The Diary of a CPO - Chapter 6

The best leaders know how to show up.

Read that again.

The best leaders are essentially people leaders. What does that mean?

Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash

I’ve been working in HR for almost 20 years and I’ve been a people leader for half of that time. During my tenure, I’ve worked in publicly traded companies with massive global matrix environments as well as early stage companies that are trying to find product market fit. I’ve worked at companies that delivered excellent value to their stakeholders and I’ve also worked at companies that had to fold because they could not compete with the competition.

I’ve worked alongside exceptional leaders who have been groomed to manage companies that lead the stock market as well as entrepreneurial geniuses that have founded the best companies and built breathtaking businesses from zero to one.

I have worked with some of the smartest and most capable leaders, and what I’ve learned that surprised me the most is that the most capable leaders are not the ones we would all assume to take the center stage.

They were not the best engineers who had the perfect code. 

They were not the best finance leaders that spit out the best finance models.

They were not the marketing leaders that created the most unique brands.

The best leaders I ever worked with for any role were the ones that could work best with people. Sure, they had hard skills but they also had a high level of EQ that allowed them to work exceptionally well with the greatest number of people. 

They were true people leaders.

Simple as that.

The best leaders in my experience, had a set of unique skills that seemed to be the baseline for all the great leaders I experienced in my career. Here’s what they all had in common.

High Collaboration

They collaborated like experts and they even debated in a way that allowed the best ideas to rise to the top because they knew how to engage with people at all levels. They knew that the best ideas must win. It had nothing to do with building power or feeling threatened when others shared innovations that were better than their own. They knew what the best interests were for the company’s mission and that takes a whole lot of humility. Humans are not naturally conditioned to swallow their ego and pride, especially in this competitive world but when your best interests are towards the company versus your self, you have arrived.

Vastly Curious

The best leaders were also wildly curious and unafraid to ask questions. Without curiosity, you are arrogant and presumptuous. You assume you know everything and you wouldn’t in your wildest dreams ask the “stupid” questions. Here’s the surprise, the smartest people always ask the most basic questions because they don’t assume to know everything. They want to learn what you know and they are wildly curious to learn from you. I’ve witnessed executives asking customer service agents the most basic questions because they wanted to learn from ground zero.

Empathy & Logic

The best leaders are the best team members to work with because they can work with people who are just like them, and they can also work with people who are vastly different from them. That means that the best leaders are prepared to have tough conversations that are unpredictable and yet, they will be grounded in their approach. They understand how to balance human empathy with objective logic so that one side never trumps the other. 

Do the Hard Things

The best leaders also have the best engagement on their teams because they know how to work with people and that often means doing the hard things. They will have challenging conversations with you and talk about the difficult things that some leaders shy away from. If your leader can’t dive into the hard conversations because they don’t like to rock the boat, they are not leaders. They are the status quo that like to keep things comfortable and yearn to be liked. In fact, the most junior leaders like to emphasize to their team that they “did their best” to fight for them but HR or the Executive team didn’t agree to that promotion or new hire and so they cop out on real conversations and stay complicit in being the “nice guy” while blaming the leaders above them. This is far from real leadership.

An HR Perspective

So here’s where I’ll add an extra lens, from a personal HR point of view. Sometimes, people mistake great leaders for those who are “people persons.” I think this is the greatest mistake people make about HR leaders. It is harmful to presume that HR leaders should be a “people person” and champion every employee in the organization because their role in HR must mean they are solely people focused. That is simply not true. It’s also harmful to label a leader as “great” just because they like people but they can’t discern the right competencies for their team members to succeed in their roles. When you hire and keep a person who is incompetent in their role, you do a disservice to the entire team because they now have to lean into the incompetencies of your hire to get the job done so the business can move forward.

People come in all shapes and sizes. When you hire employees into a company, you are hiring them for their expertise, their skills, their ability to get the job done. What are their motivations? How do they contribute to the company culture to add to it versus depleting it. It’s also about their attitudes towards work and how they enable others to be successful as one team. We have all worked with a “brilliant jerk” who perhaps generates great value in their role but who is intolerable to work with. We are also familiar with the incompetent team member who doesn’t have the relevant experience to succeed in their job but they interviewed and here they are. Do we take action or turn a blind eye as your company culture erodes.

HR should not blindly be championing all people for the sake that they are focused on people. They should be focusing on the right people with the right attitudes to make all of us better in what we do. For every intolerable jerk out there or the miserable team member that spreads negativity around the office day in and day out, there is someone else out there who is dying to be in your role, who would be highly successful and who would be an epic culture carrier. The fact that HR leaders are expected to celebrate every bad hire that comes into any organization is a fallacy and an insult to organizations. No wonder so many business leaders disrespect HR professionals and see them as social workers who are focused solely on distributing jobs to the public regardless of their skills, effort or behaviours. As an HR leader, I can assure you that many people who are released from companies are not released because of something insignificant - that’s ridiculous. Bad behaviours, bad attitudes and bad actions have led many to their demise but it takes deep self awareness to recognize mistakes you might have made within thyself. Most times, it’s easier to finger point and blame versus reflect and learn.

The truth is that if you can’t work well with people, problem solve with your peers and find harmony to move forward, you probably can’t do this at any company. You are a lone wolf and you’re probably better off being a solo contributor. That’s the truth. You are a disruptor, but not in a good way. You disrupt the business in a negative way and for those who are feeling uncomfortable while reading this, I’ll bet you’ve experienced the negative side of what I’m sharing at a few companies you’ve worked at. I always say, those who feel this familiar discomfort have experienced this before. This is not your first time but hopefully, it will be your last if you can focus on making changes to guide your future.

Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

You can’t expect to join a company and be employed forever just because you feel entitled to a job. You can’t join a new company and comfortably fall back into your bad habits. Every employer has the choice to hire the best team players who will make the company better so the ones that show up entitled, disgruntled or with a basic bad attitude will never succeed at a company that is genuinely interested in building an amazing culture and team environment.

Every great organization wants to hire great people and create great cultures. You would do the same if you started your own company. 

Every employee has the privilege to choose where they work and how they show up. Every employer has the same privilege. It is ultimately up to you to show up as you’d like. Make that choice wisely.