One question I always get asked when doing interviews is, “Whats your leadership style” , When I was younger and new to the leadership gig this question was easy. I was a driven , ambitious team player and my style was as required more driven to achieve results. As I got more years of leadership under my belt the definition of my style became more difficult. After a while there is no one style of leadership that fits a successful leader. They change, they morph, they grow and they change again.
As years pass I find my leadership style went from directive to flexible and ambidextrous and the definition by the style pundits changed too. The one thing that remained though was the fact that above all I believe in being authentic. I believe that as you grow as a leader it becomes more important to have a set of core values that never change, some boundaries that you are unwilling to cross and some principles that you refuse to bend. Does that make me less flexible or just authentic…well I think it makes me just that ME.
Working in an environment that is away from what I consider home has resulting in some major readjustment for me. Not only am I assimilating with the work culture in Kenya I am also readjusting to working with a predominantly Indian company.
Good leaders will always tell you when you go into a new country take your best top managers with you but only the great leaders will tell you that they should only be on temporary assignment.
I have discovered in my work here that I am able to easily distinguish the good from the great, the demarkation has never been this obvious before.
A great leader in this situation would tell their people train, coach, mentor and produce results. They would keep a handle on how the locals view and perceive them and would be mindful of their own team’s shortcomings. Starting to work in an international environment for professionals that have never worked outside of their country is an exceptional challenge. The weak-minded of the lot will try to conform everyone to their way of thinking and try to surround themselves with like-minded people who come from the same watering hole. The strong will work with a mix of their environment and slowly adjust and change as per it and introduce their own blend to it as well.
As a CEO/FOUNDER/PARTNER/OWNER of a company how do you prepare your best of the best.
– Training – before moving your people to another country you need to sensitize them. Before they even agree to move they should be put through a 3 day history , geography, sensitivity, etiquette, social norms and community training. This will help them make up their mind if this is the right fit for them and looking at the way they receive the training and respond to it a company can decide if they are the right fit.
– Mentoring /Coaching – Coaching and mentoring has to be a two-way street , before your people leave their home ground a company needs to bring in someone (preferably a HR expert) from the other country to train the people on what the rules are and what the professional culture of the country is. The reason is simple before you can change and make a system efficient, as you see it, you need to learn why it is the way it is and how it works.
– Cross training – If you are a company that is inheriting a business unit in another company and along with it the people then the inherited staff needs to be trained on the ways of working in your company and the professional environment and the people from the get go.
– Do not Copy Paste – Most importantly when coming from one work environment to another always remember that things that worked back home may or may not work in the new environment. Be mindful that you are not always trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. Some practices will work and some wont so don’t get caught in the “this is how we do it back home” rut.
One thing to remember is that the work environment when two or three or four cultures meld will never be smooth sailing from day one however tolerance, patience and open-mindedness will go a long way is getting it there sooner than later.
We have been told time and time again work with honesty and for the greater good of the organisation, pay attention to the people that work on your team, with your team and manage up. What happens when you come across something you consider an insurmountable obstacle? Do you keep hitting that wall again and again and hope that you make a dent ? Do you change your approach to see what fits best or do you become the cliched definition of insanity (keep repeating the same behavior with the same result)?
I find as a female leader there are some walls we all come up against no matter what generation or century. If you are strong and driven you’ve probably been called aggressive and a B@#$h. If you are compassionate and caring, you are emotional and “touchy-feely”. If you are tough and ambitious you are trying to be a man. If you are social and communicative you are playing the game. So many labels for us to wear and most of them given to us not only by men but by other women.
Why is it that only a rare number of women in leadership try and support the growth of other women? Are we insecure? I think not. It’s more that we lack the courage to celebrate other women becoming successful because we assume men will think we are being biased. Women tend to over think and over analyze. All the books about lean in, stand up, find your voice, get rid of the negative chatter, be authentic, don’t compromise, emotional intellect, so on and so forth are telling us how to be and how to behave. These books have failed to address the bigger problem of how male leaders with conscious or unconscious bias present themselves. I worked for a boss who, (I say worked for, not worked with because he felt he was the boss and expected reverence whether he deserved it or not), I struggled to find a common ground with him. I have worked with misogyny before so that couldn’t have been it. Then I realized this was someone whose unconscious bias was related not to, who I was in the present, but how and where he perceived I had been raised. To him I was a privileged, posh, army brat and he rubbed that phrase in my face repeatedly. He felt he knew me/about me and had me pegged from day one and nothing I subsequently did or how hard I tried would change his mindset and how he felt.
What the situation did was change my narrative, sadly. It was like a self fulfilling prophecy. I was isolated and became an after thought when strategising on direction and decision and since I was out of the loop most times, the boss labeled me disengaged. The more of a boys club it became, the less innovative my thought leadership was. I realized that in a span of a few months I had gone from a high potential to someone whose brand had been muddied to the point where I started questioning myself. Rest is history.
The lesson I learned from that situation was
Your narrative is your Own – Letting someone who is mired in their own insecurity chip at your confidence is one of the biggest mistake women leaders make. We forget who we are and what our strengths are and we let someone else define our stories.
Stand up and Speak up – As women in leadership we always want to resolve the issue and find a solution to the problem. When the real issue is the unconscious bias – stand up, stand tall and say how it’s making you feel which is the only way forward.
Perception is not Reality – We have been told time and time again perception is reality or some version of it anyways and I want to say it is not so. Perception is the reality in that moment so change it, be clear, be concise and communicate your reality and make it understood.
Walk away – As strong women leaders we have learned to be persistent so giving up is not an option. Some times walking away isn’t the option due to financial constraints so whenever you are able financially, RUN.
