Julia Middleton's thoughts on leadership

Made a pitch this morning to an international  organisation. The pitch team regrouped to give each other feedback.
Very helpful reminder from a colleague “Julia never say anything negative .” Even if its only one negative point amongst plenty of positive ones. For some leaders negative points are signs of weakness; not being on side.

He is right I have been told this before and forgotten it.

But I have been thinking that maybe this is why some leaders have limited ability to hear what people think. Either because its not worth telling them if its negative. Or because by the time you have contorted your point to appear to be positive, it is almost impossible to find.

When the old can’t talk to the young, you just smile and say it was ever thus. When they fail to capture attention, fail to resonate, when the old and young pass in the night..it’s just the way it is and always will be and could even be a pre condition for progress. The young want to strive to achieve more and do better and should never be satisfied by the old.

It has been worse than that working on a new project this week with many people of my generation (I am 52). The old, with some exception, have just not communicated at any level with the young. They’ve seen no need to. Not even tried to. It’s not just that they fail to get attention, reassure, elicit trust, excite or inspire. They can’t even start a basic exchange.

Some can’t see any need to. They laugh at the very idea that a young person should ask for an answer. They laugh, snigger, guffaw – together. They humiliate the young in their laughing. Some, as they laugh together, even cause a surge in their group laughter, asking “Why not get the tea lady to answer?”

I believe that leaders have to watch out for their blind spots. Total unwillingness to engage with the next generation is a very dangerous one.

An interesting way to assess your talent.

Let’s say there are five levels for project managers.

Level 3 is for people who know what to do at every point whatever happens. They are crucial.

Level 5 people are only recognisable to level 3′s in that they appear incompetent. They know everything that level 3′s know and have thrown it away. There are very few level 5′s around. To produce huge change you need them to take big risks, cut corners, fly blind, trust instinct and not make many mistakes.

All interesting. Not that new…but interesting.

It was talking about level 4 that I found fascinating. My friend told me that you can’t train above level 3. You can only give people experiences, help them to process them and hope they go through the transition phase. He said that in level 4 you learn how and when to do things wrong. And then to get from level 4 to 5, you need the right boss.

Why? Because this is the really dangerous phase when bad mistakes can be made. By people taking huge risks – because they must learn to – but taking the wrong risks. Their bosses either simply never let them go and so prevent them from growing. Or they allow them to take risks and don’t keep a sharp watching eye.

I have been working with many Chinese people recently. New thinking, new jargon and new acronyms. It’s always the acronyms that group people quickly and un-reliably, whatever the culture. This time it’s BBC’s. This stands for British Born Chinese. It was said with disdain, but I didn’t ask…

Staff accountability chart

When starting to work with an unfamiliar organisation, I was always taught to ask to see their staff accountability chart.

The first test, of course, is whether they have one at all. If they do, it reveals to me (as maybe a balance sheet does to others) how teams are formed in the organisation, how transparently it works, how its leaders are held accountable, where decisions are made and where the organisation prioritises its energies.

Where do people gather

These days, I have a supplementary question: I also ask to go where people gather, both physically and online. I want to see which issues are on their agendas; and, just as importantly, who stands out (or rather, up).

The people in this category are likely to be the leaders who are determined to deal with the messy problems, the “in-between” problems, the problems that don’t fit neatly into the structure – or the silos – of the organisation (and, of course, won’t be solved there either).

The ones that call for leaders who understand networks and collaboration: marketing and finance deciding to combine their thinking, for example, or middle managers in competing divisions deciding that enough is enough and that they can achieve more by working together than against each other.

Where do the leaders hang out and network?

When a new city says they want to start Common Purpose, I ask to meet the formal decision makers to understand their agendas, structures and priorities. Then I go to these places – real or online – where people gather, talk, share and form unusual alliances.

That’s where the networked leaders are, the people who are prepared to go beyond the boundaries of their organisations or communities. In Glasgow recently, I met the head of a Fire and Rescue service. He had led his team to work with local voluntary sector leaders because, as he said: “they can tell us where next year’s fires will be”. The impact had been dramatic and surprising for leaders who had seldom, if ever, looked beyond their own service.

Networks connect people

It is strange to use the word ‘network’ in such a positive way. I am 52. For my generation, it has always been a word to distrust. It always seemed to have the word ‘closed’ in front of it. Networks were what kept you out; some were secret; all seemed exclusive – and disempowering if you weren’t in them.

Younger people use the word in a completely different way. For them, networks are the very mechanisms that include people in society and organisations. Networks connect people with common interests, so that their voices can be heard: and sometimes even counterbalance the voices within the structure.

Networks are what you need to make things happen these days – especially if you are dealing with difficult, messy, complex problems.

Leading through collaboration

Leaders who stick to structures find it hard to adapt to this networked world. Some simply ignore the awkward ‘in-between’ problems; some put up with them; and some try to change the structure in order to address them. They don’t like the untidiness. Indeed, they dislike the threat to the structure that such problems represent. It’s an all-too familiar refrain: “I’m in finance, and that’s it!” or “What do the voluntary sector know about fires?” They don’t want to have to lead through collaboration. For them, it’s time-consuming, unsatisfactory, frustrating and fundamentally unnecessary if you get the structure right.

I couldn’t disagree more. Leading through collaboration may be hard, drawn out and complex but, done well, it is also deeply satisfying, because underlying problems are dealt with and solutions gain enough buy-in from around the organisation to work across it.

