I often enjoy episodes of “The Interview” podcast, by the New York Times. Last September, in an episode called “Brené Brown Doesn’t Want to Be a Self-Help Guru Anymore,” the Times’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro said, “We spend more than half of our life at work. I’ve never met a content (as in happy) person who is working under a shitty leader. And I always give this advice to people… if they ask me whether they should take this job or that job… I always say, who’s going to be your boss? Who’s the leader? Because that’s going to determine if you get promoted, if you’re happy, more than even the job title, the salary, what you’re doing. Are you working for someone that you like and respect and will help you? Because if you’re not, it doesn’t matter how good the job is on paper, it’s not going to make you happy and it’s not going to get you to where you want to go.”
Brown replied, saying it’s extremely rare when someone you look up to gives you that kind of advice. She went on to say, “… I define a leader as anyone who holds themselves responsible for finding the potential in people and processes and has the courage to develop that potential. I have been in C suites of Fortune 100 companies and not seen a leader among them. And I have been on factory floors and been surrounded by leaders…”
That resonated with me. As I have written many times before, leadership to me isn’t limited to presidents of companies. In addition to certain hard and soft skills, leadership includes doing the right thing, helping other people, saying no to gossip, and more.
Brown continued, “…to me, leadership is about skills building. It’s about self-awareness, understanding who you are, because who you are is how you lead. And then it’s skill set. Just because you have experience and subject matter expertise, just because more likely you knew the right person, doesn’t mean you have the skills to lead.”
If you’d like to listen to the complete interview, here is a link.
Be well,
David