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Should leaders eat last?

Should leaders be the ones to eat last? The US Marines believe so, as it shows they care for their people and are prepared to sacrifice for them. It’s why Simon Sinek chose Leaders Eat Last as the title of his best-selling book, first published in 2014. We selected it as the topic for our Rotary Club’s recent Book Club meeting, where we also discussed how Sinek’s American context applies here. I certainly don’t need to comment on when most of our Kenyan leaders eat – definitely not last!

Central to the requirements for being the kind of leaders Sinek wishes to see is the generation of broad “Circles of Safety” in their organisations. Within these circles staff trust one another, are therefore open and collaborative and so perform well, not least in dealing with external threats. Such leaders promote integrity and have evolved an uplifting purpose for their people, which generates the stamina to defer gratification and reach for long-term sustainability.

There’s lots more in the book about good contemporary leadership, including examples of role models who defy the pressure to go for easier short-term results. By contrast, leaders who turn a blind eye to the benefits of circles of safety tend to reduce their consideration of people issues to mere numbers, making it much easier to slash staff levels in hard times without feeling any pain or empathy. It’s why one of us homed in on Sinek’s insistence on the development of a healthy culture being at the centre of positive leadership.

For me it was interesting that the book was published in 2014. As had Sinek been writing it today he would have explicitly placed Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) issues at the heart of everything, since much of what he complained about and sought is what ESG initiatives promote: ethical sustainability.

We all appreciated Sinek’s easy-to-follow description of the four hormones, the biological chemicals within us, two selfish and two selfless ones that get stimulated in our system. On the selfish front we have Endorphines and Dopamine, that drove our ancestors to be hunter-gatherers. Endorphines mask physical pain, as in “the runner’s high”, while Dopamine makes us feel good when we accomplish something.

Then Sinek describes the selfless chemicals, that make us feel valued when we are appreciated and trusted and keep the circle of safety intact. Serotonin makes us feel strong and confident, proud, while Oxytocin delivers the feeling of friendship and love when we are with close and trusted friends. It makes us social, and feeling that we belong.

We noted that our Rotary presidents tend to eat last, after they’ve done with managing our lunch meetings, but generally we felt that leaders should be eating with their people not after them. We all agreed though that leaders should be the last to speak, having first listened to the other voices.

Uhuru Kenyatta was one of those who recognised the organised discipline of military leaders, putting senior military officers in charge of Nairobi County, the Kenya Meat Commission and elsewhere. And just now William Ruto praised the leadership style of the late General Ogolla. “Are there lessons here for our politicians?” asked one of us, “Or are they beyond redemption?” My concern is that I don’t see them ever sitting together as we were at our Book Club, discussing the fundamental issues of leadership. It’s what should be happening more of at places like the Kenya School of Government.

On the positive side though, we heard praise for the progress made in Makueni County, thanks to its first Governor, Kivutha Kibwana, and now Mutula Kilonzo Jr. I could also have added the good example of the first Governor of Laikipia, Ndiritu Muriithi, another who showed how a leader can make a transformative difference.

Towards the end of the book Sinek writes extensively on why millennials are as they are and how to handle them constructively, and here two of our members talked about their challenges in dealing with such young ones in the medical field. Sinek helps us understand the importance of when and therefore how different generations were brought up, and I mentioned that I am too old to be a baby boomer, having been born before World War II was over. I have therefore been brought up with frugality, which I have held on to since… like squeezing the last bit out of toothpaste tubes. ‘Me too,’ echoed another Rotarian, much younger than me… and a dentist by profession!

In conclusion, reading the book stimulated us positively, so my fellow Rotarians and I recommend it to you.

The growing compliance community

Nearly six years ago I wrote a column here about what I called “the necessary evil of compliance”, the theme of a Leaders Circle I had just co-hosted. In it I quoted former Deputy US Attorney-General Paul McNulty, who rightly pointed out that “If you think compliance is expensive, try non-compliance”. And in our conversation we agreed that one must be neither too trusting nor insufficiently so.

