Gaining perspective in unconventional ways makes us better business leaders

/ Lead, Manage, Coach / By

I’ve spent a lot of my time recently speaking with company founders and business leaders. Their leadership styles and business offerings vary, but they all carry an inspirational passion for making the world a better place. The last time I was having this many conversations with these kinds of people, was back in 2017. Then, I had just entered cleantech and the Vancouver startup scene. The conversation was often me asking them things like “how did you get here?”. 

Now my conversations are full of asking “where do you want to go?”. Despite these leaders’ success so far, I hear about struggles in scaling products and services. The hardships of finding the right talent to grow their teams. And the difficulty in building systems and processes that increase efficiency, without stifling the entrepreneurial spirit that’s built their company.

Reflecting on a personal level

These past couple of months, I have also been reflecting a lot on a personal level. I lost my mother almost 5 years ago to cancer. And a few weeks ago, I lost another mother – my mother-in-law – to the rare neurodegenerative Cruetzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).

When we talk about career success, entrepreneurship, and business leadership, we hear about certain things. How much money is made; how large a company grows; what its stock is worth. In this perspective, all of the success criteria add up to dollars and cents. But I think we’re looking at the equation wrong. Shouldn’t success be measured in terms of how much good we’re doing? Are we making ourselves and others happier? That we’re mitigating suffering, current or future?

Reflecting on a personal level, it has me thinking about the guidance my mothers have given me for my career. The majority of our wonderful time together had little to nothing to do with work. The advice they gave me always underlaid with wanting me to be happy. Contrasting their guidance with the bulk of career advice I’ve received in my life is interesting. Countless speaker events, webinars, courses, articles have the air of ‘hustle’ attached to them. Even musings of other professionals in my field often are laced with this drive for more, faster, harder.

Gaining perspective

Venturing on my own career path, I think about the best lessons I’ve learned. They have been from watching and listening to people who work to live, not live to work. Only recently have I begun to experience intentionally career-focused lessons that emphasize wellness over hustle. When we spend so much of our waking hours working, who we are on the job blends with who we are the rest of the time. Why can’t it go the other way? The person we strive to be in our personal lives, can that bleed into how we do business?

mom, laughing
Me and my moms in 2017

I’ve learned countless lessons from my mothers. So here are just three I’d like to share with you all, that help me day-to-day as an entrepreneur.

It’s okay to be “just” okay at things

I find myself grappling with this one every day. Feeling I need to be better all the time. But when I’m particularly reflective, I think of my mom’s ability to just be, and to be okay with that. Even thrive with being “just” okay.

As children, my brother and I would sometimes pick on my mom for not being very good at things. And my dad would remind us, “how many of your friend’s moms play hockey with their kids in the backyard?”. My mom was always game to try anything. She used to say jokingly, she was better than everyone at it who never had the guts to try. I chuckle remembering: Mom and one of her good friends, also a mother, talked about getting matching t-shirts that read “world’s okay-est windsurfer”.

When I’m hard on myself for not being good enough, which is most days, I should think about the life my mom led. Appreciating being “just” okay at a lot of different things is actually quite an accomplishment to be proud of.

True leadership is being one with the people who work for you

My mother-in-law had so many amazing stories. I remember standing in the kitchen, listening to her and her colleagues share some of their especially memorable moments while she was their boss. She was their Executive, working for a large health insurance company. All of their stories showed how much of an inspirational, and atypical, leader she was.

One story, in particular, took place several years ago. The company was growing, the office needed renovations, and so members of her team were to be relocated. They were sent to the basement, with poor ventilation and zero natural light. She was more than welcome to remain in her comfortable, C-Suite office. But she felt that sitting in a fancy corner office, with no connection to the actual work that was going on, wasn’t what was best for her team. Neither was it good for her job or the company. She insisted on moving her own office down into the dingy basement too. It speaks to the kind of person she was both in the workplace and in life. Seeing people for being people, not pawns, and treating them with utmost respect and appreciation.

There are many ways to lead. But only a few ways that inspire us to be the best we can be, like she did.

Life isn’t fair

This one, I’ll partially give credit to my dad. Because it’s one of the phrases from my childhood that I remember vividly. It’s another one I struggle with every day. But since experiencing the loss and grief of losing two of my favourite people and greatest role models, I’ve begun to look at the fairness of life differently.

Life is not fair. And I don’t like that fact. Not just for myself, but for all of us. However, there are lessons I can learn to make it easier to accept this reality. And, maybe more importantly, there are things I can do to help make things fairer in the world. When I talk about “a culture built on trust”, and “a focus on people”, these mindsets come from my personal drive for fairness.

Diversity in the workplace makes for better outcomes

Countless studies have shown that diversity in the workplace makes for better outcomes, on all levels. In my opinion, the most important aspect is diversity of thought. Our experiences and circumstances shape the way we think about the world. People come from many different backgrounds; we are perceived differently based on what they look or sound like; and this all affects how we think about and see the world. Changing the way we look at business, at our work, might not just make our careers more successful, but enrich our lives in ways we didn’t know possible.

I’ve worked with many different business leaders, with a wide range of values and goals. These leaders have all gotten to where they are by being extremely good at something. For a lot of them, they’ve figured out how to be listened to. Those of us with the privilege to be listened to, need to open our ears and eyes wider, to hear those who don’t speak as loudly.

trees, forest, green
Seeing the forest through the trees

Perspective from others

To help gain perspective, I once shared the following statements with select fellow business leaders. Now I’m sharing them with you, to help you too gain perspective from more of the people around you.

  • When I hear “speak up more” when I already am, I question if anyone will ever listen to what I have to say.
  • When I’m told my work and efforts are great, but then no one builds on/uses my work, I question the truth of their words, I get confused; when it happens again, I get frustrated; when it’s again and again I give up and stop caring.
  • When I see and hear messaging from those in power that conflicts with or undermines the organization’s values, I question the validity of those values. When it conflicts with my own values, I think I can’t say anything. I feel powerless.
  • When honesty, trust, and teamwork are preached and encouraged, but not implemented in practice, I’d rather put the walls up and do my own thing.
  • When you say “I will do ‘X’” to help me do a job I’ve been assigned or I’ve taken on, and you do it yourself. I hear: “I don’t need you,” “I can do it better,” “I don’t trust you.”
  • When I work through weekends, evenings, and breaks to wrangle messy projects/initiatives together, and you come in at the 11th hour and say you or someone else is going to take over, I hear “you’re not doing a good enough job.”
  • When my or other’s destructive, aggressive, outbursts are listened to and enact change, but my polite solutions are ignored, I think “only the loudest voice in the room matters.” When aggression goes against how I operate as a human, I feel “I don’t have a voice in this place.”
  • When we agree as an organization, as a team, we need to prioritize a cross-team effort, one that involves me and/or my team, and you start your own project to fill the same needs without my knowledge or involvement, I hear “I don’t respect you.”
  • When the company prioritizes something I care deeply about, at a personal level, and you don’t show up or show support, I hear “I don’t care about you.”
  • When you tell me to both be louder and quieter at the same time, I hear “my task is impossible.”
  • When you applaud me but chastise me in the same breath, I hear “you need to be perfect, but I don’t”
  • When I look at the people in power and I don’t see myself in any of them, I feel like an outsider, like my ideas, thoughts, and influence don’t matter.

Sharing resources

Someone in my network recently asked for resources that talk about NOT placing individual responsibility and asking women, non-binary folks, and BIPOC to “lean in”. And rather focus on the need for structural change and cultural shifts to equity and inclusion. These are a few resources I think are great for that, and no they aren’t only for women (5 of the 6 anyhow):

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