The only two things I require of a leader

FWD 121: One person has to grow the most

Leadership as a discipline has fallen on hard times in the last decade or so while demagoguery and operational essentialism have taken the lead. "Years of efficiency" to squeeze results out of people. Aging founders who struggle to make the handoff to long-standing but under-supported G2 partners.

And yet, fundamentals don't change. Catalytic leadership is the one requirement for any meaningful change. And growth is always change. When we audit firms to help them surface and address growth challenges and opportunities, I say often to the people who hired us to fix "their problems,":

To solve this problem and enact the necessary changes, the leader has to change the most. Are you up for that?

Their answer (in action more than words) is the defining factor of whether growth is findable or not. I promised you in last week's FWD a structured approach here to how we produce trust-made growth in our client firms.

Our first stop, it should come as no surprise, is leadership.

The Only Two Things Required

I've been training, leading, coaching, and working alongside catalytic leaders all my life. I'm the product of some of the best leadership minds of the last twenty-five years, some face-to-face, some through their programs, some in structured training programs.

And while there are a billion nuances to great leadership, decades of this work have taught me that only two things are required: Humility and Courage.

These two vectors determine everything I need to know about a leader's capacity. But of course, you've got to define them correctly.

Humility: The ability and willingness to decenter yourself in the face of complexity and opportunity

This is the core of Rule #2 of my Seven Rules of Trust-Made Growth: It was never about you.

Humility is more important than its companion qualities like integrity, honesty, etc. You can have integrity (consistency from the inside out) and still be an asshole. But humility will constantly call the leader to examine their own subjectivity, consider the perspective of others, and self-guard from their own capacity for dysfunction (as we all have.)

Courage: The capacity to recognize and manage your fear in the face of risk and resistance.

Leadership, when you stand in a position to take people where they may not have gone on their own is both a noble and a sacred trust. It calls on a hundred different skills because it enters into nearly every imaginable situation. Because of this, you've got to be able to get out of your own way (and vicariously the way of others) and push through when you are triggered or exposed.

I choose courage over bias for action or drive or vision or all the others because of its situational utility. Sometimes you shouldn't act and that can be f***ing scary. Sometimes you don't have the sight of what's around the corner. Sometimes the big purpose you've laid out simply doesn't apply. And you still need to show up. You still owe something to the people who have trusted you. That takes courage.

The Matrix of Trustworthiness

We couldn't get through a missive from me without an obscure cultural reference. Anybody remember that weirdly shaped object in one of the old Michael Bay Transformers movies called the "Matrix of Leadership"? It looked like this:

Well, since that phrase is forever ruined in my mind, I use the Matrix of Trustworthiness to evaluate whether a leader is ready to take their organization to the next era of growth.

Now it's time to find yourself:

Quadrant I: Force for Change - You know a leader has High Humility and High Courage when they have a track record of change that creates broad enrollment and wide positive impact.

Quadrant II: Facilitator/Enabler - Leaders who have High Humility and Low Courage tend to build good relationships and facilitate idea sharing. People often feel heard and valued, but very little gets done.

Quadrant III: Blind Bulldozer - A Low Humility and High Courage leader may have a long track record of completed projects, but track to where? They will push for what they think needs to be done, but because they won't look at their own blind spots and downplay the wisdom of others, the destinations are erratic and costly.

Quadrant IV: Manipulator/Aggressor - When you put a Low Humility and Low Courage leader in a position of power you get a flurry of activity. There is dealmaking (often backhanded), but complexity is glossed over. Propaganda (usually focused on propping up the leader's fragile ego) is everywhere. Quandrant IV leadership can sometimes feel good when collective fear is high, but it is always a source of long-term carnage.

Taking Action Now

A Catalytic Leader, one that takes the team, the clients, and the community around it to a better place is always a high level mix of Humility and Courage. But Catalytic Leaders weren't born that way. Their strength is always forged. So as you seek to move up and to the right on the Matrix of Leadership, what can you do?

Humility Building Work:

• Hire a coach or therapist with very high levels of emotional intelligence and strength.
• Submit to an externally implemented 360-degree review.
• Ask your closest people what your strengths and weaknesses and what they would benefit from you working on.
• Ask curious, open-ended questions with out resistance with exiting team members or clients.

Courage Building Work:

• Recognize the feeling in your body when you are anxious or afraid. Where do you feel it? Learn to notice fear in the body and then seek to take a small action anyway.
• Invite a coach or therapist to give you challenges to stretch your courage at work and in your personal life.
• Practice "scary things" like public speaking, taking authority in a new area, inviting others to trust you when you are feeling imposter syndrome.
• Ask trusted inner circle people this question: Where do you notice me acting out of fear instead of courage? How does that impact you?

If you want to dig deeper, Courage & Humility is item #13 of our 84-point inspection we take clients through to find their top opportunities and barriers to growth. Shoot me an email and I can tell you all about it or click the image below to start the free version of your self-assessment.

Forward, forward.