We were engaged in a MENA region Business expansion consultancy project for a client organisation (name withheld) in Dubai. Being time bound, our team was depending on the client for getting certain ground assessments and data to do a competitive audit and recommendation set.
Interestingly, the common refrain by the client personnel was that the competitive situation was shifting fast in terms of relative importance and data points. It was thus difficult to provide accurate ground assessments.
One day over coffee, I got to discuss about the Business implementation with Darius, the Business Development Manager responsible for the project.
“In your view, what is the kind of Leadership needed for successful implementation in our kind of fast changing environment?” Darius asked.
“And where would you like to see Leadership being exercised in your kind of situation?” My response was a return question.
“Well, I suppose leadership needs to ‘lead’ us from where we currently are to where we are proposing to be”, replied Darius.
I could not agree more. Leadership indeed needs to reside in the gap between one’s current state and the state one aspires for. But then how does Leadership set the organisation on the right pathway? In today’s increasingly disruptive and discontinuous world, the luxury of a fixated, ‘past experience driven’ journey with a visible future at the other end, is no longer available. If at all, present times require the ability and mindset to get off that beaten path and into the unknown forest area, so to say.
I said as much to Darius.
As if reading my thoughts, Darius asked, “So what might be the leadership mindset needed to eke out a new path through the forest trees you spoke of?”
“That is a great question”, I acknowledged. “I can think of one. Which I would term as ‘your comfort with ignorance’. You need to be comfortable with the knowledge that you ‘do not know’. Only then will you able to unearth and visualize new possibilities. Without this there can be no growth in a disruptive world.”
Somewhat later, when I sat thinking about our conversation, two other aspects came to mind.
First, a mindset to accept failures. We need to accept failure as an intrinsic part of who we are. In an uncertain world with no past experience to guide us through the discontinuity of the ‘forest trees’, it is only mistakes and failures which become the building blocks of eventual success.
Secondly, a more controversial but nonetheless critical ability to wear a ‘mask of yet to be internalised behaviours’. We need to fake the needed leadership behaviours, if necessary, before they become an intrinsic part of us.
I would like to term the above as the CAM mindset shift, to use an acronym.
- Comfort with ignorance
- Acceptance of failure
- Mask yet-to-be internalised behaviours
- So how might you grow your leadership in today’s disruptive worl
- How might you foster such growth in your team
In Learning……. Shakti Ghosal
A New Beginning 