Your Business Superpowers: Being Kind AND Tough

By Dr Phil Renshaw (Cranfield School of Management) and Jenny Robinson (Henley Business School), Authors of ‘Coaching on the Go, who explain more about your Business Superpowers

Hindsight is a wonderful thing because it helps us generate learning and then translate that learning into the future.  Using the power of hindsight, we asked a group of leaders what advice they would like to have given to their younger selves on the lessons they’ve learned about leadership. These leaders have global experience across many sectors including high ranks in the military, working as entrepreneurs, leaders in project management and the tech sector. Through their answers we have the benefit of several centuries of insight and how else would you get that?

Your Business Superpowers

In collating these leaders’ insights, we were struck by the very obvious and by the very human ideas that they shared.  For example, they emphasised the requirement to be a decent, caring, supportive leader whilst at the same time paying attention to the tough decisions and the difficult conversations.

It is not often that words such as kindness and compassion appear in a leadership survey!  But here they were loud and clear.  We loved and applauded the depth and significance of their “passion and compassion”, their alertness to the need to “beware what others are going through” and the power of “love expressed practically and thoughtfully in the workplace and beyond, [and how this] nourishes relationships, builds trust and ultimately forges effective teams. It also feels good”. As one leader put it, “nurturing others is your superpower”.

But before they appear to have gone all soft, we need to point to the tough stuff too. These leaders were quick to coach their younger selves to have impact. There is an understanding that focussing uniquely on supporting others is insufficient – it’s not solely about having an impact on individuals’ and colleagues’ needs, but also the overall impact on the business at hand. There was clear recognition of a leader’s role in ‘making decisions and giving directives’ without which long term success is not attainable. Balanced with compassion, impact was a critical concept. A business with happy people but no revenue – is not a business.

All noble ideals have a near-enemy. Near enemies can look like their noble sister but they are not. So, the near-enemy of kindness might be ‘people pleasing’, in other words pleasing people first and ignoring revenue and profit. Leaders suffer from ‘people pleasing’ just as much as the rest of us. A need to please others might look like kindness, but instead be subconscious cowardice. Without the right balance, too much ‘people pleasing’ and there will be no business to run.

Caring is an act of strength because it makes a leader vulnerable rather than shutting down their empathy, but caring is not people pleasing. This idea matters because our leaders also tell us that it is easy to be delusional about one’s talents. Consider your kindness and whether you give it sufficient, and yet appropriate attention, to ensure it has the effect that will benefit everyone in the long term. Be both kind and caring, yet also effective.

About Leaders’ Voices

Leaders’ Voices is a research project by Dr Phil Renshaw (Cranfield School of Management) and Jenny Robinson (Henley Business School), Authors of ‘Coaching on the Go: How to lead your team in 10 minutes a day’. The project aims to give voice to leaders’ real unfiltered experience and to examine the nuances and ambiguities that are rarely heard or noticed.  In doing so, they aim to reveal the range of personal experiences that demonstrate that leaders are humans, not demi-Gods. That we can all demonstrate aspects of leadership.

Author Bios

Jenny and Phil run Leadership On the Go Limited, a leadership development, mindfulness and coaching consultancy dedicated to learning on the go. Together they have extensive experience of being leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as coaching and supporting others. They believe that we can all learn on the go, when information is bite-size and built into the everyday situations we face. Leadership on the Go is founded on the belief that leadership is not a role, but a personal choice. Phil and Jenny teach managers and leaders from all levels of organisations, the skills of coaching to improve their leadership capabilities.

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E: Phil@coachingonthego.co.uk

E: Jenny@coachingonthego.co.uk

www.coachingonthego.co.uk

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