The Uncommon Sense of Leadership - By Jerry Connor, Jessica Parisi, & Stephanie Peskett - Cision
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The Uncommon Sense of
Leadership
By Jerry Connor, Jessica Parisi, & Stephanie Peskett
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSThe Uncommon Sense of
Messy Leadership
Extraordinary leadership in challenging times
And why this may be just what we need for the future
2020 changed the world. The COVID-19 By contrast, a number of leaders and
pandemic forced mass lock downs across organizations instead chose action –
the globe, causing economic volatility at a and the results were exceptional. These
level not seen since the Great Depression. leaders positioned their organizations to
Businesses reacted quickly, closing offices provide deep care, supporting their people
and requiring thousands of employees through the crisis. Businesses stepped up,
to work from home. In many industries, contributing to society in meaningful ways.
revenues dried up. Demand for oil slumped. Traditional hierarchies broke down and
changes that normally would have taken
For leaders, 2020 was messy. Without a years happened in weeks. These leaders
way to predict the future, let alone what demonstrated the best of humanity, the best
would happen in the following week, leaders of teams, the best of leadership.
were challenged by unprecedented rapid,
continuous change. This meant leaders “If only we could bottle it up,” said one of our
needed to respond to new issues more quickly interviewees, the Chief Learning Officer of a
than conventional logic would say is possible, world-leading CPG company. “We have been
and deal with a new level of emotions from struggling for years to get our leaders to
nearly all their employees, ranging from fear behave in this way… how can we keep it.. how
to stress, anxiety, and deep sadness. can we keep hold of the new behaviors and
cement them as our new leadership culture?”
So how did leaders and organizations react? This CLO had seen the company’s leaders
respond in extraordinary ways to the crisis
Some chose to “wait and see.” They operated and sought to learn what it was and how to
under the assumption that things would cultivate it.
eventually “return to normal” and led in
essentially the same way as usual. Others For years, the CLO had known that the
succumbed to fear and acted defensively quicker the rate of change, the harder it
– trying to control things, or “stay strong” was for leaders who tried to control or
so others could depend on them, clinging manage the messiness and unpredictability
to processes and avoiding talking about of the world to succeed. It was clear that a
complex issues like race and mental health. new type of leadership was needed, and it
These leaders tried to stick with their tried seemed that the COVID-19 crisis had tipped
and tested approaches, letting their people the balance and many leaders had finally
deal with their personal issues and concerns found a new way.
on their own.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSMostly CLO/CTO roles were interviewed as a were often considered “misfits” during
part of BTS’ latest research project on normal times. This is the uncommon sense.
establishing the future of leadership. To A leader who is willing to admit weakness
collect this information, BTS interviewed makes others feel safer than one who
Chief Learning Officers from over 40 of the pretends to be strong. A leader who plans
world’s top organizations. The goal of this knowing they can’t predict the future is more
research was to understand the challenges successful than a leader who has a point
organizations experienced – not just of view based on their experience and past
reflecting on COVID-19, but looking forward performance. These leaders were the ones
into the next few years- which are likely to be that organizations felt role modeled the
uncertain and unpredictable – and establish mindsets leaders needed going forward. They
the mindsets that successful leaders held offered a glimpse into what extraordinary
during this time and would need to maintain leadership would look like in the turbulence of
for continued success. This research was the next few years.
augmented with data collected from an
additional 40 companies who attended focus Why is this important?
groups.
Crises do not simply come and go. Looking
ahead to the future, unpredictable and fast
What research was conducted to changing times are nearly certain for the
support this article? foreseeable future. Things won’t “go back to
normal.” Leaders will continue to face messy
In 2020, BTS interviewed more than challenges for years to come. For example,
40 of the world’s most senior leaders businesses have a new understanding of
accountable for leadership learning. their roles in creating inclusive, equitable
The goal of these interviews was to and diverse cultures. Organizations must
understand how the COVID-19 crisis embrace the new normal – the increased
has changed what leading companies speed of change, differing working
need from their leaders. This patterns (more virtual and global, less title
information was augmented this with and hierarchy), diversity of consumption
data collected from an additional 40 (increased choices thanks to software and
companies who participated in focus digital advancements) and their expanding
groups. role in society.