These thoughts were on my mind while attending the first day of the recent Nielsonsmith conference on “Compliance, Anti-Corruption and Ethics in Africa” where I was representing the Blue Company, one of the sponsors. During the conference I saw quite how prominent this compliance issue has become, with more and more organisations appointing compliance managers dedicated exclusively to this function.

We first heard from Tomell Ceasra, the co-founder of MEACA, the Middle East and Africa Compliance Association, and then from Laban Omangi, the chairman of the Compliance Society of Kenya, who told us how the society was formed in 2020 to bring together the compliance community within the finance sector, and now how it is spreading more broadly.

They’ve been studying the way to bring various institutions together to assemble compliance guidelines, and to offer professional training and certification in their specialty. They work together with Business Member Organisations (BMOs) and with regulators. And they worry about dealing with the financing of terrorism and with money-laundering funds derived from the proceeds of crime.

On the subject of whistleblowers, we heard about the factors that inhibit such people, including fear of retaliation; no response and no action being taken following their input – perhaps due to “untouchables” being involved; and a general lack of trust. Rita Mwangi, the Chief Legal and People Officer of Simba Corporation, talked about international and local legislation and how to comply. She highlighted the low positioning on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index of all but a very few African countries, with most either stuck where they are or regressing.

I was happy to hear her say we don’t lack legislation, either internationally or locally, rather what we need is improved enforcement – including through the increasing requirements of ESG reporting. As far as private sector self-regulation is concerned, because membership of many BMOs is voluntary the good guys join but the bad ones do not, thus evading the pressure to comply.

Peter Odedina, the Chief Compliance Officer of Airtel Africa next went into specifics on how to be compliant. He talked about the tone at the top being a key culture driver; appropriate incentives and penalties being important; the need for policies, codes of conduct; appropriate staff induction and ongoing communication with them; and the importance of enjoying an appropriate and aligned appetite for risk.

5% of the top line revenue of any company is lost due to fraud, he asserted. So what are the red flags? 43% are people seen to be living beyond their means, benefitting from a close association with vendors or customers; 23% face financial difficulties; and 21% are wheeler-dealers.

“Are compliance issues integrated into our organisation’s strategies and values, influencing the attitudes and behaviour of our people, thus forming an ethical culture?” we were asked.

The theme of the panel where I was a member read “Tone from the Top, Mood in the Middle, and Groove on the Ground”, where the role of middle managers was one of the issues discussed. There’s a whole spectrum at this level, from those who act as interpreters and mediators between the lower levels and their higher bosses, and those who are blockers and distracters. Much of course depends on that tone at the top. Are senior management keen to see the learning and growth of the next layers, so they rise up the organisation? Are they coaches? Do they provide a healthy performance management environment, with appropriate incentives? Do they inspire and motivate others to live their vision and values?

I was rather an exception in the room. Pretty much everyone else was deep in the compliance ecosystem, while I was viewing the topic from a much broader perspective. Those there were preaching to the already converted – which is fine, as it gave them the opportunity to interact, to learn and to reinforce each other. I hope they continue doing so beyond the conference, and that the event will have led to new alliances and collaborations that will raise the level of compliance… while not suffocating innovation and risk-taking.

Coaching vice-chancellors

Last October I was invited to be one of the facilitators at a British Council-sponsored induction workshop for the newly appointed vice-chancellors (VCs) and principals of public universities, and recently I was invited to play a similar role at a leadership training workshop for all the VCs and principals of the public universities. My topic in October was ‘Transformative Leadership and Integrity’, and this time round I was asked to talk about ‘Strategies for Enhancing Organisational Culture’, with Equity Bank’s James Mwangi handling my earlier topic.

The theme of the October workshop was ‘Developing Visionary and Effective University Leaders’, while the more recent one being on ‘Developing Strategic, Focused and Results-Oriented University Leaders’.

On each occasion, for several days the VCs were exposed to facilitators from various sectors. The participants interacted with each other and the facilitators and reflected on how to follow up on what they had learned while together.

Impressively too, there’s a Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, a forum for consultation, coordination and cooperation, and it was this committee that organised the two workshops. It is chaired by Daniel Mugendi, the VC of the University of Embu, and the coordinator of the programme was Peninah Aloo-Obudho, the VC of Maasai Mara University.

