kind leadership, good results

Leela Sinha: 00:00:01

Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in. So there

Leela Sinha: 00:00:07

are ways in which being a leader is hard. And one of the ways

Leela Sinha: 00:00:11

that that's hard is that we have to recognize the amount of

Leela Sinha: 00:00:17

influence that we have over the people who are following us.

Leela Sinha: 00:00:20

Whether that's the people in our companies, or whether that's our

Leela Sinha: 00:00:22

audience, or whether those are our clients and customers, we

Leela Sinha: 00:00:27

can have so much influence on the world that we're in. And

Leela Sinha: 00:00:31

that means that when we do stuff in public, and by 'in public' I

Leela Sinha: 00:00:36

mean anywhere in any of those contexts where others of those

Leela Sinha: 00:00:39

people will see us or hear us, we often can mess things up

Leela Sinha: 00:00:46

pretty badly. Because we're human, we're made of human and

Leela Sinha: 00:00:50

the idea that we're going to be pristinely perfect and above

Leela Sinha: 00:00:54

reproach is absurd and outdated. So we can just set that one

Leela Sinha: 00:00:57

aside, that's not happening. However, it is fair for us to

Leela Sinha: 00:01:00

expect ourselves, and for others to expect us, to do as well as

Leela Sinha: 00:01:06

we can under the circumstances in the context of spaces where

Leela Sinha: 00:01:15

we have influence. So for example, if I am the leader of a

Leela Sinha: 00:01:20

company, and I make a public statement, it's on me to try

Leela Sinha: 00:01:25

really hard to make that public statement as undamaging as

Leela Sinha: 00:01:28

possible. If I'm a leader of a small company, a micro company,

Leela Sinha: 00:01:32

three people, whatever, and I'm meeting with my team, and I'm

Leela Sinha: 00:01:35

having a crappy day, for reasons, for any reasons, really

Leela Sinha: 00:01:38

even ones related to the company. Taking that out on

Leela Sinha: 00:01:42

those people is not going to make the situation better. It's

Leela Sinha: 00:01:45

just not, it's not going to improve things, you do not want

Leela Sinha: 00:01:48

people scared of you. That's not a way to lead. I know people are

Leela Sinha: 00:01:55

going to disagree with me. But I believe that one does not get

Leela Sinha: 00:01:59

the best work and especially not the best innovative creative

Leela Sinha: 00:02:02

work out of people if they're scared. And when we do decide to

Leela Sinha: 00:02:09

let the shit roll downhill, when we do come out of the gate

Leela Sinha: 00:02:12

swinging in ways that we shouldn't, then it all

Leela Sinha: 00:02:16

eventually collects on the person at the bottom of the

Leela Sinha: 00:02:19

chain, whatever that is. So like, you have, you know, like

Leela Sinha: 00:02:23

the "Rainy Day Book," which is this, I think, 1950s children's

Leela Sinha: 00:02:27

book, little tiny square book, not very many pages, pen and ink

Leela Sinha: 00:02:32

and watercolor illustrations. And it's this story about like,

Leela Sinha: 00:02:37

the dad sticks his head out the door before he leaves for work,

Leela Sinha: 00:02:41

and it's raining. And so he is grumpy and doesn't kiss his wife

Leela Sinha: 00:02:46

goodbye. And so his wife is grumpy at the kid and the kid is

Leela Sinha: 00:02:49

gru- right like down the chain, a couple more steps. And then we

Leela Sinha: 00:02:52

get to the dog who gets like shoved or something, but then

Leela Sinha: 00:02:56

comes right back and is like waggy waggy, waggy, waggy lick,

Leela Sinha: 00:02:59

lick lick. And the dog turns it around. Right. So then the dog

Leela Sinha: 00:03:03

is nice to the kid. So the kid is nice to their siblings, the

Leela Sinha: 00:03:05

sibling is nice to the mom, so the mom is nice to the dad,

Leela Sinha: 00:03:07

right? And so everybody's happy by the end of the day. But that

Leela Sinha: 00:03:11

model is not necessarily the healthiest model because it

Leela Sinha: 00:03:15

assumes that the person that's at the bottom of the chain is

Leela Sinha: 00:03:18

responsible for making everybody above them happy. Like it's you

Leela Sinha: 00:03:21

know, if you can just be happy and kind and sweet and good

Leela Sinha: 00:03:24

enough, everybody else around you will feel better. That's not

Leela Sinha: 00:03:29

a message I would want to pass on to my kids. Just saying. And

Leela Sinha: 00:03:35

that is the message that our culture tends to give. So when

Leela Sinha: 00:03:37

we as leaders take responsibility at the top

Leela Sinha: 00:03:41

instead, at the beginning, and we say "I am not going to start

Leela Sinha: 00:03:46

that process, I am not going to be grumpy at the next person

Leela Sinha: 00:03:51

down" in a way that leaves them feeling bad in a way that makes

Leela Sinha: 00:03:55

them less resilient, less able to hold whatever happens in

Leela Sinha: 00:04:00

their sphere with grace, right, I'm not going to take up that

Leela Sinha: 00:04:04

energy from the other people. What I'm going to do is I'm

