I am young. How do I lead leaders?

Dear Aunty B,

Cooo-ee from the US (although I’m Aussie-born). I am the co-owner of a small company working on a breakthrough medical device that was acquired by a very large company two years ago.

It has been a real eye opener for me as the deal looked great on paper and the vision compelling, but we didn’t take into account the culture of the larger organisation. There are brilliant people in this large organisation, no doubt. They are passionate, brilliant, extremely confident and very ego driven.

There are jealousies, jockeying for positions, silos – all the stuff that makes it difficult to do what we should be doing. People have hidden agendas and there are lots and lots of meetings where people just pontificate and don’t discuss the work needed to turn the vision into reality. As a result we are losing our way and wasting valuable time.

In the last year the place has got worse. The CEO has been very distracted as the poor man has a sick child and so the heads of the divisions have not been forced to cooperate at all.

I have had conflicting advice. One close friend who is very used to dealing with large operations says this happens all the time and that companies with ego driven cultures don’t understand collaboration, emotional intelligence, execution, harnessing people’s minds and hearts instead of treating them like dispensable resources which I think is essential, especially when working with young scientists.

My problem is I am in my 30s and when I try to get across my vision for leadership and culture I can see them thinking I am too young and naive. My friend advises me to take my bat and ball and key staff and start again where I can actually develop the culture and leadership style from scratch. But part of me doesn’t want to walk away and leave so much still to be done. Do you know of any literature I could read? Or even your thoughts on what I should do?

JR,
US

Dear JR,

Of course you should walk away. Why spend all that energy trying to lead leaders when you could go off, build your own company and create the next generation of leaders through an inclusive management style far more in keeping with great young minds? After all, you are your people.

But I get the feeling you want to stay. If you do stay you have to understand this. You cannot lead them the way you want to or in fact they way you should. Talk of collaboration and social intelligence and those brilliant leaders will be shifting in their chairs. Talk implementation and turning vision into reality and they will be shifting their balls. Talk of execution, resourcing and cashflow and you will have them glancing at their watches and heading off for lunch.

But talk of world domination, slowly roasting your competitors, your collective brilliance, your collective journey, your collective challenge, the future which is collectively yours to grab and you will have their attention.

Intersperse that with humour, anecdotes and chest beating proclamations and they will look at you with interest. Organise some very important gatherings with very important people and engage their minds, talking about trends and change. Challenge them to come up with solutions and share the success of any victory.

Talk in big sweeping statements, wave your arms around (a lot) and ensure everything drips with sentimentalism and ritual. If anyone disagrees with you, look at them with kindly pity and tell them they can’t see the big picture. You will need to go to a lot of meetings and events and lunches and dinners to do all that talking, inspiring and colluding and collaborating. Which means the real stuff like working on implementation and execution will get left to your staff. That is how you lead leaders.

Come on. You can do it. Talk big like Obama or Mandela. Go and get hold of some of their speeches. Now practice after me… “The future is ours and together we can…”

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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