Where else do we see such organised collaboration between the CEOs of institutions in a particular domain – whether in the public sector or elsewhere? Kudos to the Vice-Chancellors, and also to the Ministry of Education, its Higher Education and Research department, the British Council and the quartet of sponsoring banks, namely KCB, Equity, Co-Operative Bank and NCBA.

It was bold of them to include my topic of culture strengthening, as many leaders – I might even say most – and in whichever sector, while having an adequate sense of their current culture and being able to put together a statement of their aspirational one, have little or no idea as to how to transition from one to the other.

Indeed, as I spelt out in my presentation (and as was the topic of my last column), they might not even have a proper idea of the actual culture, being overwhelmed by “The Iceberg of Ignorance”.

So my contribution was to give the vice-chancellors some ideas about how to dissolve the iceberg and get their various stakeholders to open up and talk freely about the extent to which they are living their values and what they need to do more of and less of to live them more fully.

Universities are complex institutions, with multiple internal and external stakeholders, each with their own expectations of how to behave and how to interact. So how to bring them together to unify around the visions and values of their university? How to align the council with the senior faculty and other management? How to align the back-office functions with the outward-facing ones? How to make the academic and non-academic trade unions and the student unions partners rather than adversaries? And that’s just internal stakeholders.

I described ways of negotiating win-win outcomes, with each stakeholder willing to indulge in give-and-take dialogue. This requires time and mediation skills to bring everyone closer together so that energy is not wasted in unproductive stalemates and conflicts.

I wish the Vice-Chancellors well as they go back to apply what they had learned in the forums.

Back to my opening thoughts, where I praised this coming together of CEOs. Too often our training institutions stop short of inviting the top leadership to such gatherings, only reaching the upper-middle levels, and not least in the public sector – although the Kenya School of Government is now reaching further upwards.

Read: The must-have tool for modern business leaders

At the top level we know that some actually worry about exposing themselves to colleagues for fear of their shortcomings being revealed. And, the know-it-alls merely look down the organisational pyramid to see whom they should send for training.

But there’s no one too senior to learn, up to and including Cabinet Secretaries and the President. For those at such levels, one-on-one coaching is ideal, complementing group learning. And for the VCs and other CEOs, coaching should also be considered.

Women leaders can fight smiling

I am sharing with you a conversation I had with three young women leaders, launched by one of them about a situation in which she found herself. “I am the only woman on this board, and one of the men asked me to get him a cup of tea,” she narrated and asked how I would have reacted.

Earlier I had shown myself to be a champion for women, so she was surprised and dismayed when I replied that I would have brought him the tea. I explained that otherwise I would have risked provoking resentment on his part, and hence quite likely jeopardised our relationship.

My suggestion was that she should be building her status as a board member by making high-quality contributions, leading people like him to perhaps think again about such requests.

However, I would not have left the matter there. I hoped her chairman — or another director — was someone she could have approached after the meeting, requesting him to speak to his fellow board member and suggest he find other ways of getting his tea.

She revealed that she had indeed refused to be the “tea-girl”, and quite assertively so, but it turned out that at the subsequent board meeting and consistently thereafter other staff provided the service.

She wasn’t aware of how this came about, but she was relieved that she no longer risked being placed in this awkward situation.

Others in our group now had their say, with one suggesting she would have just put the tea on the table without actually serving the man, and another saying she would have smiled as she responded, whether accepting or refusing his request.

I now had two of the women role-play the situation, with one acting the part of the man. How did he feel when his request was strongly rejected? Was he embarrassed and remorseful? Did he resent the snub? It’s good to put oneself in the other’s shoes.

As we continued, I decided to call my wife, who has over the years often been the only woman on a board. Had she ever been asked to be the tea-girl? And if so how did she handle the situation? No, she hadn’t, she told me, but if asked she would have done so – with a smile and a light touch.

I then brought the conversation to the subject of emotional intelligence, which I suggested is about negotiating win-win outcomes. The challenge here was how to deal with the tea request in a way that both parties ended up feeling OK about it all.

