“Remove the leadership mask that you are wearing, Monsieur. It builds distance. It does not foster trust. Instead, open yourself to candid conversations, not sanitized versions. Create space for genuine discourse.” He paused to catch a breath; then continued, “... the best conversations and connections do not happen in performance reviews but in moments of unfiltered truths. Sir, lead like a human being, not like a leadership handbook,” Ludovik Ogunza summed up the evening’s one-hour-long coaching session in my petite corner office pecked on floor number eleven in Amani Place off Ohio Street. These words were shared with me by my private one-on-one leadership coach in 2012, when I was struggling with life mysteries and searching for answers to life’s puzzles. Then, I did not understand Ogunza’s message. Fast forward to the present day. I now know what he meant - the more one shows up as oneself, the more others will do. People do not connect with processes; they connect with people.
If your leadership style feels like a shell or mask [like the way I felt in 2012, as per the escapade, above] and you want to learn what it would feel like to take it off [like what I did, as per the episodes, below], yes, this posting has been crafted for you. Turn on your attention and read on. Embrace the lessons. It is a long read, but definitely worth it. Commit to memory that any new idea that is impactful in life is disruptive and will certainly shake you up. A bit.
A story is told about a jewellery maker who lived in a warren town of Lushoto in Tanga province. Every morning, he noticed a man in a white work suit stopping in front of his jewellery shop. He would pull out a large gold watch from his pocket and set it to the time of the large clock in his shop window. He did this every morning, every day, for many years.
One morning, as the jeweler was busy sweeping and mopping the sidewalks of his shop, he saw the man stopping by the same window of the shop to set his gold watch. Out of curiosity, the jeweller walked over to where the man was standing and spoke to him, “... Mister, I have, for many years, been seeing you stopping by the window of my shop, setting your watch by my big clock. I am aware that you work at the nearby factory. What exactly do you do at the factory? The man hurriedly wound his watch, placed it in the pocket of his white work suit, and replied self-assuredly, “... I am the timekeeper at the factory. Every day at noon, my job is to blow the big horn which tells people in the whole town of Lushoto and workers at the factory that it is noon and time to break for lunch.” Hearing this statement, the jeweller held his hands akimbo, shook his head, hesitated for some time, and said, “. . . that is odd. I have been setting the big clock that you set your watch to, every day for all these years, by the noon horn at the factory.”
What do you deduce from the story? The people of this town had been breaking for lunch, setting their watches at what they thought was noon, when in fact it was a long way from it. They had been setting their watches based on inaccurate time and a phony benchmark. This is what happens when we pick characters or people with dubious-cum-implausible backgrounds as our standards and blindly groom ourselves against them as models. We end up following one who, in reverse, is a staunch follower of ourselves, and move in circles. The foolishness and absurdity of imitation. The folly of self-disapproval. Odd. Isn’t it? Ralph Waldo Emerson once warned, “... insist on yourself. Never imitate. Your own gift can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation. But of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous half-possession.” Does this resonate with you as much as it does with me? Two quick lessons to learn and share from the escapade.
Lesson #1: Maintenance mode kills creative leverage.
As a leader, people are watching you. You are on the radar. Your people mirror every bit of emotion that you embody. Every behavior that you express gets detected and taken in. Negative or positive. If you are timid, expect your team to be timid. If you are arrogant, your team will catch the flu and become arrogant. If you are optimistic, your people will become optimistic. The point is: it starts with you, the leader. Behave appropriately. Communicate your emotions to your team avidly. Yes, they will do the impossible with and for you. Why? Because your faith and passion inspire them.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I used to harbor sky-high aspirations to work with prominent luminaries. Lol, as they say, ‘if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ Typical of an introvert, I found out that whenever I was actually with those whom I deemed as luminaries and worth being modelled, I became tongue-tied, nervous, and withdrawn. I was not able to engage them in concentrate dialogues. I wished and prayed for something without taking action to achieve it. In so doing, I lost the opportunity to not only build meaningful relationships with the luminaries, but also blew away the chance to learn from them at a close range. Sometimes, at the end of the year, at company banquets, the organizing committee would seat me at the table of the executives. Yes, you guessed right. I hardly enjoyed the food [and the whisky]. My forehead was ever shining and running with globules of sweat due to nervousness. Why? Because I was invested more in maintenance mode than creative leverage. I felt like using a faulty GPS that rerouted me to the wrong address. Yet a colleague of mine, who was an outgoer, would look forward to sitting next to the executives and engaging them spiritedly and forthrightly. (The colleague’s name is Ludovik Ogunza, whom I alluded to in the opening paragraph above. Many years later, in 2012 to be precise, in a foreign land, I engaged him as my one-on-one leadership coach).