To write this article, BTS cross- Over the past decade, some of the mindsets
referenced the interview data with the and behaviors uncovered by this research
BTS mindset research, which is based have surfaced in the highest performing
on data from over 100,000 coaching executives – those successfully leading
conversations. transformations and those who led
fast-growth companies that pushed the
boundaries but also had people who loved
The research showed that certain leaders working for them. Pre-COVID-19, leaders with
struggled and many of them seemed to be these traits were typically a small minority,
stuck in certain habits. It became apparent maybe 5% of the leader population. Post-
that certain approaches simply don’t work COVID-19, these attributes have accelerated
anymore and leaders who cling to these to be essential for the “norm.” Despite this,
approaches are no longer succeeding. By thousands of leaders still struggle to embody
contrast other leaders were thriving and this style of leadership – a requirement for
succeeding in the “messiness.” Interestingly, future success.
these leaders who were more apt to pivot
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSSo how can we “bottle this up?”
While conducting the research, it became very clear that there were five attributes
separating extraordinary responses to challenging times from the ordinary and ineffective.
These five attributes form “messy” leadership.
How successful leaders
Where leaders struggled
responded
Advocating ecosystem Siloed business and
interdependencies and loosely connected
societal impact. ethical aspirations.
“We only talk about
Having the courage to
business here.”
talk about emotive of
personal Issues. Being
Leaders feel safe
open about bad news.
behind a professional
Showing compassion.
veneer.
A focus on process,
Focusing on outcomes
annual strategy
and being responsive
and budgeting.
in the moment. Being
Slow quarterly
change ready.
management.
Seeing multiple
Seeing the future
possible futures and
as a continuation
running fast cycle
of the past.
experiments.
The power of not
knowing. Vulnerability, The superhero
voracious curiosity, syndrome. Being
humility and letting go strong and holding
of the leader centric onto your expertise.
view.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSWhy is this extraordinary? A step shifts.” Level one shifts include experiences
like how to be resilient in the face of setbacks,
change of maturity is underway.
how to adopt a growth mindset, how to
The MESSY acronym was selected influence a challenging colleague. Leaders
intentionally. “Messy” describes the type at the first line level struggle with level one
leader who doesn’t try to control a fast- challenges six times as often as they do level
changing, chaotic environment, but finds a two, and mid-level leaders struggle with level
way of leading in it. This requires a different one challenges over four times as often as
level of maturity. What do we mean by a level two. In other words, level two is unusual.
different level of maturity? Yet all the messy leadership attributes
require level two shifts. They require a level
Over the last fourteen years, BTS Coach, of maturity that is uncommon and was
the first mover in scalable coaching, has previously inaccessible to many leaders.
coached more than 10,000 leaders per
year. With each coaching session, data is It is remarkable that organizations across
collected, anonymized, and aggregated to industries share similar experiences with
create an immense database that provides their leaders’ responses to challenging times.
deep insight into leaders’ experiences. One However, to “bottle it up” and make this
key finding from this data was what leaders method of leading accessible, business as
admitted they struggled with. From these usual leadership development won’t work.
responses, twelve mindset shifts emerged as Reverting to past training, performance
the changes leaders found most challenging management and processes will produce
and those with the biggest correlation to past results. To maintain and nurture this
changes in performance. extraordinary leadership, organizations need
to take a different approach. Organizations
The twelve shifts were divided into maturity need MESSY leadership.
levels. Most leaders struggle with “level one
So what is MESSY leadership?
From
The superhero syndrome. Being strong and holding on to your
expertise. Being the leader who makes the calls and decisions.
To
The power of not knowing. Vulnerability, voracious curiosity,
humility and letting go of the leader centric view. Creating
environment for others to author the new moves.
“Our biggest insight is that striving “If a leader appears to be in solid and
or being competitive and being self- in control others wait for them to
accepting of self and others are not solve. We need humility. Leaders who
polar opposites.” say they don’t know.”
– CTO global technology business – CLO global energy business
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSAlmost all the stories collected By demonstrating vulnerability,
from the research described an these leaders let go of their own
unprecedented pace of workflow expertise. The majority of leaders
evolution. In days, businesses are in their position because they
had managed to shut down huge have been successful, know their
offices and move whole operations function, and appreciate sharing
“Our culture to work from home or pivoted this expertise through mentorship.
is addicted to from being in-person retailers to As the pace of change increases,
success. So we e-commerce businesses. Cross- this behavior can get in the way.
are afraid to functional teams had come By contrast, extraordinary leaders
fail. We give together around an aligned goal were able to hold their expertise
our leadership – and achieved results that would lightly and become relentlessly
permission to have taken years in normal times. curious. They actively sought
be bold but outside and different perspectives
they are not Leaders who tried to control this while never losing sight of the
ready” failed. It was impossible for them language of their business. In Satya
to lead from the front when the Nadella (Microsoft CEO)’s words,
pace of change got too fast – one these leaders moved from being
mind could not assimilate so much ‘know it all’ to ‘learn it all’ leaders.