And for me that meant giving way at the outset, while finding gentle ways of preventing a recurrence. Not necessarily by engaging directly with the other person, but perhaps seeking the intervention of a third party, a mediator.

One aspect of emotional intelligence is that sometimes we need to find the strength to separate how we feel from how we behave.

For sure, the lady board member resented being asked to be the tea-girl. But my thought was for her to swallow her short-term pride to allow for an easier long-term resolution.

Here we were talking about a small matter, however demeaned the lady in question felt. But the pluses and minuses of the different approaches we discussed among us regarding the tea-serving apply much more broadly. And not just between men and women.

It can be between older and younger people, senior and junior ones, the more and the less educated, and other pairings where one side feels unduly entitled to favours.

A final word on women’s empowerment. Any time I hear about women “fighting” for their rights it worries me. For in fights there are winners and losers.

Where such aggressive women win their fight, one of their key measures is that men will lose. No, I say. I am an absolute supporter of women’s rights, but wherever possible to go after them in graceful, elegant ways that allow for win-win all round.

Going back to the days of the British suffragettes who struggled to obtain the right to vote for women in the early 20th century there were two groups: one that was confrontational and dramatic, and one that operated more quietly but at least as effectively. I would have been with the latter.

So to the women reading this I say, smile rather than frown as you advocate for your cause. And to the men, go get your own tea.

Good, bad world and my way

My colleague Frank Kretzschmar and I recently hosted another of our leaders’ circles, where participants tell personal stories around a theme we select.

Regular readers of this column may remember articles I have written about earlier such events, including one titled Now more than ever: sustainable living with heart and mind and another, Holding on to optimism – we can set an example.

This latest one invited us to balance the positive and the negative, through our theme of Good world, bad world… and my way in it.

We asked those in our circle to share with us how they were dealing with the uncertainties and contradictions that emerge out of nowhere and confront us all, and to tell us whether they were able to remain positive in spite of the troubling global and local situations in which we live.

While those present were generally still doing fine, how were they touched by the desperate plight of so many people around them?

And to what extent were they going beyond empathy to compassionate action that was making a difference?

As always, before our meeting Frank and I searched for quotes to display around the room that could inspire our storytellers, and among those we chose for this theme was one from the Dalai Lama, who reassured us that “compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength”, and another from Barack Obama, who commented that “empathy is a quality of character that can change the world”.

Those we invited were not selected at random. Defying diversity and inclusivity, they did not include rabble-rousing politicians or criminal gang leaders or tenderpreneurs, ones who would have sneered at the very thought of worrying about the plight of others.

Rather, we heard from men and women who were concerned about building a better and more sustainable world – this while at the same time being realistic about the “bad” around us.

Taken together, should we be more optimistic or pessimistic about the direction in which we are heading?

The negative consequences of climate change and Covid, of the war in Ukraine and the increase in authoritarianism, of inflation and inequality, can easily lead us to be overwhelmingly gloomy, to conclude that the bad is outpacing the good, we heard from some.

But we were also reminded that much good is with us too – however underplayed by the media, which always emphasises the bad and the ugly.

Life expectancy has been rising in many countries, while global poverty has reduced, and there have been breakthroughs in treating cancer and other health issues.

“It’s a matter of perspective,” one participant suggested, adding that “when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”.

Much of how they were actualising their compassion was taking place quietly, and not least among the peace-builders in the room – for here success often depends on behind-the-scenes engagement.

Everyone was very realistic, accepting that even “doing small things in small ways” is fine, while they “did the right things in the right way” to make the world a better place.

They acknowledged that we all do what we can within our generation, while also being aware of its consequences for future ones.

Here we heard a brilliant quote from Thomas Jefferson, who told his people that “we will be soldiers, so that our sons can be farmers, so that their sons can be artists.”

Not gender-sensitive by today’s standards, but point made.

The subject of values kept cropping up, for it is the promotion of healthy ones that enables good people to thrive rather than evil ones.

And while this issue hovered over us throughout the afternoon, our time limits did not allow it to be aired fully.

