Brave leadership
At Flipside we work with senior leaders from many sectors and types or organisation, big and small, local and global. We are in a privileged position when we work with our clients as we are often brought in to help them understand and diagnose cultural issues or opportunities, how their teams can work better and perform to their potential or how individuals can really flourish and excel.
What we tend to get in these conversations and dialogues is real honesty and openness. There is a genuine desire to tackle the difficult issues, to uncover them and to understand what they cannot see, but sense, and to do all they can to improve, get better, be happier.
On reflection this week, it has made me think about genuine bravery in leadership and just how difficult this can be. The types of situation that involve very challenging people decisions, and a leader who openly addresses these, demonstrates care, awareness and, above all, real guts. It is not as common as we might think. In fact, it is often much easier to ignore cultural problems or toxic leaders, hope things will ‘sort themselves out’ or simply avoid the difficult conversations and stick our heads in the sand. But in doing so we know in our heart of hearts we are not doing what we should be doing, we are not leading with bravery.
Many people would agree that incompetent leaders and those who do not live the true values of a company should simply be dealt with and not allowed to continue to damage the fabric of an organisation. But all too often senior leaders don’t want the ‘noise’ and discomfort that would be involved in dealing with these issues, even when they can clearly see them. Keeping the optics looking great can be more important for some, or is at least more self-serving. It’s wholly understandable, but also wholly avoidant. It keeps problems firmly in place and simply buries them deeper in the system, even creating a sense of normalization and acceptance of the poor performance levels and behaviours in play. And despite a myriad of excuses and reasons to not tackle such problems, these decisions can become a symbol of the leadership’s style and character. Keeping the status quo leaves a trail of often hidden disaster behind it and in front of it.
But brave leadership is inherently very difficult. It is scratchy, and awkward at times and involves a level of emotional intelligence and authenticity that is much harder than it seems. It requires leaders to accept they are wrong at times, that a recruitment decision was a bad one, that they make mistakes from time to time, that they are open to learning, growing and constantly seeking help from those in their teams to improve their organisations. And when you see it in action with the courage it demands is genuinely humbling, perhaps in part because it is somewhat rare and so difficult.
Silence in your organisation does not mean happiness, it could be due to fear, so we need to dig deeper and check the real levels of engagement in the system. Toxic leaders are often far more subtle than we think. It is about picking up on serious passive aggressive behaviours, micro aggressions, domination, self-serving control or a lack of honesty and truthfulness, rather than the more obvious examples we often read about. It’s hard for teams to deal with these issues, to raise concerns and to really believe an organisation will support them. As often as not they are left feeling isolated and alone. And it is even worse when the boss actively and publicly supports a toxic leader – perhaps the worst situation possible for people on the receiving end of their poor behaviours.
So, as a leader, do you sense, or perhaps know, you have problems in your culture or with a particular leader? Do you know that a team or business unit is deeply unhappy? What are you going to do? Meet incompetence with competence - and bravery!
