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Humility vs Power: Are you a Shackleton or a Scott?

PUBLISHED: 01/02/2019

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Last week I had the pleasure of attending the 2019 Merit Summit in Vienna. It was my first time at the event as well as being my first time in Vienna. As I reflect on two full days of listening, connecting and learning, I wanted to distill some of my personal take-aways from the event.  This comes at a particularly self reflective time for me, as I have now set up my own business after leaving Citi in December.



The overwhelming theme for me was that of Connection. It has manifested itself in many ways as a rallying call for anyone wanting to be successful in the new world of work.



Connecting the dots for L&D Professionals



Seek, Sense, Share! I've long been an advocate of PKM theory, especially as advanced by Harold Jarce. The Merit Summit ended up being a big fat episode of seeking, sensing and sharing for me! I found it incredibly rewarding as I noticed opportunities to connect people in my network with new individuals and ideas as they showed up for me during the two days. I intentionally didn't pack my schedule with back-to-back sessions, meetings and workshops. I tried to select speakers and topics that challenged my thinking and then gave time to reflect and synthesise as the day went on. Less was definitely more in Vienna.



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It all started on Tuesday night at a superb dinner generously hosted by Sigrun & Sofia of the HR Builders. I met some old and new colleagues including Gerard Penning of Shell, Celia Berenguer  of Sanofi and Richard Howell (who is a leading International Change Consultant). Building relationships in this type of environment is incredibly helpful. In my case I really enjoyed the seeking and sharing of new knowledge and understanding within a mini professional social learning network. Stories helped build relationships and personal connections. This theme was to continue throughout the week and has reinforced my belief that L&D Professionals of the future will be great story-tellers, intuitive connectors and generous enablers of learning.



Leaders as Connectors



Tuesday was kicked off by Gerard Penning's key-note speech on Leadership. In his typically engaging style, Gerard used no slides, and simply told stories about great leadership. He focused on the importance of Respect, Curiosity and Resilience as being key ingredients in a successful leader. The theme of Respect was to raise it's head in the debate that I participated in an hour later.



The debate was entitled 'Paradoxes of Leadership: Humility Vs Power.' I shared the stage with three wonderful colleagues: Celia Berenguer  of Sonofi, and Tracey Camilleri of Saïd Business School, and the debate was expertly moderated by Michael Banks.



I feel strongly that this isn't really a paradox. When leaders demonstrate humility they exert considerable power and influence. In fact I consider humility to be a key ingredient to the projection of real power by a leader.



The key here is the definition of 'power'. I define progressive power as the ability of a leader to influence others to go on a journey of personal and collective change. It has a long term time horizon and requires the development of considerable follower-ship. Humility is a fundamental ingredient.



However short term power (I would call this limited power), where power is being done 'onto' others requires very little humility. However this is not really 'leading', rather it is simply 'commanding' and has a short and limited shelf-life in terms of leading others in times of change. In his excellent book 'Kinds of Power', James Hillman talks about a form of Social Darwinism that continues to poison our preconceived idea of how leaders should show up. Society still thinks of leaders in the cult of the Victorian-era 'hero-leader'. There is always a winner at the expense of losers and often winning the race by any means necessary is paramount (even if that means sacrificing team members). For this reason I've always been a fan of the arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, rather than his contemporary Robert Scott!. (Shackelton didn't reach the pole but managed to bring all of his men home alive while Scott reached the prize but tragically perished with his men).*



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The debate was a healthy one where the main point of difference centered around the topic of fear as an enabler for learning. Some felt that fear could be used by a leader as a motivating factor to generate leaning in their team. Personally I strongly disagree. Certainly, having challenging environments can offer great learning opportunities, and leaders should stretch their people by exposing them to those situations. But they must always do so with respect and support. It's here where connection is key. Firstly the manager builds trust and connection with the individual and co-creates learning as a result. Secondly they must connect the work to a clear shared purpose. Lastly they will connect stakeholders to form coalitions by aligning around a common goal.



The Employee - The Future is Social



As our idea of successful leadership matures, we see the importance of the leader as a humble connector. Equally, leadership is becoming democratised. The very smart Lori Niles-Hoffmann really made us sit up and think about this in her presentation on the Gig Economy.  We are building flatter, more open and agile organisations to prosper in the new world of work. The separation between employees and leaders is increasingly grey. This new gig economy will ensure that more and more of the workforce are coalescing around work and projects rather than roles and organisations. The successful worker of the future will be the one who has their 'connector' dial constantly turned to 'high'. If we are seeking and sensing and sharing in our networks we will be alert to the opportunities to add value and collaborate around important work and opportunities. We will seamlessly contribute to the network, while connecting others to opportunities. We'll also know that by paying into this social dynamic, in effect a form of 'paying it forward', we will simply be increasing our access to opportunities in the future. The future is indeed social.



 



* I would highly recommend the book Shackleton's Boat Journey by F.A. Worsley. Worsley was Shakelton's skipper on this voyage and their tale of survival and rescue is so remarkable it seems fantastic that this a true story. Shackleton's leadership was remarkable.



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