In their closing reflections, several appreciated how they had been greatly encouraged by hearing the positive stories of those around them, leading them to feel more cheerful and optimistic than when they had arrived.

Mentoring women leaders

Business Monthly magazine recently published a list of our 25 most influential CEOs, and 14 of those selected were women.

So good news: in recent years, female representation on boards and in senior management positions in Kenya has been on a steady increase.

Yet despite the significant gains made in the past decade or so, many organisations still lack substantial female representation at the senior leadership level.

Organisations like Davis & Shirtliff (where I am a director) have been working on filling this gap through a mentoring programme for empowering their women to fulfil their potential as leaders, and I thought it would be helpful to share how they’ve been going about it.

The “Women in Leadership” programme was started in 2022, with women who have already reached senior management positions mentoring other female staff members to nurture their leadership skills, attitudes and behaviours.

It utilises storytelling as a powerful tool, where these senior female staff share how struggles and victories in their personal lives have related to and impacted their performance in their professional lives.

The programme regularly attracts up to 170 online attendees each month, and the presenters have been described as refreshingly vulnerable and honest about their experiences.

The mentors share what they have been through regarding issues such as work-life balance, physical and mental health, disappointments and career progression in the workplace.

The sessions are open to all female staff, whatever their rank, profession or position, and Margaret Kuchio, a General Manager in the company and the programme’s patron, emphasises that inclusivity is key, as are the informal conversations that occur after the sessions between mentors and mentees.

The reality is that some of the biggest obstacles that women are facing now, both in the corporate world and elsewhere, are the absence of an enabling environment in which they can grow their competencies and rise through the managerial ranks – despite being just as capable and growth-oriented as their male counterparts.

It is out of this realisation that workplace mentoring programmes have become increasingly popular in Kenya, as more female mentors are now there to act as role models for other women in the organisation.

These mentors can guide and advise their junior counterparts, inspiring them to greater heights. For a young woman observing a female leader in her organisation with whom she identifies and who is breaking glass ceilings and thriving in her field, gives her the confidence that she too can advance to those upper levels.

The value of such women in leadership programmes is that through their mentoring the women in management positions are showing how they can make a transformative contribution to empowering other women in the modern workplace to grow despite the ongoing real obstacles.

Understandably, many women believe that to rise the corporate ladder they must be “made of steel” and behave in a “manly” way.

But in the safe space of the “Women in Leadership” programme, women share stories that debunk this myth and expose vulnerabilities that had been misconceived as non-existent.

Hearing a senior manager speak of how she rose through the ranks in the workplace while at the same time dealing with health or owes as they grapple with their own trials.

Mentorship programmes built on such platforms not only expose younger professionals to the glass ceilings that have been shattered by their seniors, but they also let the younger generation in on how their seniors manoeuvred their way through the barriers without cutting themselves too much as they were breaking the glass.

A few years ago McKinsey conducted a much-quoted study that found women to be better leaders than men in providing emotional support to staff, helping them navigate work-life challenges, and checking in on their general well-being.

Companies that run mentorship programmes that are for women and by women are tapping into the rich resource of women who have already earned the right to sit at the top tables.

And such initiatives will surely significantly strengthen their organisational culture and their performance. I happen to be speaking as a man, but what’s that got to do with it?

Competent or confident politician?

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Some time ago I wrote an article about Trump as a man whose I’m-OK-You’re-not-OK behaviour, one that required consistent win-lose interactions with others, masked a deeply insecure soul. Yet despite these insecurities, despite this lack of self-esteem, he built up extraordinary self-confidence, and through bullying, cheating and lying he achieved all that he did.

I refer to this as I recently read a provocative article in the London Times about Britain’s immediate former Prime Minister, Liz Truss. The headline said it all: “Truss proves talent-free bluster isn’t just for men”. And the opening paragraph tells us she broke one of the last glass ceilings. Not as the first female PM in her country, for she was not, but as “the first woman to reach the highest office propelled by gargantuan self-belief alone”.

Writer Janice Turner rightly reckons the kind of self-belief she displayed has not been associated with her gender. Indeed, she tells us, feminists have been known to pray “Lord, grant me the confidence of a mediocre man”.