ever-changing data and direct the
flow of each activity. Leaders who An interesting and less obvious
were widely respected in normal subtext to this phenomenon is
times found their people looking to the differing ways leaders who
them for guidance. This was a trap. struggled and extraordinary leaders
In more stable times, the strong, looked after themselves. Data
lead from the front leaders had from the research indicated that
driven their teams to higher and leaders who struggled tried to
higher performance. Now they were ‘outsmart time’ when dealing with
creating logjams and inhibiting the complexities of managing the
creativity. crisis by working longer and more
unsustainable hours. The paradox
The extraordinary leaders who did is that by letting go of the need to
something different – they were the be strong and master everything
ones with the inner self-confidence it also opens up a receptivity to
to be comfortable showing working differently. Without the
vulnerability. These leaders said, need for superhuman powers to
“I don’t know,” and asked for help. lead the team through the crisis,
They let go of their attachment exceptional leaders were able
to driving outcomes and instead to find more space to look after
trusted their teams to respond in themselves and focus on the things
different ways. Then, these leaders that really matter.
were delighted by the speed with
which their teams moved and found
themselves celebrating changes “We need a new definition of
they didn’t ask for. Their people productivity – it is no longer 9
took ownership and made the to 5.”
change happen because they knew
– CLO, medical services
the right things to do for both their
customers and teams.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSFrom
“We only talk about business here.”
Leaders feel safe behind a professional veneer
To
Having the courage to talk about emotive or personal issues. Being
open about bad news. Showing compassion.
“Compassion is coming to the “Increasing numbers of our younger
forefront… not just authenticity but people are upset and angry about
deeply caring for one another.” seeing white male privilege at the top.”
– CLO, Global CPG company – CTO, global technology business
“Leaders who used to walk around now can’t anymore.” – CLO, retailer
“Some of the old-guard leaders believe ”Our CEO, together with our CHRO,
that their people are not that busy has talked to our people every day
because they are at home. It’s really since early March, and still continues
because there was a lack of trust to. He knows people are suffering and
pre-Covid and this style of manager wants to be fully transparent, offer
preferred to oversee and micro- guidance and sense of community and
manage, and now can’t do that in serve the team.”
virtual environment.”
– Head of Talent, US
– CLO, global financial organization telecommunications company
Emotional connection and messy This meant that leaders who tried to “keep
conversation emerged from several things professional” by avoiding sensitive
trends. On one hand, many organizations subjects suddenly felt exposed. By contrast,
responded to COVID-19 by showing a deep the extraordinary leaders were willing to
and genuine concern for their people. In a leap into the void, listening even when it was
health crisis, leaders found an extra dose uncomfortable to hear, and feel deeply from
of care and compassion for the welfare of what they heard. They were willing to engage
their people. On the other hand, in the US in topics that were controversial and in which
and a number of other countries, the Black they couldn’t control the outcome. They did
Lives Matter movement tapped into a deep so because it was important to their people,
sense of unease with privilege and inequality. important to their culture, important to
Organizations could no longer avoid talking society, and ultimately because they believed
about sensitive issues like race, and in many that change starts with having impossible
cases, organizations found their employees conversations.
demanding that they engage with time, not
just words.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSPast trainings around ‘engaging others’ or environment, suddenly a whole panoply of
‘flexing your leadership style’ left leaders ill informal communication opportunities were
prepared for this new dimension. Compassion not available. Connection needed to happen
and courage are best achieved if a leader is within meetings rather than between them.
agenda-less. In other words, techniques that Leaders needed to sense their team’s feelings
revolve around how to motivate others to and check in directly rather than relying on
do a task need to be set aside to focus on informal structures. Overnight, humanity
better understanding and connecting with crept into the hourly meeting, with 15-20
the human being. A health crisis naturally minutes of each meeting spent checking in
meant that leaders who could make people with one another, talking about family and a
feel cared for were able to have a very general sense of wellbeing.
tangible impact – whereas the equity crisis
demanded leaders learn to handle complex Leaders who were uncomfortable sharing
and emotional issues with compassion. bad news, typically out of fear that their
people would lose confidence in the firm
The challenges of leading remotely also or them as leaders, also struggled through
shed a different light on connection. Many the pandemic. Those who believed in being
leaders relied on management through transparent with all news gained respect and
chance interactions. By walking around, even inspired their companies. People will
catching people over coffee, or checking follow leaders who define reality clearly and
in between meetings, managers could are part of the team helping fight to turn the
check in with people. Shifting to a remote results around.
From
A focus on process. Episodic management. Attempts to ‘manage’
change.
