Listen to other leaders

“Leadership is about people, end of story” and people are people with common human wants, needs, drivers. We can learn a lot by looking at things differently. One of the easiest “hacks” is to talk to other leaders from totally unrelated realms.

We are now nearly a year into the pandemic in most parts of the world. Some countries are thriving, others continue to struggle, yet even those thriving are nowhere near “normal” as they are in a bubble of sorts waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

This is an ideal time, then, for leaders to reflect on the past year, on what they have learned, what they will keep, what they will let go of, what they will need as we move forward and look forward to a time (2022?) when life globally can move back to a “normal” with covid manageable around the world.

Yesterday I was on a call with a leader I regard highly in one of those currently thriving countries and one suggestion I made to them was to focus on taking time to meet up with (yes, they are allowed to meet in person across their country 😉 ) leaders and to listen and also share the experiences. The most obvious groups were peers in their industry and also their key clients, but I would go further on this.

Go wide, not deep, talk to leaders in all kinds of spheres, as people are people, no matter the business, industry, geography, size. If you are an accountant, talk to the head of a ballet company. If you are an engineer leading a global business, talk to an entrepreneur in one of those countries running thirty cafes and restaurants. If you are an architect in a thriving “bubble” country, talk to one in a struggling country who has been focussed on rapidly building new healthcare facilities to prevent health services from being overrun.

These are all real examples of clients and other leaders I work with, talk to, listen to, seek to add value to their thinking and leadership. I work only with a limited number of clients at any time, so more than half of my time is spent in conversation with leaders of all kinds around the world and I learn from all of them (and, I hope, add some value in each converation for them from the connections and learnings I have made over time).

As an example of listening to other leaders, on Monday this week I visited (virtually) my heritage home of the Isle of Lewis (the photo above is the view from the village where I spent many childhood holidays with my grandparents, I have a framed photo of this in my home). The event was: “INTO DARKNESS: A NIGHT-TIME ART ADVENTURE WITH MAIRI GILLIES”, an intimate gathering of people there to be inspired by Mairi to go out into the dark and, from that place, to create art. Over the next week I will spend several evenings out in the dark and see what inspires me.

Now, in addition to the topic at hand, I also took several leadership lessons from Mairi in the way she facilitated the session, the way she created a frame for the words “creativity” and “art” so as to create a space of possibility, opportunity and fun for the participants, all lessons that other leaders could apply in a myriad of spaces.

Listen to other leaders.