We’ve been reading a lot about women holding back from higher office while younger and less experienced men lobby their way through. Here though, Ms Turner observed “a shameless, narcissistic, talent-free sense of entitlement”. Wow. Lots in common with Trump for sure, and indeed with so many politicians the world over.

I have also written about the competence-confidence matrix, with the competent one who lacks confidence often suffering from the “imposter syndrome”, while the confident one who lacks competence displays a cocky arrogance. The ideal position, as espoused by my heroes such as Ed Schein and Adam Grant, are those who behave with “confident humility”.

So where is Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss’s successor, in all of this? In a much better place. We have been reading about the values with which he was brought up and which it appears he has been able to largely hold on to despite entering the cut and thrust world of win-lose politics: family, honesty, education and hard work. Not a bad quartet.

His competence, certainly in matters financial, is indisputable. And his communication skills are definitely superior to hers. Well, that’s no big deal, as rarely have I come across such a wooden performer as Liz Truss in such a high office. Boy was she in need of coaching…but who knows, maybe her excess of self-esteem over self-awareness made her uncoachable.

How about our politicians here? For sure some are more competent than others, and some are better communicators than others. Many are at their best at high-octane campaign rallies whose objectives are mere entertainment, hype and goodies-distribution, while others know how to switch between such show-business performance and more serious and substantive output.

To be a politician, confidence is everything. As each one puts themselves forward for election, they are certain they will win, however justified or unjustified their optimism. So it was with Truss, so it was with Sunak; and so it was with all our political candidates in August, including those who lost.

Our responsibility as citizens is to study the competence-confidence mix of those who seek our votes, where competence includes adherence to good values and where mere confidence is woefully insufficient.

It was good to see the Mkenya Daima campaign focusing on this requirement for not only selecting good men and women, but then holding those who succeed at the ballot to account. It is why the Mkenya Daima tag line is Nitatenda Wajibu Wangu (I will do my responsibility).

It’s so dispiriting to me to see huge numbers of voters in the developed world casting their support for the Trumps and the Trusses of this world.

It shows the weakness in the civic education provided in so many countries that allows for populist promise-makers to get away with what they clearly should not… including Boris Johnson and his Brexit ones.

We’ve been through our elections just a few months ago. Have we selected enough of the humbly competent? Stay on the ball, fellow Kenyans, as President William Ruto has challenged us to do.

Rishi Sunak promised British citizens a government of “professionalism, integrity and accountability at all levels”. And President Ruto, when he confirmed his new cabinet, also called for integrity and accountability. We must indeed “do our responsibility”.

Five reasons teams are dysfunctional

I was recently asked to run a team-building workshop based on the 2002 book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Let me summarise what author Patrick Lencioni laid out in his gripping fable about how Kathryn Petersen, DecisionTech’s newly installed CEO, faced the ultimate leadership crisis: uniting a team in such disarray that it threatened to bring down the entire company.

For most of the book it is uncertain as to whether she would succeed, but her experience from elsewhere allowed her to work with the awkward set of characters who made up the senior management team, and against all odds the company survived.

Lencioni is of the view that teams are inherently dysfunctional, made up of imperfect individuals who suffer from inflated egos and pursue selfish goals. Here’s how the book opens: “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.”

I’ll comment later on that view, but let me continue with his valid conclusion that strong and deliberate steps must be taken to facilitate teamwork. The fictional book shows how a skilled team leader can do a great deal to make their team effective, and it takes us through Kathryn’s manoeuvres to rescue the dysfunctional group of characters the board had hired her to sort out.

Through his story, Lencioni reveals the five dysfunctions which go to the heart of why teams struggle so badly. At the base of his pyramid of dysfunctions lies the absence of trust, which prevents team members from showing vulnerability within their group.

In the context of building a team, trust enables team members to be confident that their peers’ intentions are good, and that there is no reason to be protective or careful around the group. Teammates must become comfortable being vulnerable with one another.