To
Focusing on outcomes and being responsive in the moment
Being change ready
“The VUCA piece has “Is the workforce really “The danger is that as
been done to death. resilient enough to we return to the new
We need a different consume at the speed normal the urgency for
conversation.” with which we have to change will diminish.”
change.”
– CLO, Global CPG – Head of a Change
company – CLO, major retailer Insurance Company
“We moved 40,000 people into new roles within 3 weeks, each person with personalized
training based on personal gaps. We have been preparing to be agile and always
learning, Covid kicked every leadership behavior we had been working on for the last 3
years into high gear and it became our new reality.”
– Head of Talent, Telecommunication company
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSwhen they need it most. Exceptional leaders
listened and sensed the moments that had
A global CPG business told the the biggest impact. Overlaid on this, many
story of moving 14,000 staff out of CHROs recognized they could no longer
their Head Office to work remotely. leverage normal performance management
The organization had five days to processes given the circumstances. CHROs
move from an office-based culture are increasingly moving to ‘always on
to running all the same operations feedback cultures’ and embedding richer
from people’s homes. “If we had coaching cultures. The more CHROs do
even contemplated this in normal this, the more ‘process’ elements of people
times, we’d have spent months and leadership take a backseat to the in-the-
months working through processes, moment ability for leaders to see what is
conducting risk assessments and needed and step in.
consulting stakeholders,” said the
leader responsible. “But we didn’t The same is true of change. For many years,
have time – so we just set the goal talking about and equipping leaders to
and trusted people to get on with it. “manage change” has been widely accepted.
Remarkably we are now talking about It has become a staple of leadership
whether many people ever need to development to learn the “change curve” and
come back.” think about the leaders’ role helping people
let go of the old and embrace the new. The
“old” view of change was s that it has a
beginning a middle and an end. The unstated
One of the most common characteristics assumption was that there was a “new
of leaders who struggled during the crisis normal” after the change. But increasingly
was an overreliance on process. Processes leaders are experiencing a world in which
are useful ways to eliminate waste and change is constant. The most responsive
create consistency in execution. However, in leaders, therefore, expect this and rather
times of rapid change it is simply too slow than starting with a mindset of “how do we
or not possible to agree how to do the work get through this change” they
before beginning. Leaders who thrived in the start with an expectation
unpredictable environment focused less on that change is constant
process and more on outcomes. In doing so, and with change
they created the space within which teams comes opportunity.
could achieve amazing results. At BTS, we call
this the Change-
This same phenomenon is seen in people Ready Leader ™.
leadership. Just before the crisis, Jerry
Connor, Head of Global Leadership at
BTS, published the book The Four Greatest
Coaching Conversations, which describes
how leaders need to move from regular
set-piece one-to-ones to a much more
dynamic view of leadership, focusing on
the moments when people need help the
most. This trend has continued apace. An
overreliance on structured conversations is
too slow, time consuming, and denies leaders
the opportunity to support their people
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSFrom
Looking for clues to the future in the past
To
Seeing multiple possible futures and running fast cycle
experiments
“It is the ultimate “People are testing “Leaders find it hard to
Rookie experience. around different hold multiple possible
Everything is fast. assumptions rather futures in mind…
Everyone is watching. than planning around they don’t like the
Just got to try sh**. known assumptions.” dissonance.”
Let’s just go.”
– CTO, telecom – CLO, technology – CLO, global
business company agribusiness
Through interviews with leaders around their market and imagined the different ways in
COVID-19 experience, an interesting tendency which they would evolve. These leaders then
emerged. Generally, leaders tended to talk shaped alternative futures and began to lead
about their experience in two ways. They with these in mind, constantly adjusting their
either described it as a ‘return to normal’ or picture as new data emerged.
‘how the experience has changed the way we
work.’ In other words, their responses were This future orientation allowed successful
biased to either the pandemic being a short leaders to pursue a very different way of
term disruption that would eventually go responding to the crisis – such as rapid
away or a fundamental change to the way resource allocation. Pre-COVID-19, a retailer
they thought and led. This is unsurprising described how around 25% of its revenue
as the human brains is not naturally apt for was online. As physical stores started to
holding multiple possible futures in mind and close, this retailer feared the worst. Yet,
dancing with the paradoxes and dilemmas within a month e-commerce was now driving
they present. 70% of its original turnover. To perform this
feat, staff who normally supported physical
This frame of mind impacted the way leaders shops rapidly pivoted to trebling the size of
dealt with the future. For example, leaders the company’s online business in weeks. The
who struggled tended to think in terms of business did not spend any time on complex
classic planning processes, taking current trade off discussions, it pivoted fast and
trends and projecting them forward to moved its resources accordingly.
