If you can’t lead, get out of the driver’s seat

By Fiona Boyd |

How often do you come across truly great leaders? You know the sorts of people I’m talking about – they get excited and passionate about the good things and encourage all around them to enjoy the ride up, they muse and keep their cool when things are not going well and even when the sky is falling in, they seem to keep their sleeves rolled up, minds open to ways of dealing with things and can seem even more impressive when solving a major crisis than in driving a major success?

Some years ago my mentor, Dr Terry Cutler told me there was one book that was absolutely vital to read and internalize and it was Good to Great by Jim Collins. Collins outlines a number of successful companies across some key criteria and notes that for those who are really, really great the leaders tend to be what he terms ‘servant leaders’. This sort of leader is the antithesis of the sort of gung-ho, out-there bossy boots CEO that we’ve stumbled across from time-to-time. Dr Cutler is right, there is much to be learned in this book and also the two others Collins has written, Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall.

How the Mighty Fall is an interesting follow on from Collins first book as it outlines five phases of a business in the process of failing – and pretty much until the end of phase 4, the business is recoverable if it can sort out its key ideals and drivers and get a clear head back in control. It sounds strange but it’s not just individuals that can suffer from inflated egos and hubris, whole organizations can catch that mindset too.

Collins says ‘If you prevail or fail, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.’ How true do you think that is? Have there been times in your life when everything has lined up absolutely perfectly and yet it still didn’t go right? Maybe you didn’t really want to be part of what was going on, or didn’t feel ready for the challenge, it doesn’t matter how we rationalize it, things don’t work out because we blow ourselves up, not because the world blows us up (though that can happen too, at which you need to be prepared to stay the distance and prevail).

Great leaders get their emotions and behaviours under control before they jump in the driver's seat of the business.

I have my perfect CEO in mind here who is someone that David and I have done some long-term consulting work for, and while this man is like all of us a work-in-progress, he also shows all the unique characteristics of the ‘servant leader’. Firstly this CEO is passionate and determined about his business but not aggressively so. He’s able to marry his dedication to his business and people with a kind of natural humility that is unobtrusive and makes you want to find out more, engage more, listen more, do more of what you can to help him along in his mission. Passionate engagement is not about loudness, shrillness, chest-beating or bullying and berating others, it’s a totally different order of things and for people like me it will get my engagement and attention anyday over the leader as loudspeaker and bully.

I had the unique opportunity to witness this impressive leader deal incredibly elegantly with a total webhosting disaster that could have meant the end of his business as he knew it, if he hadn’t focused his attention and resources on rebuilding and recovering quickly. Okay, David was also key here – when the hosting company lost all this firm’s data and also the backups, David as usual had a development copy that was a few weeks old, that he could use to rebuild. But here’s the crunch, this company had moved from being a completely offline business, selling over $5 million of tickets a year over the phone, to a completely online business doing the same amount (and increasing) online. Lost to the ether were 3 weeks of customer transaction data and event bookings – and that could have been disastrous. It certainly does count as the ‘worst case scenario’ in your risk management plan.

However this leader did not meltdown, breakdown, blame or abuse, even though he was on the phone over a whole weekend to the hosting company (who by the way had never had such an incident like this in over 10 years in the industry – it was created by a freak event and a backup system that ultimately failed about 30% of its customers). Instead he kept his cool, got the consultants in to talk about how to handle the situation from a technology point-of-view, we talked through what data would be missing and strategies the staff could use to deal with that – and all in all the company dealt with the crisis, including the missing 3 weeks of customer and transaction data (people turned up to events so this company could retrofit the data, however this was fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants territory) professionally and methodically.

By contrast I’ve recently witnessed a number of CEO’s who might have been termed in the past as the ‘old school’ variety, which I think is unfair to those with heaps of experience and a few years under their belt who more closely fit the ‘servant leader’ model. But anyway, for want of a better description, old school leadership, here we come!

Maybe it’s because the world has suffered its way through the global financial crisis and the population at large has looked outside itself for comfort and reassurance, but I’ve noticed a rather pernicious type of leader raise his ugly head again. You know this sort of person – full of bluff and bluster, appears as a know-it-all, talks incessantly about themselves and their history, doesn’t let anyone else have any airtime, thinks they know what’s going on in their company but has minimal true understanding of how it works and who is in what seat and what really matters about how it all works or doesn’t’. And is too full of their own ego to ask anybody about it.

I’ve pondered what makes such individuals the way they are and have come to the conclusion that it’s fear. Generally the bluff and bluster has got them a long way, most of us just don’t have the uber confidence of these creatures, we’d actually prefer to prove our value through our work or relationships, however some leaders need no such proof. So the super confident, but slightly delusional seem to rush past everyone around them to the leaders seat, however the wheels will really fall off when things don’t go to plan, or the external environment (like the GFC) changes. These people can really only produce results when the machine is well-oiled, the best people are in the right seats and they aren’t really required to influence anything. The problem is that this works in times of little change, but when things hot up and become competitive again, a more evolved sort of leader is required.

So, my position is that if the turns and tumbles of business scare the wits out of you and cause you to blame, judge and otherwise take advantage of those around you, then you should really question whether or not you should be in the driver’s seat.

As a ‘servant leader’ you bring out the best in the people around you and your company’s resources, you don’t try be ‘the best’ yourself. Let’s stop looking outside ourselves for reassurance from these so-called ‘strong’ leaders and start working with leaders who by their very character, can deal with all manner of crises with calmness, integrity, humility and dedication. These leaders and the companies they lead will be the ones that prevail.

Fiona Boyd and David Eedle tried out all sorts of leadership styles during their time running management consultancy The Dramatic Group Pty Ltd and the Arts Hub business. In the end, staying calm and keeping to the vision (and mentor lunches with Dr Terry for moral support and practical guidance) was the style that prevailed. You can read about what they learned about leadership in their book, Niche Content Millionaire.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites.

Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now