When Deborah and I were introduced to the About My Brain Institute, we connected immediately with founder and CEO, Silvia Damiano. We responded to her clarity of thinking and the insight brought to leadership behaviour in a rapidly changing world. Silvia inspired with her fresh focus on the attributes of leaders who would flourish in an emerging VUCA environment. Since becoming i4 practitioners, Silvia's acclaimed research, her award-winning Hollywood documentary and her consequent publications have been valuable resources for our clients. Never more so than now.
Silvia’s book, Leadership is Upside Down, is anchored in the need for brain-based leadership. Neuroscience shows us the links between our brain and the quality of every decision we make. Amongst the current and ongoing challenges for leaders is the ability to inspire people out of their very real fear of catching Covid 19 and the fear of the unknown, new business context. Shifting ourselves and those we work with from fear to “calm and confident” is essential if our businesses are going to move beyond survival mode. The quality of our decisions, therefore, has never been more important.
So, what is leadership ‘upside down?’
In brief, ‘upside down’ leadership takes businesses out of the Covid world and into an unknown future marked at least currently by extreme uncertainty and remote working. In this context leadership is about having the foresight, courage and skill to push authority down to those at the front line. It allows others to make the decisions. Yet, it’s not about abrogating leadership responsibility and accountability, but rather about applying leadership in a carefully crafted, more intentional and very deliberate manner.
The most critical ‘upside down’ leadership skill is communication. Yet, it’s not as simple as it sounds and it’s certainly not just applying that adage from the past - ‘communicate, communicate, communicate.’
The Navy Seal playbook, How to lead Remote Teams, affirms and explains that communication must start with the leader. No surprises there! It reminds again of the undeniable impact of leadership communication on the tone and culture of the organisation.
What’s different about communicating to remote teams? How does the leader re-create the 'hallway' culture without the nuances available in a physical workplace?
The highly aware leader will seek out opportunities to be human, transparent, honest and empathetic. They will also find ways to reproduce somehow those 'side chats' that happen in a physical workplace but are not so available in the remote context. They do so because they are aware of the value of such conversations. They are prepared to pick up the phone to check in with others, hearing their voices and finding ways to be a genuinely relevant leader. Such leaders have the courage to lean into potential discomfort in the interests of effectiveness. And, as the Navy Seal playbook suggests, they will use tools such as pulse surveys (where appropriate) to inform wider audiences across the business 'here's what we're learning.'
The principles summarised in the playbook are very much aligned to Leadership that is ‘upside down.’ Allowing team members to see a vulnerable leader who is no longer the font of all knowledge, one who encourages each person to share ideas whilst working towards the common purpose.
In brief, this approach to leadership accepts that while it is necessary to access key information and real time understanding, this must be gleaned without smothering or micro-managing team members who are working so hard at the coal face. Working in this way with people across the business creates a high trust network model.
Technology leveraged strategically develops a business which is an inter-connected trust-based system, just as the Navy Seals smaller 'tribal units' evolve. All contribute to the 'teaming' personality of the whole business. The leader understands that they cannot solve the problems alone or amongst the small, tight-knit senior leadership team of the past. This is in fact the new reality. And, by demonstrating a 'grittiness' - a refusal to quit, leaders inspire others to play their part.
Further, the leader's role is to manage that uneasy tension between rosy spin and cold hard truth. The leader must at one and the same time be somewhat of a cheerleader whilst getting the balance right. The leader will be trusting intuition and using not only good judgement but a policy of “honesty at all times.” As we read in our Harvard Business Review Daily Alert this week, “people will never forget how they were treated when they were facing loss….how the institution, managers and peers acted to hold the team together….or not…” Getting the communication cadence right is essential.
‘Upside down’ leadership requires self-care
Finally, we return to a well-received recent BR LinkedIn Post: Coping with Fatigue, Fear and Panic during a crisis. In our Post we were very deliberate in encouraging readers to accept that the leadership challenge ahead of us will be testing. We acknowledged the utmost importance of looking after ourselves at this extraordinary time. To adapt to the daily rigour of leading in this different manner we must be serious about keeping ourselves on the rails. We must identify what we feel like when we are at our best and map out how to achieve and sustain that state for the long haul. And yes, that means the discipline of exercise, diet, sleep, family life, mindfulness, meditation, time alone...and as we all know, for each of us that mix will be different, but the message is identical, ‘take care.’