You must understand that as a leader, you are on display just like the big clock in the jeweller's shop in the story above. In the same way, the clock in the jeweller’s window guided people to tell time; your team looks up to you for direction and inspiration. Paradoxically, the clock in the story above did not guide people. In fact, it misguided them. Why? Because of an inferiority complex. Self-disapproval. What a shame! People are looking up to you as a model for all reasons and seasons. Do not fake it. Otherwise, you will be growing an ecosystem that breeds fake individuals. Remove the social mask so that people can unearth the authenticity in their leader. Your constituents attune their behaviour to your behaviour. If you express vulgarity or empathy or honesty, expect it to grow in your constituency through what psychologists call neuron contagion. The Swahili have a saying, “... a fruit does not fall far from its tree” - meaning, we beget who we are.
All great leaders who have walked this small planet of ours inspired their followers, voters, customers, admirers, dependents, constituents, students, families, and subordinates through creative leverage, not through maintenance mode. Indeed, riding on the back of ingenious alchemy, these luminaries were able to turn concepts into products, wishes into results, factions into movements, individuals into teams, and manifestos into structural developments. Whenever I write about creative leverage, I ruminate about Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field, which he leveraged decisively to revolutionize the world around his works and ‘put a dent in the universe.’ When Jobs and his team were working on the iMac, it occurred to him that the iMac's operating system was taking too long to boot up. He approached his lead engineer, Larry Kenyon, to consider reducing the reboot time. Kenyon replied, “... Steve, I’m sorry, that’s not possible.” Jobs was so self-convinced that his internal reality field was so distorted that he could only see the possibility. He put it to Kenyon, “... if what you and I are creating today would save a person’s life, could you find a way to shave ten seconds off the boot time?” Having said this, he showed Kenyon that if five million people were using the iMac and it took ten seconds extra to turn it on every day, that added up to three hundred million, which was the equivalent of one hundred lifetimes a year. The result? After a week, Kenyon delivered an operating system that booted twenty-eight times faster. That was the strength of Job’s reality distortion field! It inspired as much as it empowered. Jobs was so engrossed and confident in his reasoning that he was able to convince the people around him to achieve what they initially deemed impossible. His ingenuity [internal] was so strong that he was able to persuade others that they could achieve the impossible [external]. That is the hallmark of great leaders – they manifest the impossible. They bring to life products, services, offerings, victories, and situations that others say or consider impossible.
The reality distortion field as a strapline for achieving results and success was not only synonymous with Steve Jobs. Nelson Mandela was idolized for his anti-apartheid activism, a system that was deeply institutionalized in racial segregation in South Africa. Mahatma Gandhi was synonymous with non-violent disobedience in India. Mother Teresa was known for the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. General Dwight Eisenhower masterminded and led the Allied forces in the greatest invasion of all time - popularly known as Operation Overlord – that landed at Normandy beach in France to fight Adolf Hitler and his stubborn German soldiers in 1944. Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was famous for developing a unique governing philosophy called Ujamaa. John Pombe Magufuli was famous for his ‘hapa kazi tu’ work ethic. Other historic figures, such as Oliver Tambo, Robert Mugabe, Marcus Garvey, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill, too, had the charm to distort their external reality field, leveraging creativity. Similarly, marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Barack Obama, F1's Louis Hamilton, pugilist Floyd Mayweather, Congolese singer Tshala Muana, and other modern-day luminaries possess the same charm as the old celebrities: courtesy of creative leverage. Great leaders have the charisma to bend reality to move others to do what seems impossible. Moving from impossibility, to probability, to possibility. This power is innate to you and me.
