What image comes to your mind when you think of the word “entrepreneur”? Many of us will visualize youthful, creative fanatics on a solo mission to change the world. It took me by surprise when, in one of my strategy workshops, I met a wo…
What does it mean to be a “leader?”
In most organizations, the term is applied, indiscriminately, to anybody in a management role. However, only having subordinates doesn’t make you a leader. Research from Gallup shows that the single biggest predictor of engagement scores is the way employees feel about their boss. For instance, does a manager inspire and empower their employees—or badger and micromanage?
Since about only one-third of employees report being engaged in their work in 2021, there seems to be a global shortage of “real” leaders. Ultimately, leadership is defined not by titles but by followership. If you want to know whether you’re a leader, ask yourself, Would my team pick me as their leader if they had a choice? As two of Gary’s London Business School colleagues put it in a long-ago article, “Who would want to be led by you?”
Through the years, we’ve met a handful of individuals who exemplify what it means to be a leader. Of that small group, one of the standouts is Angela Ahrendts. Ahrendts’ long career as retailer culminated in a five-year stint as Apple’s retail chief, where she was instrumental in redesigning Apple’s stores, recrafting the roles of 70,000 retail associates, and integrating Apple’s physical and online stores. Before joining Apple, Ahrendts spent eight years as CEO of Burberry. During her tenure, she increased the company’s market value by more than 300%.
Between us, we had the pleasure of working with Ahrendts at both Burberry and Apple, where we were able to see her captivating leadership style up close. In both companies, she was treated like a rock star whenever she visited a store. Employees gathered around her, jostling to take selfies. These were fans of hers, and it was clear they loved her as much as she loved them. Watching from the sidelines, we thought, “How do you build that kind of affection, loyalty, and commitment from the people who work for you? How do you lead with heart?”
To answer that question, we sat down with Ahrendts for a conversation. We started by asking why so many people at work feel marginalized. She told us, “The world changed dramatically with the rise of social media. In their private lives, employees have a voice. They’re allowed to be heard, to have an opinion—whether other people like it or not—and to start a dialog. But when they go to work, they don’t have a voice. Nobody is asking [and] nobody is listening. That’s one of the reasons people are leaving the workforce.”
The problem, says Ahrendts, is that many managers are locked into hierarchical ways of thinking that are out of sync with the realities of today’s hyper-networked world. They’re bossing when they should be coaching.
How, we asked, did she get this point across to the staffers and store managers at Apple? “In every offsite,” she replied, “I’d challenge them: Whether you like it or not, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok—that’s the world you live in. So how are you communicating? Rather than just sitting in a meeting, are you getting out and touching people and listening to people?’”
While at Apple, Ahrendts did a weekly 3-minute video that was streamed to 70,000 employees. She explains, “People would rather watch a 3-minute video than read a 10-page email.” During her tenure, employee engagement scores rose by threefold, and Angela credits much of the rise to her open and direct communication.
Connecting heart-to-heart with thousands of employees isn’t easy, and slick videos can come across as preachy and inauthentic—particularly if they’ve been polished by the corporate communications team. So we asked Ahrendts, how do you make it feel real for your employees who are on the front line?
“The young people who work in our stores can spot a fake on Instagram faster than you or I ever could. If they don’t feel you, and they don’t believe you, they’re not going to be all in,” she said.
To build a connection with young teams of workers, she takes a human approach: “I wanted our teams to understand that we deeply cared about them as individuals. I come from the school of servant leadership, so I believe you have to be humble to connect. If you care, if you’re genuine, you can build a deep connection and trusting bond.”
Editor’s note: This article is part of the video and editorial series, The New Human Movement, which aims to highlight bold thinkers and doers who are reimagining work and leadership.
Gary Hamel is a business thinker, author, and educator. He is on the faculty of the London Business School and is the coauthor of the Harvard Business Review Press best-selling book, Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them.
Michele Zanini is the cofounder of the Management Lab (MLab), where he helps organizations become more adaptable, innovative, and engaging places to work. With Hamel, he is the coauthor of Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them.
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Laughter can be good medicine. According to the Mayo Clinic, laughing has short- and long-term effects on your health. As you bring in more oxygen, it stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles. Laughing increases the endorphins that are released by your brain, and it cools down your stress response. Over a longer period of time, laughter can improve your immune system, relieve pain, and increase personal satisfaction.
While it’s easy to laugh at something funny, the ability to laugh at yourself can help you address the challenges that could be holding you back in your career and life, says Dr. Brian Kaplan, author of Almost Happy: Pushing Your Buttons with Reverse Psychology.
“To laugh at one’s self is an excellent thing,” he says. “Humor can be a very powerful way of helping people, proving that helping doesn’t have to be a solemn experience.”
Humor as Therapy
Kaplan studied the work of Frank Farrelly, an innovative therapist who founded Provocative Therapy in the 1960s. Provocative Therapy uses humor and reverse psychology to provoke people to change. With the person’s explicit permission, you repeat what you hear their “sub-selves” saying and you do it with humor, warmth, and affection.
“We all have sub-selves, or sub-personalities, such as our inner child,” says Kaplan. “That’s a nice use of a sub-self. But you also have sub-selves that dominate us. They’re loud, grab the microphone, and dominate the whole personality.”
For example, you may relate to a sub-self of the workaholic. You could justify that you need to work 15 hours a day because you’re paying for your children’s education, a new house, or a vacation home.
Laugh at yourself by reaffirming the workaholic’s devotion to work. For example, you can tell yourself, “You should definitely spend all your time focusing on making more money and acquiring more businesses or investing in the market. Your children will be judged by their clothes and vacations. They don’t need you; they need your money.”
“When you can laugh at that side—especially when it’s a bit over the top—then you can laugh at that part of you that’s sabotaging yourself,” says Kaplan. “That moment of laughter provides a window of opportunity to recognize what’s holding you back and prescribe your own solution. And laughter and the warmth of it is like a medicine that allows you to deal with something that’s often quite painful.”
Identifying Your Sub-Selves
In his book, Kaplan identifies more than 100 sub-selves that could be holding you back. For example, you may be a procrastinator. In this case, you can talk to yourself by saying, “Never underestimate the power of tomorrow!” “Always make magnanimous resolutions on your finest night, New Year’s Eve.” And “Meditate on the many horrible consequences of most impulsive decisions and actions.”
Another sub-self is the grim executive, which Kaplan calls “the stone-faced men and women of big business. Anyone feeling the burden of being held responsible for profit and loss.” In this case, you can call out the sub-self by saying, “It’s a badge of honor to look ten years older than you are. Don’t forget your annual visit to the cardiologist.”
Other sub-selves include being a people pleaser, robot, doormat, critic, and ego maniac.
“Mark Twain once said, ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand,’” says Kaplan. “Once you’re laughing at the sub self, you’re acutely aware of it. Normally, you don’t think of the trait as a sub self. When it takes you over, you think ‘I’m angry’ or ‘I’m under stress,’ because the sub self has taken your whole personality there. When you can identify it as a part of you and not your entire being, you can quiet it down.”
There isn’t one right way to be a leader, especially when it comes to how you interact with your teams. Part of leadership is managing the hearts and minds of your team—and that can get sticky.
Let’s say you delegated a team member…
There isn’t one right way to be a leader, especially when it comes to how you interact with your teams. Part of leadership is managing the hearts and minds of your team—and that can get sticky.
Let’s say you delegated a team member…
