On the topic of leadership
Early on in my life, I had no clue about what I wanted to be. Parents wanted me to become a doctor - the noblest of professions in their mind. However I ended up doing a Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology. Family and economic circumstances (read: debt and no steady income) meant that I had to take up a job and the only jobs available with good pay were in the IT sector. I became a software engineer, having no formal education/training/wish to become one.
Reason for this backstory is that there was no notion of a 'career' that I dreamt of. The only goal was to earn money no matter how crappy the job is, there is no career path or learning objectives during this part of my life other than to make more money with very limited risk. As time would have it, this need for money put me in a bad job which I so wanted to quit at the first chance and I did. I took an offer at a consulting company that is not known for in my line of work. So here I was with no qualifications for any kind of job and only 'on the job' learning for the thing I barely know how to do (programming in one language).
It took me a few years to figure out what this company is about. They advise CEOs on business strategy and of course strategy means nothing if there is no implementation and that's where I come in. However, the company needs people who can inspire CEOs with their knowledge, charm, communication and good old friendship. I saw senior folks in the company moving countries, industries forward through their consulting. For the first time in my life, I wanted to become something. I wanted to be "that" person who inspires people. Pretty vague, but I was super excited by being inspirational.
I realised the word that is widely used within the company is being "a leader". It doesn't matter what you do, you need to be a leader in that. You see, this is not how most companies think. There is always someone who decides such things as strategy, priority, budget, etc and the knowledge workers will execute. Execution is hard, and it takes years of expertise to do a good job - I thought I was on track to be a lifelong execution person. But I didn't enjoy it. I liked dealing with people - understanding what goes on in their minds, why they do what they do and understanding what drive them. Since I had no prior goal and was following the course of life, I thought I'll give it a shot at becoming a leader.
The following is my journey on becoming a leader - according to my company, I am already a leader (with the title and pay to match that).
Figuring out what a leader means: How does someone without an MBA, without formal education in their field of work or been to fancy colleges, an introvert, working among people who held MBAs from Harvard/Oxford/Stanford/Wharton, who did deep work in their fields become a leader like them?
Attempt 1: I tried to copy other 'leaders' - work hard, work more, do things in addition to work - like office initiatives and on and on. This was a disaster because each leader is different. One person was productive that they can pull off in 8 hrs and that takes me 16. Other was so laid back they never bothered to be so detail oriented. Yet another was a terrible people person but a phenomenal problem solver and expert in their field. I am none of these.
Attempt 2: I tried the themes across leaders - communication, prioritization, delegation. This worked for some time but left me deeply unhappy. One, most of my expertise doesn't translate well into strategy speak. So communication with leaders/CEOs has always left me with feedback to get better. I didn't know how to delegate effectively - either I trust people too much and they mess up, or micro-manage too much that they hate me. I realized though I am copying themes, I am still copying.
Attempt 3 - the definition I spoke to all these leaders and the people who worked with them. I tried to understand why they do what they do. After 200+ meetings over 3 years, I realized there is no one pattern. There is no one definition of a leader. Some are so entrepreneurial that they were trailblazing which overshadows their lack of expertise. Others are such inspirational people that they have move CEOs to follow their advice with little to no preparation. Some are so good at written comms that their memo stands by itself. Some are such good people leaders that whole swathes of junior people want to work them even on the crappiest projects. A few are so deep in technology, when they speak, the world listens without questioning. When I say the same thing, I literally have to beg and plead for them to listen. So I had to define what kind of a leader I want to be - and that, in hindsight, is my first entrepreneurial step. I thought about this every weekend for a full year (at the end of year I got promoted to a 'leadership' role, which indicates this reflection was helpful).
There are several kinds of leadership - * Thought leadership - people who can solve problems through a diverse set of frameworks and mental models. * Expertise driven leadership - people who mastered a craft like no one else has and will be the go to person for anything related to that topic (like cybersecurity, operations excellence in electrical utility, regulatory nuances in banking) * People leadership - people who connect with others immediately, who individuals go to when they need advice, people who genuinely care. * Execution leadership - people who are masters of process management and efficiency, so detail oriented that they anticipate risks, mitigate early and deliver on time.
