Leaders invariably transform situations using the available resources such as human assistants to achieve a specific goal or change in society whether positive or negative. This is true both in the wider society and in the most prosaic confines of the corporate world.
Leaders by design or accident inevitably develop a brand that marks them out from others. This brand molds others’ perception of their leadership style.
A recent conversation I had with a friend about a corporate leader that showed uncommon courage to go against the cutthroat culture of Corporate America made me reflect on leadership as a brand.
After I shared the young CEO’s story with my friend, he asked me if I knew the CEO’s fundamental attribute that made him a great leader; that enabled him to be effective and successful in his business. I said that it would be difficult to pinpoint one because so many attributes combine to make a great leader.
After a few moments of thought, he said empathy. Empathy, I repeated somewhat disappointed that he had not chosen other more commonly perceived attributes such as physical characteristics, vision, intelligence, etc. He explained that empathy enables the leader to gain the trust, love, devotion, and belief of followers because the leader gets them.
This connection to the hearts and minds of the followers is essential for the leader to be able to effect the transformational change clearly etched in his/her vision.
He further said that the devastating economic effects of the pandemic underscored the importance of this attribute as companies struggled with tough, survival decisions.
The young CEO in my story is Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company in Idaho, a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. He came into limelight last year when he announced that he slashed his own salary four years ago so that he could raise all his employees’ pay so each one will earn a minimum annual salary of $70,000 by the year 2024. He had been inspired to make this change when he found out that his staff were struggling to make ends meet while he was earning millions.
Predictably, he caught a lot of flak for doing this and was even accused of using the announcement as a cheap publicity stunt to drive business to his company. When COVID-19 hit, the company’s revenues dropped by 55% in March 2020.
In response, Dan met with his about 200 employees and shared the tough news about the company’s situation explaining that he needed their support to keep the business running and that he did not want to lay off anyone. The response was positive as nearly every employee voluntarily agreed to cut a percent of their pay ranging from 5% to 100%.
This helped the company weather the storm. Revenue has since picked up after that time although it is still down by about 20% but it was enough for him to roll back the pay cuts.
Dan has established a leadership brand built on pragmatic empathy and a social contract with his employees.
One could argue that such an attribute is easier to live by in a small, private company such as Dan’s and may not be sustainable over the long run. A harsh critic may also say that it is not even a practical attribute for a CEO of a publicly quoted company that has to meet quarterly earnings targets or risk getting tossed out.
However, his unique leadership brand enabled him attract highly qualified people from established companies who have bought into his ideas as well as influence other CEOs who have adopted his empathetic approach to leadership. Megan Driscoll, the CEO of Pharmalogics adopted his idea when she first heard him speak at a conference in 2015.
As immigrants from a different corporate culture, the concept of leadership brand may not resonate strongly with us because soft skills in management of people are not wholly emphasized or even taught to management. One might go as far as saying that it is an afterthought at best. Promotion to leadership positions and success as leaders are not always strongly correlated with the soft skills that underpin leadership branding but are tied to other factors.
The leadership brand reflects the unspoken promise that you make to your colleagues, peers, boss, and senior management that you are ready for the next step up the ladder of management.
Your leadership brand reflects who you are as a person first before you are seen as a leader. In fact, your personal brand, which I had written about in an earlier article plays a role in how you are going to be perceived as a potential candidate for a leadership position.
As a leader with empathy, it is easier to get the best out of your team because you are able to connect with them at the human level and get them to give you their best which transforms them to a high-performance team. This also works in cross-functional team projects and further helps to burnish your reputation which translates to others having positive leadership brand experiences with you.
You should not wait till you become a leader to start building your leadership brand. Chances are that if you wait others may define in terms that do not do you justice and your brand becomes tainted to the point that you won’t even be considered for leadership position even if you’re qualified for such positions.
There are a few steps to take to develop and maintain your leadership brand.
The first step is self-awareness. You need to ask yourself what are the attributes that you possess that would make you a good leader and those that you would need to develop to be the kind of leader that you want to be. One key attribute that immigrants who are people of color need to work on more than others is effective verbal and nonverbal communication. Leaders are expected to be able to communicate their ideas. For us immigrants, our foreign accents and nonverbal gestures make us appear as if we cannot communicate effectively. This creates a leadership perception deficit which has to be overcome.
Secondly, seek feedback from people with whom you interact with to see if that is how they see you and ask them to tell you why they see you that way so that you figure out how to reconcile the divergence.
Lastly, articulate those attributes and write them down and constantly assess where you are with them periodically to ensure that you are on track. These attributes may have to change over time depending on where you are on your career journey and what is valued in your organization.
However. it is very important to be true to yourself about who you are and what kind of leader you want to be. You must be genuinely invested in improving yourself and always seek feedback to keep yourself on the right track.
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Ernest Onuorah, MBA, is a financial services risk consultant, author, speaker, and career coach. He had worked at consulting and financial service firms including PWC, TD, RBC, BMO, and Home Trust Company, a $2.5 billion niche mortgage lender, where he was AVP, Enterprise Risk Management. He holds the CRISC, FRM and CRM designations. His areas of expertise are Enterprise & Operational Risk Management. He can be reached at ernest.onuorah@localhost.
