Why
You'll Need to Become a Different Kind of Leader
The leadership vacuum created
by Washington leaves us without people we can look up to. Entrepreneurs can
fill that role -- but you need to step up your game. Here are four ways to do
it.
BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS@TULLMAN
The
next few years, as the pandemic becomes endemic, are going to be some of the
most challenging times any company leader will face in their career-- however
long they've been at it. Building your business from scratch, rebuilding your
existing enterprise, or growing to accommodate new and different opportunities
are all going to be brutal tasks. In part because the path forward is so
uncertain and the players and circumstances have changed in so many ways. Most
of the traditional management tools, storytelling skills, role models, and
cultural crutches we've relied on are no longer up to the job. As difficult as
it may seem, post-pandemic, the road ahead for CEOs and other senior managers
is going to be bumpier than the last three years.
Common
concerns and shared values are fractured, scattered; agreed-upon facts and
basic behavioral ground rules for deal making no longer exist, and employees'
career aspirations, work-life expectations, and goals are all up for grabs. We
live in a DIY world where the "story" is always suspect, employees
make up their own realities and choose their own situational moralities;
compromise is regarded as signs of weakness, and no one knows who to trust or
whether anyone should be trusted.
Some
of these issues are the rotten remnants of the bottomless pit of crime,
corruption, and lies of the Trump presidency. The lies these days outlast the
liars; others are the product of years of the destructive influence of social
media, where the dream of enhanced connection morphed and soured into hatred,
division, and separation. Finally, the loss of more than a million American
lives through COVID-19 has shaken everyone's belief in our competence and
ability to handle the next crisis.
Our
employees, our customers and clients, the media and the general public continue
to have less and less trust, comfort and confidence in our national and
corporate leadership. This is directly and negatively impacting the prospects
for the economy's rapid recovery and growth. Every business leader today needs
to learn how to operate in these hostile and critical environments. And sadly,
we won't have the previous maps and guidelines that used to help us navigate.
In
addition, given the sorry state of our performative politics, we also can't
expect any material help or effective leadership from Washington any time
soon-- whether it's the bad faith actions of the MAGA morons or the inability
of the Democrats to get anything done in the face of the twin obstacles of
Republican obstruction and continued right-wing lower court rulings. Does
anyone even remember when we had civic, judicial, and corporate leaders that we
could honestly look up to? Today, we're stuck with clowns and criminals on all
sides; serial liars, lifelong losers, lunatics, and leftover retreads -- a
sorry surfeit of dimwits and deniers whose pathetic and obstructive antics are
a constant waste of time and energy as well as a global embarrassment.
So,
it appears that it's up to the business builders-- the ever-eager entrepreneurs
and those remaining credible corporate and company executives as well-- to
develop, deliver, and then live up to objectives and behaviors that show the
way forward. And we have to do a much better job of sending and selling our
messages than even the politicians on the sane side of the fence have done to date.
Here
are my four suggestions.
Hold Your Own Head Up - What You Do is More Important Than What
You Say
Leadership
isn't just a position, it's an ongoing process of storytelling, role playing,
and modeling the behavior that's expected of all team members. Leaders can cast
shadows or light; in troubled times, we can make ourselves miserable or make
ourselves strong -- it takes the same amount of effort. Don't expect others to
listen to your advice and ignore your actions or inaction. When bad things
happen, as Dr. Suess said, you can let them define you, let them destroy you,
or let them strengthen you. The right choice is obvious. Your faith in yourself
and your business needs to be stronger than your fear of failure and it needs to
be readily apparent to all your people.
Commit Yourself and Your Resources Wholeheartedly
Don't
try to do things cheaply that you shouldn't do at all, or put lipstick on a
pig. The cost of doing things halfway or half-heartedly is the same as doing
them correctly and far less stressful. Sticking to your principles 97% of the
time is painful and grueling and actually much harder than going all the way
all the time. There's no such thing as a minor lapse in integrity. Have the
strength and the willpower to do the important things quickly, completely, and
to the very best of your ability. If you're not all in, you don't have a position;
you've merely got an opinion offered from the cheap seats and not worth much.
It just doesn't pay to be tentative: you can't steal second base with one foot
on first. If you're going to agree to do something, just say "yes".
Don't say "yes, but" because anything you say before "but"
won't really mean a thing. "Maybe" is a loser's word-- don't say
"maybe" when you should say either "yes" or "no"
and mean it.
Remind Your Team that You've All Been Here Before and Survived
The
best entrepreneurs have learned that, while skill and smarts are important, the
largest single determinant of success in the long run is perseverance --
persistence with intention -- not beating your head against a brick wall but
understanding that you've faced and triumphed over larger obstacles in the past
and that the newest threats are just another set of mountains to climb.
Recognizing, reacting, responding and adapting to the latest challenges isn't
any more difficult than it was in the past. But it does require confidence and
belief in your team and an appreciation for the old Bob Marley line that
"you never know how strong you are until being strong is your only
choice." Sharing prior wins, war stories, desperate times of old and super
close calls are all ways to reinforce the message that the only way out of the
current swamp is all the way through it to better days.
Resist the Temptation to Settle for Silence.
Talk
is cheap and plentiful and when the world's on fire around you, there's a
powerful tendency in business discussions, and especially in painful personnel
negotiations, to "buy" peace and to secure some silence by settling
for half a loaf or just giving up on some important concerns. It's always a mistake
to deny your convictions for the sake of peace and quiet. Seeking universal consensus so that everyone feels good about the result (except you)
is also foolhardy, unachievable and likely to lead to mediocre results in the
end.
There
are plenty of other problems with settling as well, but the biggest one is that
the moment you settle for less than you need or deserve, you generally end up
with even less than you settled for. Buying peace is too high a price to pay
for a makeshift solution; no business can afford to start making these kinds of
bad trades. It's a variation of the old foolish strategy of feeding the beast
in the hopes that he'll get satiated before he gets around to eating you. The
"asks" never end and the short term answers distract you from
addressing the real problems which - just to be clear - don't ever disappear or
go away. They just fester and get worse.
Bottom
line: Now's the time to take the time to make sure that everyone on the team is
eager, anxious to move ahead, and aligned with where the business needs to go.
They're all going to be looking to you for direction and guidance. Make sure
you're prepared and up to the task.