create a plan. But when the future has so
many diverse and difficult possibilities, trying “We went from wait and see to test and
to predict what will happen becomes less and learn,” said one interviewee, “like a true
less helpful. As a CEO from a global energy version of agile.” Interestingly, several
company pointed out, “no-one in their wildest interviewees described how the original vision
dreams could have predicted the drop off of the Agile manifesto has been corporatized
in demand for oil that we just experienced.” and over-processed. What seemed to be
Successful leaders took a different approach. occurring was a return to its essence –
Instead of looking at current trends, they genuine fast cycle learning – but based in
took their minds into the future and looked a dynamic and constantly evolving view of
back. They looked for ‘weak’ signals in the future opportunities and dilemmas.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSFrom
Siloed business and loosely connected ethical aspirations
To
Advocating ecosystem interdependencies and societal impact
“We need more than
“Customers care about business fluency… even
“There is a lot more to decide which wells
how you responded
scrutiny on whether a to close down you
to the bush fires and
company has grown need to understand
Covid. Ethics plus
big out of the misery the impact on a range
bigger purpose is so
of other people.” of social, political and
much more important.”
environmental factors.”
– CLO, technology company
– Australian retailer
– CEO, Global Energy
business
Many of the businesses included in the Interviewees consistently described how their
study were proud of how they’d responded business had taken positive action in line with
to the recent crises, both in looking its purpose. Many pointed out that this was a
after their people and in supporting the time when actions spoke louder than words.
communities they serve. For example, an
African agribusiness described how its Similarly, interviewees reported their
belief that purpose needs to come before most effective leaders as being able to
profit had helped them through the crisis. see connections and interdependencies.
Their operations had to keep running and so By looking broadly, leaders were able to
they were reliant on and relied on by local act fast without creating negative side
communities. The business quickly pivoted effects. A multitude of interviewees noted
from making alcohol out of sugar cane to how silos dissolved as leaders unified and
making hand sanitizer – not because this acted promptly to solve pressing issues.
was a profitable innovation – but because it Collaboration was no longer confined to
was a way to contribute to the community in existing teams, but a natural outcome of
challenging times. leaders from across the business seeing a
need and deciding to solve it together. This
extended beyond organizations.
www.bts.com
Copyright © 2020 BTSMESSY Leadership for about accountability (reinforcing “I am
responsible”), and even the way they run
extraordinary times
their strategic planning processes (with the
The similarities between stories throughout implicit belief that “I need to set out a clear
the interview process were notable. The old plan for the future”).
perspective of strong leadership, setting a
clear direction, taking others with you, and New mindsets such as, “it is okay to be
managing through process weren’t right for human,” “we are constantly learning more
a messy world. Something new had emerged about the future,” “change is something I
and many interviewees felt that this had the learn from,” and “I trust myself to see what
potential to indicate a step change in the is needed” carry deep implications, both
way businesses are led. for leaders and the way we think about our
businesses. This doesn’t mean abandoning
the processes, structures, and tools that
make organizations effective, but it does
“A decade ago, it was the top 1% who
mean leveraging them in a much more
figured out how to lead in this way –
dynamic way.
now it is becoming mainstream.”
– CLO, pharmaceutical company Examples interviewees spoke about included:
• Moving the focus from training to job
rotation. Consciously building leaders who
feel confident leading across the breadth
of the organization.
“A handful of us knew how to lead
this way. Before we were pretending • Changing the way leaders think about
to lead in the old way as well so we customers. From “consumer insight” to
weren’t challenged. Now we can be “insights into humanity.”
ourselves.” • Shifting the focus of performance
systems from set piece events to a more
– CLO, financial services
dynamic ‘always on’ coaching dialogues
with leaders.
• Consciously developing different
What is also clear is that these glimpses of capabilities.
the future will not take root on their own.
Organizations will need to rethink the way It is easy to read this list and think it is an
they develop, reward, and nurture leaders. evolution of current practice. In reality, across
the globe few leaders are at this level. This
Organizations need to help their leaders is a significant shift that requires different
let go of old beliefs. Mindsets like “I need tools and different approaches.
to be in control,” “I am responsible,” “I need
to be professional,” and “I need to set out If this shift is made successfully, it will create
a clear plan for the future” are unhelpful. extraordinary leaders capable of navigating
Unfortunately most organizations reinforce extraordinary times. This understanding will
these beliefs in countless ways, from lay the foundation, not only for the coming
their focus on process (implying “I need months – but for years to come.
to be in control”), to the way they talk
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