Understand what leaders do | Part 1

Here is a pop quiz? What are you mostly occupied answering:

• How can we do the work better? Or
• What should we be doing instead? 

Irrespective of what role and level of hierarchy you are in, if you are not thinking on the lines of “what should we be doing instead”, you are not doing what leaders do. 

Here are four broad areas of focus effective leaders

1. Bridging across diverse people and groups
2. “Doing the vision thing”
3. Engage and then lead
4. Embody the change

Bridging across diverse people and groups 

About 6 years back, I got promoted from client success manager to the director and head of client success for my company’s India office. Before I could understand and implement what it meant to be a Client Success Director (and no longer a client success manager), I was invited for a meeting with the country head of a major streaming platform. He was interested in understanding how my company was planning to respond to recent changes in the industry and how would they (our clients) be impacted with the response. I gave him my two cents; however, I knew it wasn’t the most enlightening meeting for my client. Why? Because we have known leadership to be all about 

1. Setting clear goals, 
2. Assign clear tasks to members
3. Manage the team’s internal dynamics
4. Communicate regularly, give recognition and so on. 

But the team leaders who delivered the best results do not spend bulk of their time playing internal roles. Instead, the best leaders worked as bridges between the team and its external environment. This looks like:

We have known Leadership to be	It is also about working like a bridge between the team and its external environment
Set clear goals	Going out on a reconnaissance making sure the right information and resources each their teams
Assign clear tasks to members	Broadcast accomplishments
Manage the team’s internal dynamics	Secure buy in from higher ups when things get controversial
Communicate regularly, give recognition and so on	Monitor competitors or potential teams from whom they can learn and not reinvent the wheel

Had I paid attention to the above in addition to taking care of my internal roles or delegated the internal roles to my most experienced team member, not only would I have taken personal interest in the developments of the broader industry better, but I would also have proactively sought guidance on the response our company was planning even if none was communicated to me.  This would have opened potential opportunities for my clients, my team and of course, me. Do remember, that this shift in mindset should not be limited to the designation you hold. It can be made at any level. 

In her book “Act like a leader and think like a leader” Herminia Ibarra gives key examples of how people who came into leadership positions without much background into the nuances successfully created value by becoming bridges.

Doing the “Vision Thing”

When former US president George H.W. Bush was asked to look away from the short term, specific goals of his campaign and start focusing on a future to which his voters might aspire, he famously replied, “Oh – you mean the vision thing?” 

“Vison” evokes images of those mind-numbing rambles posted on the walls that fail to guide our day to day action. However, the ability to envision possibilities for the future, a dynamic, creative, collaborative process of imagining a transformation in what an organisation does and how it does it, distinguishes leaders from non-leaders.   

So what does having a vision look like in action?

• Sensing opportunities and threats in the environment – Simplifying complex situations, seeing patterns in seemingly unconnected phenomenon, foreseeing events that may affect the organization’s bottom line
•  Setting Strategic direction – Encouraging new business, defining new strategies, making decisions with an eye towards the big picture
• Inspiring others to look beyond current practices – Asking questions that challenge the status quo, being open to new ways of doing things, bringing an external perspective 

Take for example of Indra Nooyi’s vision for PepsiCo – “Performance with purpose”.

Performance with purpose translated into:

• Tackling the obesity endemic by improving the nutritional status of PepsiCo products
• Making PepsiCo an environmentally healthy company 

Here is how it looked like in action:

PepsiCo 2017 Annual Report

This vision was long term and risky for short term earnings, but it is also timely and important. 

Many managers assume that vision is top down, and their job is to execute and not envision. But consider this, when empowered front line is in constant touch with customers and suppliers, and the same customers and suppliers increasingly participate in the innovation process, vision and strategy are no longer the preview of the CEO. In today’s day and age executives are required to shift their emphasis from improving current operations and performance indicators to shaping a common understanding of the organisation’s present environment and its desired future direction. 

In the next blog post we will look into the other two areas where effective leaders invest time and resources, they are:

• Engage and then lead
• Embody the change

Sources :

• Act like a leader, think like a leader – Hermia Ibarra
• My life in full – Indra Nooyi