Above mistrust comes fear of conflict, where those involved seek artificial harmony over constructive, passionate debate. Next, and again as a result of the lower dysfunction, is lack of commitment, merely pretending to buy in to group decisions, thereby creating ambiguity and lack of clarity.

All this sees team members avoid holding each other accountable, with low standards the consequence. And finally there’s lack of focus on results, as status and ego interfere with harmonised action.

To conclude, therefore, Lencioni urges us to find people who can demonstrate trust, engage in conflict, commit to group decisions, hold their peers accountable, and focus on the results of the team and not on own egos.

While the book is certainly exciting to read, full of breakthroughs and setbacks, I emerged less than convinced by Lencioni’s pessimistic view of human nature, and I also had reservations about his exclusive focus on overcoming the negative dysfunctions while insufficiently nurturing their positive counterparts.

Lencioni has his CEO relish conflict as a means of resolving issues, and while where there are conflicts they should indeed not be avoided, I am not convinced that she need have taken her team on such a painful journey.

Indeed in my workshop I had the team focus on how to build on the positive aspects within their team of the five functions of trust, dealing with conflict, commitment, accountability and focus on results.

It’s a great quintet of team factors, but my approach of working with “Appreciative Inquiry” would have me guide Kathryne differently. Also, my experience is different from Lencioni’s in that I have not found teamwork to be “so rare”.

However, I strongly recommend that you read the book, since it will stimulate you – as it did me – to reflect deeply on how people behave and what drives them, and then to assess whether the approach Lencioni advocates is the one you as a leader would feel is the one to adopt. It’s a book you won’t want to put down.

Before the workshop, the team members were also invited to watch a TED talk by Harvard Professor Amy Edmonson that nicely complemented the Lencioni book.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhoLuui9gX8 The essence of her talk was that where there is complexity, uncertainty and interdependence, one should promote curiosity and experimentation, accept fallibility, and so deliver psychological safety. Sounds like good advice.

The personal drivers to success

I recently facilitated a very interesting workshop that brought together Africa region’s leaders of a long-established multinational. Thanks to Covid, this was the first time they were meeting physically, and this under their recently installed president.

As we were preparing the workshop he told me he wanted to share with his team what he described as his “personal success drivers”, his “rules for himself”.

Having come up with this thought, and looking back on other teams he had led, he regretted not having shared such thoughts with them, as a result of which he realised they weren’t sure what his expectations would be, either of himself or of them.

While fully accepting that it’s not how he always behaves, it is how he knows he should. “I am sharing these thoughts with you so that you get to know me better,” he explained, adding “I know that if I state my intentions publicly you will hold me accountable to do as I say.” All so impressive.

The first of his big three drivers, taken from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, is getting the right people on the bus, and in the right position. Addressing performance issues decisively is uniquely challenging work, he acknowledged, and tolerating second best has a very negative impact, resulting in unfairness, toxicity and lethargy.

Job number two, he continued, is creating a winning culture where everyone is operating at their best. “Do my manager, my team, my work environment, my business make me feel like I’m all-in?” they need to ask.

Thirdly, he believes it’s the biggest current businesses and the biggest opportunities that must always get most of his attention: the 80:20 rule.

He then listed his remaining seven drivers, all to do with empowering the best talent relative to the biggest priorities. When it matters, he likes understanding business issues and business plans “in data-based depth”, appreciating that questioning assumptions is a great way to learn, as is history.

“If we are not defensive about past mistakes, weaknesses, unmet needs and gaps with others, then each gap becomes an opportunity to grow our business,” he declared.

He wants to talk about the business the way it is, not the way people want it to be. “Face the brutal facts so we can do something about them,” he urged, acknowledging that balancing communication is an art form and separates good leadership from bad.

Trust is key to this, and rating performance on results, analysing what is working and what is not.

He will be transparent, and he does not like filtering information from his team, while trusting that everyone will to do the same. They must all “question, challenge, confront and clarify”. He then admitted to “overcommunicating”, repeating himself so as to ensure the full absorption of his messages.

And he called for “good sense email practice”. His organisation has recently introduced a matrix structure, and this is always a challenging environment within which to communicate and coordinate. But the team must get used to working within the matrix.

