How to Lead When it Really Matters, Like Now
“Recollect that you must be a seaman to be an officer and also that you cannot be a good officer without being a gentleman.” — Admiral Horatio Nelson
Today, we refer to what Admiral Nelson spoke about as compassionate leadership, meaning seeing the other and acting on it to secure the best for, and the best out of, the other, yourself, your organisation, stakeholders and the environment.
We need this kind of leadership, because the kind of innovation needed to tackle the challenges and opportunities we face today as a society and as organisations cannot be done without the full intrinsic motivation and potential of a diverse and united team. Command and control-style leadership squashes the human conditions necessary for unleashing this level of human energy and innovation.
Although few would describe their leadership or management style as ‘command and control’, it is perhaps unknowingly used by many. Evolutionary psychology shows us that this behaviour is driven by our universal human need to belong and be liked and the hardwired need to avoid loss when comfortable with the status quo.
As a team member, you can fulfil these needs by speaking only when being spoken to and by doing as you’re being told. You will not fulfil your potential or achieve your ambitions this way, but if you’re rather safe than sorry, it will probably give you that.
As a manager or leader, you can fulfil these needs for yourself by taking control of situations. In all likelihood you ended up in a position of authority by being a better, more experienced expert in your field than your team members. This places you in a powerful position to limit any risky behaviour by telling your team members what to do and how, by paying lip service to any disruptive innovations coming top-down or sideways, and by withholding or editing any potentially damaging information going up the chain of command.
The result of this kind of general behaviour is, of course, that innovation is stymied and that the gap between the actual world and the model of reality-in-use increases by the day until it is potentially too late. Think Kodak, BlackBerry and Nokia.
To remain relevant and successful in a rapidly changing, complex, and unforgiving world, it is essential to draw on the full human energy of a cognitively diverse and unified team. The challenges and opportunities faced are simply too large to be overcome by any single person.
For you as a leader, this means fulfilling your team members’ human need to belong and feel safe, both physically and psychologically. That requires compassion, i.e. empathy and the ability to act on it in the greater interest, to build the necessary trust.
Further, it requires the ability to deal effectively with team members’ need to avoid loss when engaging in innovation efforts. As long as the situation is perceived by the majority of the team as stable and comfortable, any innovation initiative you kick off will in all likelihood be perceived as risky, potentially involving loss, and hence deliver little of substance.
Although we are hardwired to avoid loss when comfortable, when threatened we will fight furiously to protect what matters to us. As a leader of change, it might be tempting to tap into this behaviour by creating a proverbial ‘burning platform’, but keep in mind how people behave when the house is on fire.
Instead, frame the threat as a philosophical problem, a wrong your customers or audience face and that you collectively are willing to fight to right. That also requires compassionate leadership, but now focused outward.
To me, that is what Admiral Nelson was talking about when he said, “Recollect that you must be a seaman to be an officer and also that you cannot be a good officer without being a gentleman.”