Leela Sinha: 00:04:07

going to own my stuff here, I'm going to keep it with me. I'm

Leela Sinha: 00:04:12

going to dispose of it appropriately. I'm going to

Leela Sinha: 00:04:16

manage it with my therapist or with my coach or, or with my

Leela Sinha: 00:04:19

friend but in a way that is not mean to my friend, I'm just

Leela Sinha: 00:04:22

going to say to my friend "Hey, can you can I vent to you for

Leela Sinha: 00:04:25

like 20 minutes because I'm so out of sorts and I have a

Leela Sinha: 00:04:29

meeting and I don't want to go into that meeting in a bad

Leela Sinha: 00:04:31

mood." And most of the time your friend will be like sure you can

Leela Sinha: 00:04:36

vent and you can just like talk about what's happening but not

Leela Sinha: 00:04:39

be mean to them. And then they can usually hold that space and

Leela Sinha: 00:04:43

then you can go into your meeting and it's fine.

Leela Sinha: 00:04:49

We need to carry that ethos t hat philosophy, as much as we

Leela Sinha: 00:04:54

can. We're all human. But as much as we can, everywhere. And

Leela Sinha: 00:04:58

a lot of times especially in small businesses, there's,

Leela Sinha: 00:05:02

there's no, there's no second in command, right? There's the

Leela Sinha: 00:05:06

founder. And then there are like the three team members. And

Leela Sinha: 00:05:11

that's it. And so you can't just say to your deputy, you know,

Leela Sinha: 00:05:15

leader, "listen, I'm having a bad day, can you go have that

Leela Sinha: 00:05:20

conversation?" Because there's nobody else to have that

Leela Sinha: 00:05:24

conversation, it's got to be you. And so you do, and you do

Leela Sinha: 00:05:28

the best that you can, hopefully. When it comes to

Leela Sinha: 00:05:32

larger companies, right, the influence level just gets

Leela Sinha: 00:05:36

magnified. Look at, you know, what if, what if Facebook, were

Leela Sinha: 00:05:40

trying to be good? Just trying even? Or what if, what if Uber

Leela Sinha: 00:05:44

were just trying to be good? Or what if, you know, what if

Leela Sinha: 00:05:49

everybody had in their top priority list, "I will not take

Leela Sinha: 00:05:53

it out on others." When a company does that-and people can

Leela Sinha: 00:05:57

tell- what happens is that company attract better

Leela Sinha: 00:06:01

employees, that company has better employee loyalty, that

Leela Sinha: 00:06:05

company has better customer loyalty, that company has often

Leela Sinha: 00:06:09

better quality products or services, because the people

Leela Sinha: 00:06:13

involved in producing them are happy. They feel respected. They

Leela Sinha: 00:06:18

feel like their humanity is important to the leadership of

Leela Sinha: 00:06:22

the organization. So we have a choice. As leaders, we can own

Leela Sinha: 00:06:26

our stuff, make sure it doesn't roll downhill and build that

Leela Sinha: 00:06:31

into the culture of the company. So that at every level of

Leela Sinha: 00:06:35

leadership, every leader decides is this useful? Is this

Leela Sinha: 00:06:39

effective? Is this going to help? Or is this my frustration,

Leela Sinha: 00:06:44

my anger, my bad day from somewhere else, whatever it is,

Leela Sinha: 00:06:48

my fear, my anxiety- is that what's at play here? Is that

Leela Sinha: 00:06:52

what's going to influence how I present this in this meeting to

Leela Sinha: 00:06:56

this person, to the organization itself. When we make those

Leela Sinha: 00:07:01

decisions consciously, when we build rituals into our days, and

Leela Sinha: 00:07:05

into our systems, that allow us to double-check ourselves before

Leela Sinha: 00:07:10

we go into a meeting or at the beginning of a meeting. And to

Leela Sinha: 00:07:15

be real with people like you can say, "I'm having a bad day." But

Leela Sinha: 00:07:19

then the next thing you say isn't, "so y'all better watch

Leela Sinha: 00:07:23

out." The next thing you say is something like "so I'm going to

Leela Sinha: 00:07:28

not make some of the decisions we were planning to make today.

Leela Sinha: 00:07:33

Because I just don't think that I'm in the right headspace to be

Leela Sinha: 00:07:37

making those choices. So we're going to put those choices off

Leela Sinha: 00:07:42

until tomorrow. I need to take a break, take some sleep, I know

Leela Sinha: 00:07:46

nobody else can make those decisions. So I'm going to have

Leela Sinha: 00:07:50

to make them, but not in this headspace. I just- that would

Leela Sinha: 00:07:55

not be responsible and I'm not going to do it." When we do that

Leela Sinha: 00:07:59

on an individual level, on a leadership level, and on an

Leela Sinha: 00:08:03

organizational level, then we start to shift the world toward

Leela Sinha: 00:08:08

a better way of being. Is this all a long winded way of saying

Leela Sinha: 00:08:12

"own your shit?" Yes. Is it also a reminder that we're all human?

Leela Sinha: 00:08:17

Also yes. And we need to find ways of being human that are

Leela Sinha: 00:08:21

kind and that allow us to make the world a better place. Thanks