Don’t surprise him, he requested, and he won’t surprise them. He is accountable to his people, he readily accepted, for handling interactions with his seniors on “the tough stuff”.

And he cares deeply about how happy they feel working with each other. If something he’s doing is not working for them, he wants them to tell him. He will do the same, but as trust is being built, a go-between may be helpful.

The junior most person who is qualified to lead the way should do so, he continued, challenging such people to present proposed solutions with every challenge. For this to work well they must be empowered.

And asking the right questions will provide the path to such empowerment and hence enable the people to deliver success. “This is always better than telling people what to do,” he concluded, asking the team to help him avoid the “it’s faster if I do it” trap.

Finally, he insisted that “it is not ‘OR’, it’s ‘AND’.”, as lazy choices must be avoided. It is not, for instance, a choice between focusing on financial results or on people, or between short and long-term results. It is both.

Taming the abuse of power

Readers of this column will have seen previous articles of mine in which I have written about Leaders Circles I have facilitated with my colleague Frank Kretzschmar. The last one was about sustainability, and the theme of our most recent one was “How we deal with power: from victim to perpetrator to victim”.

We’ve all heard that “information is power”, and as Frank and I looked up other suitable quotes before our story-telling gathering we came across some useful provocations, including “Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best,” from doomsday merchant Edward Abbe; and, also pessimistically, William Gaddis shared that “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”

More upliftingly, Lao Tzu told us that “Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” And Alice Walker reminded us that “the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

How power is wielded lies at the centre of whether things work or don’t work, we briefed our participants as we invited them to the event. Power itself is values-neutral. So at what point does it become good or bad? Where and how does abuse begin?

Who determines that power was indeed abused? How is it even possible that power does get abused? Does it happen when moral concepts are excluded from the exercising of power? When corruption is used to distort rules of the game that had been based on a broad consensus? When individual powerful people lose all sense of self-awareness and proportion?

We are seeing that too many neurotics and egocentrics are key players in the power game. And as a result, we give up on essential issues out of comfort, thoughtlessness or anticipatory obedience. They then take advantage of the resulting vacuum. Are we not to blame for this?

So how do you tame the abuse of power? As leaders, you cannot do without power. How do you empower yourself and others? And how far may or must you go in order to gain (back) power and influence?

How do the exercise of power and ethical action coexist, for there are fewer and fewer fixed reference systems? Exercising power without stepping over the boundaries of individuals is not possible. But is it possible to exercise power while remaining innocent? It is undoubtedly a question of balance.

We were interested to hear where and how those who participated in our event have succeeded in keeping power in the good area, and this we certainly did. We learned about the challenge of leading volunteers, in business and professional organisations, and in service clubs like Rotary and Lions.

And we talked about the need to “decolonise” and spread decision-making from the over-influential Global North towards the Global South, including in how research funds are allocated.

We also heard stories of power abusers – from our own traffic police to Vladimir Putin – and of being the direct victims of more powerful and unconstrained players.

One spoke about the fragility of power, as evidenced in the Arab Spring (and more recently in Sri Lanka, and with Johnson in the UK); while another worried about the constraints faced by the UN Security Council in fulfilling its mission of holding the world together.

I reflected that rather than wanting to feel powerful, my expectation was and is that I can be of influence, and above all in bringing people together – as a mediator, an integrator, a connector.

I enjoy helping others to building their capacity so I can empower them, and hence delegate to them. I see the goodness of power-sharing, which requires openness and trust.

Here I am, deep into my third age, a time of life when most of us no longer expect to wield direct power (except, perhaps, in the political arena). One way in which I hope I am being of influence is through these columns.

A few weeks ago I published by 400th one, and this one marks fifteen years since by first contribution here. My sense has always been that I largely preach to the already converted, but my hope is that my readers will emerge reinforced in their views, and so promote them more boldly. I might even convert a few here and there, and who knows, perhaps enable them to become more powerful.

In closing, I urge you to exercise your power by voting next month for men and women who will wield power responsibly. Or else you will be their victims. But hey, I’m preaching to the converted.