The rebirth of real leadership

Western society is based upon liberty, law and free will and at its core is a universal idea that self-determination delivers collective good. It is also the meta idea that permeates every brand we produce. Any brand pulls its image through mastering the management of commerce’s great intangible equation – universal ideals like the ones above and how these play out in the culture of the day equals brand value.

Ideas tend to last because they transcend borders, power structures and conflicts. They also die for all the opposite reasons. Torn apart thread by thread, story by story, until you lie somewhere under the covers too weary or too well fed to understand them anymore. Like anything, ideas are dynamic and take energy to protect. The ideas at the heart of Western democracies have been left under-managed for years.

Unite to unplug

In the mud, mess and anguish of the conflict in Ukraine, Vlad the Invader is discovering something his namesake Vlad the Impaler (AKA Dracula) did over 500 years ago. The collective light of good tends to overcome the darkness of some souls. Let’s hope our Vlad also ends up living in a casket.

Rather than see resistance to an invasion as a type of asymmetric warfare where you retreat and find ways to manage the conflict on your own terms (as we have seen in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq) the response in Ukraine is different. It is new as it is a response driven by analytics on a new question: ‘What will cause the most damage with the least physical commitment?’

What the West has done is ‘unplug’ Russia from the marketplace while at the same time arming Ukraine with weaponry that is more accurate than what it is facing. This leverages two technological advantages that the West holds over more autocratic countries: military-grade GPS and dominance of the world’s financial system. Digital beats physical. Easy to observe when it is not your country and family being shelled by missiles. Unimaginable.

Our 20s are not roaring, but they are a reset

When you read Billionaire Howard Shlutz is back in the chair as CEO at Starbucks you know things are getting real again after a pandemic induced stasis. Faced with a backdrop of rising inflation, changing climate, growing wealth inequality and a reimagining of work, you would probably want to grab ahold of the reins as well.

The Great Gatsby captured the zeitgeist of the 1920s. A celebration of freedom and exploration. What captures ours? I doubt it is a book, but I do think it is a notion. It is the re-emergence of leadership in the face of real adversity. Not the type you see on the six o’clock news or read on a business shelf but the type you experience when the going gets tough. Or, more pointedly, when things get ambiguous. Our 20s are not a roaring success to be managed, but they are a reset that will take leadership to tackle.

Leadership vs management

Behavioural science, or more accurately neuroscience, has come a long way in understanding how humans function based not on exhibited behaviour but on the hidden chemical reactions that drive it. What the research shows is good leadership is chemically different. When people feel fear, stress, or confusion, they experience a chemical reaction in the amygdala that we broadly describe as panic. Good leaders do this less and are more apt in finding clarity, can self-calm and can deal creatively with complex situations. It’s not a skill we are born with but is another great example of brain plasticity. It can be learned. Through experience and exposure, we can overcome our base wiring. Channel your inner Zelensky and embrace the chaos with a sense of calm.

Complexity is different from chaos

This type of leadership is critical as we live in a time when our chickens are coming home to roost. The operating environment for anyone has one constant, change. In a way, the inputs have never been clearer, but the outcomes are less clear. This means change needs to become the core competency of individuals and organisations.

This is what the BCG Henderson Institute call the 'Self Tuning Organisation'. An organisation that is able to use data from the marketplace to refine and adapt its approach organically without the need for command and control by its leaders. We spoke to data being the new petrochemical here.

And BCG goes one step further to make the argument that in the future leaders will lose a key lever, direct decision making, because fewer aspects of the organisation can actually be ‘managed’.

What this means in real terms is effective leadership is seeing yourself as the coach rather than the decision-maker. How do you encourage better decisions in and amongst the daily noise coming back from the machine, so you are adaptive rather than reactive? The smart ones amongst us already have the answer and are turning this into a competitive advantage using the constant tools of brand.

Episodic versus continuous change: In real life, we learn through experimentation and through sense-making. In organisational life, we are encouraged to conform. Leaders are using the tools of brand like brand codes and brand storytelling to change the narrative on change from being one to be feared to being one to be embraced, as we shift from episodic change programs to change as an ongoing constant. Brand narrative in particular is being used to frame change as a positive thing that the permanent ideals of the organisation like progression and endeavour are built to navigate.

Group versus brand purpose: Organisations are moving away from the all-encompassing approach to the purpose of a Unilever and separating business purpose from the commercial realities of competition that their brands face that force compromise. Leaders are using the tools of employer branding to separate organisational purpose from the uglier commercial realities and hold a clear point of view on balancing the impacts of technology, environmental, economic and social trends. As the linked article below puts it, it’s better to use brand purpose as an internal metric than an external virtue signal.

Promising enhanced utility vs image grounded in a promise: Change is everywhere – from the redefinition of the nature of work to the relationship between companies and their customers. Leaders are using the tools of brand to create marketplaces that act more akin to ecosystems so that organisations can blend the commercial with the altruistic to tackle the biggest issues of our time. Organisations are going beyond an empty promise by focusing on how they can enhance utility for consumers by offering solutions rather than slogans.

To lead tomorrow means mastering what it really means to be human. You must have the ability to bring your inner world into harmony with the external world through sense-making. Data will point the way but the toolkit of brand will always help you deliver the stories that connect the dots.

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Be better to each other.