When you are stuck in maintenance mode, you protect the past. But when you are in creative leverage, you lead and create a bright future [of your life or business]. The more you try to preserve the status quo of a situation, the less creative you become. Let go of the past. Use the past as an academy for learning, not a prison to chain you. Allow yourself to go through an emotional breakdown to manifest a physical breakthrough. The body must suffer crucifixion for the soul to experience salvation. The old you must die for the new you to be born. The dross must be exposed to intense heat for the gold to be purified. In the same way, you cannot eat an avocado with its skin or use a sword in a sheath; you cannot lead effectively without taking off your social mask. Whether you work for the government or a private organization, it is important to audit your role and contribute in that particular space. Your job as a leader is to manifest the impossible and to bring the possible. To bring to life what others say is not possible. This requires acquaintance with the rules of the game and bending them in your favour. If you keep on doing what you have been doing, you will certainly get what you have been getting. Rebel against maintenance mode. Instead, leverage your innate creativity.
Lesson #2: Build rhythm, not reactions.
Elsewhere, a top government officer made an unannounced visit to a subdivision office located in the periphery of the city. The visit exposed widespread lethargy, absenteeism, and tardiness among the branch’s civil servants. It was, however, revealed that the practice was a trend in all government offices in the country. What did the top dog do about it? He decreed that all civil servants who reported late for work or failed to show up should be treated as ghost workers. He did not end there. When he returned to the headquarters, he organized a nationwide crackdown by initiating unapologetic accountability measures. He introduced attendance clocking registers and duty schedules. Furthermore, he rolled out a scorecard review system as a neoteric tool not only to assess civil servants’ performance but to deal with artisanal toxic behavioral concerns.
I know this sounds laughable and old-schoolish. Yes, ask any high-impact leader and they will tell you that business is not about showing up, but about building rhythms that make an organization’s culture stronger and impactful. It is about creating a distinctive culture that has a unique rhythm, throbs, and rhymes to a specific tone. What is even more important is that it starts with the leader.
Leadership is a tough sport. Believe me. Why? Because everyone in your team expects you as a leader to have answers up your sleeves. To every challenge. To every question. To every situation. Everyone in the team expects you to be a ‘calm’ in the chaos. To reduce the heat. Yes, everyone in your team expects you to trail-blaze the way with a sound vision. To keep everyone moving forward. Do not fall into the trap of setting your metaphorical gold watch by other people’s agenda. You do not know their background. There may be a reason why they do what they do. Here is the thing: You have to decide on where you want to take your team. The catch? Your decision will touch raw nerves. Expect your decision to be unpopular with some quarters. With certain cliques. It is the momentum of your action, not the popularity of the decision, that defines your leadership. North star metrics do not count at all. But be careful. Why? Because momentum is seductive. It will lead you in circles if it is not tied to a specific rhythm. Tone. Culture.
As a leader, you are the one who must set the tone and rhythm of the team’s culture. If you feel you are leading in a fog, all is not lost. Remove the social mask, recalibrate, and reconnect with the signal above the noise and resistance. And that is not easy. Still, you have to do it. It is like burying your own mother. We all love our mothers. Show me someone who does not love their mother, and I will present to you a buffoon. But when our beloved mothers die, what do we do with them? We put soil on their body.
Leadership is about making uncommon choices and decisions that are impactful and rhyme with a particular rhythm. Resist the maintenance mode. Leverage innate creativity. Defy reactivity. Build a rhythm that rhymes. Tower above the fog. Shave off nervousness. Establish your reality distortion field, develop it as your cadence, and guard it preciously. Emerge and lead amidst dark times. Don’t forget: It is the momentum of your action, not the popularity of your decision, that defines your leadership. Yes, in leadership, the things that you consider to be trivial are, in fact, the important things. Oh, lest I forget, people who understand and practice this principle rise to stardom and become great.
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