. That's the problem with this model of leader... They are a one-trick pony. It's all they really know how to do, disrupt, create unrest, dissension, and worst of all, generate fear.
The worst leaders set unattainable goals, communicate poorly, set manager against manager, keeping them off balance, intimidate for intimidation's sake, berate and belittle individuals and processes, create and enhance turnover as a result. They drive their company from a sense of ego rather than a sense of purpose.
The best leaders focus in on what they are suppose to do--- LEAD!!! They create and pursue a vision, they build a consensus, they inspire, mentor and instill trust and confidence, they drive their organization toward their well communicated and shared goals. They respect themselves, their workforce, their business partners, and their shareholders.
We have an ever shrinking commodity of genuine leadership. Take a look around, it's cost us dearly.
I don't know, Don. Your assertion of this 'one trick pony' leader describes a leader who is only an egotist, and drives people from fear and power needs. But in truth, leaders are driven by powerful emotions, ranging from fear and power needs, to inspiration and true empathy and concern for the needs of their followers- and this is all within one Leader, responding to the problems he must address. No Leader is above the best and worst of himself. In the book "Leadership above the Line" Dr. Sarah Sumner discusses Leaders, and the motivational instincts, that drive them, to sometimes be above, and at other times, below, the line, and gives insight into staying above the line.
I believe the reason that true leaders 'unnerve' those around them is they speak truth, however popular or unpopular it may be, and demand justice for that truth.
I believe we currently have an enormous supply of excellent leaders in the business community. I do not believe our leadership ranks are shrinking at all. I do believe that the problems business leaders face today are infinitely more complex than in the past (when, one would presume, we had 'real' leaders!) and, as a result, it becomes more difficult for the business community to identify leadership skills that encompass all of the skills, traits, and motivations required of a 'leader' in this very challenging environment. 50 years ago, the successful coprorate leader was one who increased shareholder value. Today, she or he does the same thing, but in addition must address environmental concerns and risks, complex HR issues that address diversity, development, complex compensation schemes, etc., increasingly complicated regulatory environment, fair trade, sustainability, and generally a much more competitive global business landscape. Frankly, I challenge Bill Gates or Lee Iacocca or Henry Ford to introduce their products into today's world.
Also, we don't really have leaders and 'followers', as mentioned above. That would presume that everyone under the CEO is a follower. Not true. We have teams, and leadership is fluid and dynamic. On my team ( I am CEO), i'd like to think we have leaders in training. Everyone has leadership potential. Not everyone has the wherewithal to employ that one crucial element that transforms that potential into action: risk-taking ability with requisite accountability. More on these issues later. . . . . . .