Leadership has never been more challenging. Conceptual 3D illustration
This is a milestone month for me. Fifteen years ago, I launched a weekly interview series with CEOs in The New York Times called “Corner Office.” It was based on a simple “what if” question: What if I sat with CEOs and never asked them a single question about their companies, and instead asked them how they lead, and how they learned to lead?
That led to more than 500 interviews over a decade and, as it turns out, set the stage for a new chapter with my firm, The ExCo Group (that’s how I met David Reimer, ExCo’s CEO). And now, with our various series on LinkedIn, I’ve now passed the 1,000-interview mark, and have shared the patterns that emerged from all those interviews in four books.
Big milestones often prompt reflection, and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the leadership space itself, and what makes for meaningful discussions about leadership. Here’s my take: If you are going to talk about leadership, there are three “currencies,” if you will, that matter most.
The first is insights. Tell me something that makes me feel smarter about how the world works, whether it’s about strategy, navigating disruption, human behavior or building corporate culture. The insight has to be broadly applicable, not just something that is limited to the narrow context of one company or one leader’s specific experience. The insight can be based on hard-earned wisdom or research, but it should have the feeling of a Swiss Army pocketknife that will make you a more effective leader or manager. And the insight doesn’t always have to be new to you. Often there are moments when we hear or read something and we say to ourselves, “I knew that but I really needed to hear that right now.”
The second is stories that bring the insight to life. Tell me how you learned that insight. As human beings, we are wired to remember things through stories. They give the insights dimension, texture, and they make them sticky, memorable and credible. It’s not just something you read in a book. You lived the experience, and the story shows the impact of that insight.
Third, give me a tool, tip, framework, technique or approach for putting that insight into action. It’s one thing to learn something; it’s another thing entirely to feel like you just added something new and powerful to your leadership toolkit that you can put into action right away with your team.
If you stick to these three currencies, that knocks out generalities, platitudes and over-simplified soundbites, like “Leadership is about communication.” One of the confounding features of the field of leadership is that anyone can say almost anything about leadership, and they likely will be right at some level. In fact, very little that is written about leadership is wrong. But just because something isn’t wrong doesn’t mean it’s an insight.
These three currencies also steer clear of leadership theories. While some theories have had lasting impact over the years, I find most theories of leadership to be overly simplistic, and they don’t account for the dynamism of contexts—the particular challenges facing the company, the individual personalities of the leader and everyone on their teams, and the unique culture of the company.
So what does this three-currency approach to leadership look like in practice? Here’s one example from Bob Brennan, a veteran CEO who is now one of our executive coaches at ExCo.
In one of our conversations, Brennan shared his strong belief idea that managing is a two-way street—managers have to seek constructive feedback from their teams on how they can be more effective, rather than simply judging the performance of their teams.
I asked him how he learned that. Here’s the story he shared: “I remember having my first 360 review early in my career. I was rated really high in holding people accountable, and really bad at setting clear expectations. You get that feedback and you step back and say, well, that sounds like a jerk — I’m going to be unclear with you as to what I expect, but I’m going to hold you accountable for it.”
And so what did he do? He started asking everyone on his team, “How can I be more effective for you?” And he insisted all his senior leaders do the same with their direct reports. As Brennan explains, “There will be some people who will give you a snarky response. Others will just give empty compliments. But then there’s going to be people who will give you an honest answer. And if you can make that part of the culture of your organization, with everyone asking each other how they can be more effective, superpowers emerge.” And that’s the arc—his insight, the story behind it, and how he managed differently because of it.
One of my ExCo colleagues memorably said that the 20th century ended in 2020. Many of the old playbooks about leadership don’t work anymore. The world is too disruptive, and leaders are facing many more pressures and challenges beyond growing their organizations. The leadership field needs to adapt, as well. These three currencies are how we’ll learn from each other as we navigate the process of that adaptation.
