Our crises won't be addressed by Facebook and messaging - but great leadership. And lots of it, says Fran Boait

From Gloucestershire Live

We’re very happy to run this piece from Fran Boait, who has (after a bit of a party-political detour) come back to be the executive director for the financial literacy charity, Positive Money.

Fran has drawn some lessons about leadership from her recent travels and travails. It’s a great and practical piece - which even a blog of anarchist 2.0’s can learn from!

Fran Boait: “We aren’t heading out of the multitude of crises we face without good leadership”

As our world seems to unravel in front of our eyes, some days we can wake up and listen to the headlines and wonder if we have woken up in an apocalyptic movie, with no Hollywood ending.

To me, the way out of the current rise of the far right, environmental collapse, and soaring inequality isn’t better messaging or more Facebook ads (though that might help) but great leadership. Lots of it. 

As we become overstimulated by shocking, worrying, and concerning news, we look around for leaders that can tell us “everything will be fine, here is my island, come and cling onto me, I will show you the way through.”

The problem is that if someone is saying “everything will be fine if you listen to me” they are probably bluffing. And that is exactly the type of leadership that has kind of got us into this mess in the first place!

Actually, because the challenges we face are fundamentally complex, difficult, and confusing, we need leaders who acknowledge that.

That is not to say leaders should tell everyone that “this is all too difficult and complex!” Leaders should be highly aware of complexity, but should also be able to propose a path through the mess, based on purpose and values. 

The contradiction is that we need leaders who speak the truth about situations, who empower others to lead, who can be vulnerable and courageous in public. Yet we want a leader to make us feel safe and secure in an increasingly confusing and uncertain world.

A part of the problem is mainstream discussions about leadership don’t actually engage in anything meaningful. They are often superficial, relying on commentators saying leaders are strong or weak, with no analysis on what either of those mean.

But we are all leaders of our own lives. We all have daily experiences of leadership that can inform our own understanding of what good and bad leadership constitutes. 

Through my work building and running an organisation, and running a political campaign over two years I’ve thought a lot about leadership. Here are 5 ways I’ve learnt how to lead:

1) Empowerment is an active word. Here’s one of the most surprising things about leadership that no one taught me along the way: a big part of leadership is creating more leaders.

In many workplaces or teams structured by hierarchy, we see leaders or bosses afraid of empowering because:

• they don’t know how

• they are scared of being found out as not being good at their job

• they think there is a finite amount of leadership - so that more of it for others means less for them.

Telling people they are a leader (newsflash: we all are), asking people to take on step outside their comfort zone but backing them all the way to do their best, and always being there as a support—these are ways for leadership to multiply. The right kind of leadership.

2) How you speak to people matters. Basically if there is a hierarchy and you are at or near the top, how you behave sets the culture.

You can do this implicitly or explicitly. Doing this implicitly means you aren’t really taking responsibility for how you behave with other staff members.

Managing to change the world by Alison Green talks about the tyrant or wimp executive director as two ways to drive away good employees. The tyrant uses their authority too aggressively, whilst the wimp is too shy and passive.

Raising your voice and shouting if you are ‘the boss’ is not a sign of strength as a leader. In the handful of times I’ve raised my voice, I’ve felt less of a leader than at any other time. 

3) Act don’t react. The shrill pitch that is so often deployed on media and social media is often reactive. If we lead by reacting to everything, we would be leading like Trump.

For me being a good leader is taking the longer view, it is about building the new, and changing the old, both of which require strategy, insight, and collaboration.

Remaining neutral, and avoiding reacting is also key when people start throwing abuse or attacks at you, which they will if you are in any public form of leadership position.

As Michelle Obama (quoting Hillary Clinton) said, ‘when they go low, we go high’ 

4) Vulnerability is required. To tackle systemic inequality, climate breakdown, and vested interests we need to do a lot of speaking truth to power. To do that and face an onslaught of criticism requires courage. 

Brene Brown has done tons of incredibly important research on humans, and has found out that to be courageous, we need to be able to be vulnerable. But we are still so hard-wired to see vulnerability as a weakness. To get the leaders we need, that has to change.

5) Self awareness is key. I think the foundation to all good leadership is being self-aware. That means being aware of your short-comings as well as your strengths. It means you are likely to be able to create a safe environment for others to feel comfortable.

Self awareness is of course linked to the ability to self reflect, have high degrees of emotional intelligence and empathy. Harvard Business Review has been banging on about this for years.

Leaders need to be able to manage their and others emotions. They need to create psychological safety at work. so that all their teams are able to perform.  

***

We aren’t heading out of the multitude of crises we face without good leadership. And currently the conversations we are having about leadership aren’t rooted in reality or in enough meaning.

There aren’t any shortcuts, but there are lots of things we can do. We should start with our own reflection on who are the good and less good leaders we know and what behaviours or qualities they embody.