Most people, including myself, expect all this to be in one person. In reality, the leaders that are inspirational are not masters at everything. How else can one be a leader if they are a terrible people person? But nobody has the time to master it all, and they don't have to. This was a revelation to me and forced me to dig deeper. To understand what kind of leader I want to become, I needed to look at what I was back then. An honest reflection of what I am good at and what I am not. Truth be told I was an ordinary Joe and I have never been the best at anything. However, I was the second best at most things. In school I wasn't the best physics/genetic engineering/math student in my classes. I was the second best in all and if you add it all up, the sum was greater than the parts. That trend repeated in my career - I wasn't the best programmer in my team, but if we combine collaboration, discipline, attitude and programming, it was hard to match.
Accepting that I wasn't the best at anything was hard. After all, that's what family, society, friends and we ourselves think about ourselves. This realization was liberating since I am unique among my peers because of exactly that. It is very hard to replicate me - a combination of growing up, culture, circumstances has given me a distinct set of skills and I set out to put that to good use. For example: * I worry less about a project deadline since I am always grounded on life outside project. Losing my sister at a young age and having had a few near-death motorcycle accidents, put life in perspective early on. * I grew up with less where all we had was family - it is natural for me to empathize with my teams because they are people going through family challenges, so when they are not at their best, I can relate. * I didn't have formal qualifications so I had to work hard to catch up - it didn't seem unfair to me, because what other choice do I have?. I learnt by doing scrap work that others would complain about. That attitude, as a leader now, motivates my team to get their hands dirty. * I could never understand algorithms/architecture/computers in general - the only reason I learnt it all because of my mentors who took away jargon and taught me programming with real life examples (including looping/conditionals/OOP/data structures). Thanks to that, I can now explain deep technical concepts simply with relative ease and that resonates with CXOs. Knowing the importance of mentorship for junior colleagues, I make plenty of time to coach. * Growing up with a large extended family, there are always disuptes and over decades, there is always a pattern among individuals. I got curious about people - led me to talk to more people, pursue a course in psychology and in general be open to different attitudes because there is always a reason for someone's behavior whether they know it or not.
Now none of these are formal qualifications - they didn't have to be. Putting it all together, I add value to a conversation where others cannot; connect with individuals in a room beyond the topic at hand; be less opinionated - partly because I don't think I am qualified enough to have a strong opinion and also because I do know that doesn't solve problems. I constantly seeked feedback from those I worked with to see what they see as helpful in my way of doing things vs what they find not as much. Rinse, repeat constantly across years.
Searching for leadership on the internet, we stumble upon many traits - inspire others, be curious, be grateful, pay it forward, empathize, be passionate about what you do, work hard, have the right attitude and on and on. However, there were no details on what does how do you empathize, how to turn passion into inspiration, does working hard means more hours and many more of such questions. More importantly, there was no talk about 'why should I become a leader' or 'what kind of leader should I become', 'how do i figure these out'.
This post is meant to be show a behind-the-scenes of a wannabe "leader", who is showing signs recognized by many people as leadership. If I were to make an attempt to summarize all this, it would be 'observe, reflect, try, ask'. Don't let the outside world's definitions, time pressures and expectations get to you - which may be harder than it sounds. It starts with us wanting to become a better version of ourselves and drawing from that experience, help others to become a better version of themselves.
Each of us are inspirational in our own regards - no matter how/whether the world sees it or how small the challenges we overcome on a daily basis - getting out of bed with chronic depression, a first generation college graduate, balancing out their marriage and work life, someone trying to be the best parent for their kids, learning a new thing at your job - even if it's how to put formula in Excel - as long as we strive to be better than before, we inspire ourselves and if we choose to, can inspire others. That's what leadership is all about.
As John Quincy Adams put it “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”