In networked organisations you are free to lead

This new networked world calls for leaders to go even further in their thinking. In the structured world, leaders were appointed. They were given a role, a place in the structure, a title, a business card, a team, a budget, an office, a position and, with all these things, came legitimacy. It meant that, within their bit of the structure, they were authorised to operate. And they knew where else to go within the structure for decisions to be made that went beyond their remit.

In the structured world, better not reach beyond your remit yourself because, if you do, you risk being branded an interferer, an interloper, a busybody. This world creates (and rewards) leaders who only get going once they are appointed; and, until then, they wait. The ambitious might hassle and make themselves as visible as possible so that they get appointed sooner rather than later, but they are still waiting for someone else to hand it to them.

In a networked organisation or society, there are no roles to be appointed to – so it is likely to be a long wait. There are no people to appoint you either. So leaders have to legitimise themselves: through their behaviour, insight, commitment and actions.

Give yourself permission to lead

This is why I think some leaders who have invested time and effort in understanding the networked world, and the skills required, remain fundamentally ill-equipped for it. If, deep in yourself, you have to be given permission to lead, if you need the legitimacy of being chosen by others (elected, appointed or even inherited), then you simply won’t get off the ground in a networked society or organisation.

Eventually, you will have to go into the square – to the in-between places, crossing all sorts of boundaries – of your own accord, and legitimise yourself. Because no one else will.

This blog post was written as a guest post for Changeboard, a global career community where HR and recruitment professionals can find relevant jobs and career advice. Discussions about the post can be found in the Common Purpose group on Changeboard.

All I wanted to do was get my plane. But the security people at Frankfurt airport pulled me out for a search then dragged me to a room. The woman asked me to lean against a table and ran her metal detector over my stocking feet and legs.

The metal detector bleeped and screeched and howled. My legs were clearly metal. She looked so confused. I was getting furious. I even had leggings on. Where could I be hiding metal? She wouldn’t give up though. Up and down it went on my legs complaining.

Fortunately she called her supervisor. We needed the leader’s greater wisdom, authority and confidence to deal with the situation. She delivered. I had been asked to lean against a metal table. The wisdom of leadership!

Someone drew a parallel for me between royal leaders and leaders of huge corporations and organisations. I don’t know if its true but it has made me think. He talked about how kings and queens are aware of their position and how there is a clear, if invisible, line that you cannot cross when you meet them or work with them. If you do, you risk being made to feel that you have been presumptuous. He said that in his experience the same thing happens with leaders of large organisations. His proposition was that this came in both cases from the “Inner anxiety of inherited power”. Obvious in royalty, less maybe in large organisations. He said that in the latter, leaders almost inherit their position without necessarily having created anything themselves. There are definitely flaws in this logic but its an interesting angle.

I recently met a very senior, very analytical and very inspiring leader from China. We were talking about the need to pass on knowledge in societies. He told me that this was a ridiculous idea in China. “No one passes on knowledge,” he said, “knowledge is what you hold on to.” After all why would you help your competitor? So that he could beat you? He said you may pass your knowledge to your son – certainly not your daughter – but even then you would not hand on all of it, you would keep some back in case the son turns on you. He said that this is why some knowledge has been lost in China.

Sometimes someone suddenly stands out at a meeting and makes a point with total clarity and finesse based on their very considerable knowledge and expertise. And when they do you realise how much rubbish you talk yourself and listen to from others.

A short time ago one of the Common Purpose trustees stopped us all in our conversation about the Common Purpose brand by telling us – weaving in a story from a dinner the previous night which we had all attended – how to think about and live a real, honest, deeply rooted brand and a set of values around it.

As he spoke we all shut up and listened. We heard the bell like quality of his logic, the simplicity of his words and when he finished we all spontaneously applauded.

His story about the restaurant went like this:

We went to a lovely restaurant, were greeted with warmth, sat in comfort and had a wonderful choice from the menu. It was very good and that was all it was, very good, not unlike  many very good restaurants. It became a special restaurant when the man who owned it came and told us about why he had started it, why he loved the food he had chosen to serve in it and what he had tried to create with the restaurant. That’s when the restaurant became special, it  came alive and became something beyond very good. If you are that special, your suppliers aspire to give you the best and they increasingly do. You spiral upwards.

Our fellow trustee used this story and elaborated on it. Drawing out reminders about how Common Purpose has created, built and lived its brand and how to keep doing this as we grow.

Mark was art form. A man who knows his stuff and knows how to communicate it. It was a privilege to be there. A reminder of what drivel – what amateur drivel – we all talk most of the time.

With the new year came a new brochure for a new leadership event. With big names and masses of them. Global leaders. Mega names. Huge concepts. The events compete for bigger names and longer lists.

Is this where we should be looking for tips, models and inspiration on leadership?

I am ever more convinced by the Common Purpose discovery. That the leader down the road – whom of course I don’t know because he or she works in a different sector from me – maybe has just as many tips, fewer models and definitely more inspiration to offer.

The leader down the road who runs the casualty unit knows all about prioritising. The leader of the local prison knows about impossible decisions. The leader of that small firm knows about taking big risks.

In 2011 we should look less to the global names and more to the best of the local leaders. Some of them will be local in Bangalore and Istanbul but because Common Purpose is so international now, you can reach out to fellow local leaders around the world and not have to go via the global ones.